Ching-Yun Tseng｜Master’s student, Department of Information Management, National Taichung University of Science and Technology｜s1810931004@gms.nutc.edu.tw
Cheng-Huan Chen*｜Assistant Professor, Department of M-Commerce and Multimedia Applications, Asia University｜chchen@asia.edu.tw
Zi-Lin Zhan｜Undergraduate student, Department of M-Commerce and Multimedia Applications, Asia University｜105022108@gm.asia.edu.tw
Zi-Ling Yang｜Undergraduate student, Department of M-Commerce and Multimedia Applications, Asia University｜105022114@gm.asia.edu.tw
Tien-Chi Huang｜Professor, Department of Information Management, National Taichung University of Science and Technology｜tchuang@gm.nutc.edu.tw
*Corresponding author
▌Abstract
The learning content of historical subjects requires the laying out of many plot lines. The information is plentiful, yet it is difficult for students to integrate and understand. The complicated timelines and historical background make it difficult for students to find their focus in the course. This study aimed to develop an educational and historical role-playing game based upon the fifth grade of elementary school’s “Taiwan in the Age of Sail” unit as its learning content. This unit is the first time that elementary school students get formally exposed to the concept of international history, specifically the periods of Dutch and Spanish rule and the Zheng Period of the Ming Dynasty, an era which had an essential influence on the development of Taiwan. With the aid of the digital educational game, this study added interest and learning to the texts in traditional classrooms. In this educational game, we designed different 3D models to represent topics so that students could better immerse themselves in history. In order to motivate students to have better learning outcomes, the three core elements of gamification—Points, Badges, and Leaderboards—were integrated into the game. The results of usability evaluation indicate that the “Taiwan in the Age of Sail” game has good usability in terms of usefulness, ease of use, and satisfaction.
Keywords: Digital game-based learning, History education game, PBL gamification