Open AccessDesign and Large-scale Evaluation of Educational Games for Teaching Sorting Algorithms
Author(s) -
Paulo Eduardo Battistella,
Christiane Gresse von Wangenheim,
Aldo von Wangenheim,
Jean Everson Martina
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
informatics in education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.53
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 2335-8971
pISSN - 1648-5831
DOI - 10.15388/infedu.2017.08
Subject(s) - quicksort , computer science , sorting , mathematics education , sorting algorithm , algorithm , scale (ratio) , teaching method , multimedia , psychology , physics , quantum mechanics
The teaching of sorting algorithms is an essential topic in undergraduate computing courses. Typically the courses are taught through traditional lectures and exercises involving the implementation of the algorithms. As an alternative, this article presents the design and evaluation of three educational games for teaching Quicksort and Heapsort. The games have been evaluated in a series of case studies, including 23 applications of the games in data structures courses at the Federal University of Santa Catarina with the participation of a total of 371 students. The results provide a first indication that such educational games can contribute positively to the learning outcome on teaching sorting algorithms, supporting the students to achieve learning on higher levels as well as to increase the students’ motivation on this topic. The social interaction the games promote allows the students to cooperate or compete while playing, making learning more fun.