Analyzing the Learning Process in Online Educational Game Design: A Case Study

Educational game design environments are used for teaching computational thinking and software engineering concepts to novices. In software engineering education, there has recently been calls for "innovative methods for software teaching and training in online courses" (http://2014.icse-conferences.org/seet). However, to date, learning these concepts is tied to a formal learning environment and the presence of a teacher. In line with the new educational opportunities provided by the Web such as massive open online courses (MOOCs) and e-learning 2.0 platforms, we have created an online educational game design environment with integrated learning resources including video tutorials, showcases, and communication tools. To understand the effect of online educational game design environments with integrated support for learning on novices\´ use of the system and their learning, we conducted a mixed-method study with nine participants. While the learning goals were achieved to a high degree, the analysis of participants\´ interaction with the system reveals interesting phenomena about user preferences, such as the fact that during the given computational thinking tasks, the participants preferred the synchronous communication channel to other forms of commonly provided learning resources such as forums.