The Effect of a Designed Computer Educational Game Integrated with Cooperative Learning on Elementary Students’ Inferring Causality in Science Context

• Main Authors: Hsiao-Pin Su, 蘇曉萍
• Other Authors: Yu-Ling Lu, Ph. D.
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/11946316362150344442

碩士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 自然科學教育學系碩士班 === 98 === ABSTRACT Higher order thinking ability is an important ingredient in scientific literacy. This study aimed to develop an educational game with learning content related to cause and effect relationships for students to use and learn cooperatively. In this study, 120 4th graders from Taoyuan County, Taiwan, involved in this study. Before the experimental treatment, two tests were given to these students, one was “The Scale of Cognition on Cause and Effect Relationships”, and the other was “The Test of Inferring Causality”. In the, students were heterogeneous grouped for cooperative learning with a computer educational game. Students participated in the cooperative computer game-based learning one hour per week, and the learning lasted for eight weeks. After the learning activities, post-tests of above two instruments were administrated again. In addition, data also collected with a questionnaire to know student’s feedback about this computer game learning activities. The main findings of this study are: 1. Fourth graders, to some extent, are capable of making adequate causal connections. This provides evidence to challenge some believe that young students are naïve in making causal connection. 2. The implementation of cooperative strategies into the computer game learning for learning cause and effect relationship, can effectively improve elementary students’ understanding of cause and effect relationship. 3. There is no gender effect on the learning effectiveness. 4. The implementation of cooperative strategies into the computer game learning for learning cause and effect relationship, also effectively improves elementary students’ ability on inferring causality. 5. There is no significant difference is found among different ability groups of cognition of cause and effect relationship, in term of student’s inferring causality. 6. The educational game with a cooperative learning approach has most significant effect on students’ inferring causality whose science learning achievement comparatively low. 7. From students’ feedbacks, this educational game as well as the teaching approach is regarded as fun, challenging, intellectual. The instructional design is also regarded as capable of enhancing learning motivation, imagination, curiosity, and confident.