Sorted : an educational digital game for learning sorting algorithm

Abstract

This exploratory study aimed to develop an educational digital game for learning sorting algorithms, explore how students learn to solve sorting problems by playing the developed game and explore students' attitude towards the developed game. The research instruments of this study comprise of 3 tools, for instance, the developed game named the Sorted, the Thai translated version of the short form of the user engagement questionnaire (UES-SF), and the open-ended question. The participant is a total of 23 grade 9 students who have no experiences in learning the sorting algorithm concept prior to participating with this study. They have played the Sorted for 60 minutes and then responded to the UES-SF and the open-ended question right after playing the game. The students' learning behavior is explored using thematic analysis on the log data collected from the Sorted. The students' attitude towards the Sorted is inspected using descriptive statistics on the UES-SF and thematic analysis on the open-ended question. The findings showed that 1) students are capable of creating algorithms by playing the Sorted as there are 15 algorithms discovered by them, 2) three development stages of learning to solve sorting problems are including, the onboarding, discovering, and mastering stage, and 3) students have a moderate level of attitude towards the Sorted while the most positive scores come from the high achieving students