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Abstract

Games are rarely thought of as a way to learn programming. With relatively few games releasing to widespread appeal that aim to teach games programming, it is a wonder as to why this is. To discover an answer to this question and measure the general effectiveness of games-based learning, this project took a qualitative research approach. An artefact was built based on the findings and key takeaways of the literature review and was then given to a group of games programming students to test, followed by a survey in order to gather their thoughts and opinions on the matter through thematic analysis and to gauge how effective they believed the artefact to be for educational purposes. The findings were that there is an outstanding amount of support for the use of games-based learning for games programming, but only to a certain degree, which seemed to be that it was only particularly effective for those with less experience or those who are younger. This is due to the vastness of programming concepts, with games realistically only being able to portray so many without going out of scope. Therefore, it is reasoned that games are useful for those who are early in their games programming adventures and it is worthwhile to utilise them in the educational space based on the strong reception discovered amongst the participants resulting from the higher level of engagement and visual stimulation that games are found to harbour.

Course: Computer Games Technology - BSc (Hons) - C1671

Date Deposited: 2022-10-26

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14031.html