A contextual online game based on inquiry learning approach for improving students' learning performance in a chemistry course

Abstract

© 2017 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education. All rights reserved. Digital game, a technological tool, can be in the form of a scenario or simulation with specific rules and principles for assisting students' construction of knowledge and promoting their motivation. However, how to trigger students for acquiring educational goals in playing game remains to be settled, especially for chemistry course. In this study, a contextual educational digital game based on an inquiry-based learning strategy is developed to improving students' learning performance. An experiment has been conducted on a high school chemistry course to evaluate the effects of the proposed approach on the learning performance of students. The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach effectively enhanced the students' learning performances in terms of their conceptual understanding and learning motivation.