Preservice Teachers’ Awareness of Digital Game-Supported Learning

Tzu-Yuan Hsu
Graduate Institute of Information and Computer Education
National Taiwan Normal University
Taiwan
tzuyuan7@gmail.com

Guey-Fa Chiou
Graduate Institute of Information and Computer Education
National Taiwan Normal University
Taiwan
gueyfa@ntnu.edu.tw

Abstract: This paper is an exploratory study to investigate the preservice teachers’ awareness
of digital game-supported learning. The survey questionnaire consists of four dimensions:
digital gaming experience, attitudes toward digital gaming, digital gaming self-efficacy, and
awareness of digital game-supported learning. 125 preservice teachers completed the
questionnaire. The results showed that most preservice teachers play digital games, and they
believe digital games have potential to be a useful tool for students. After this exploratory
survey, we are planning a training program to develop preservice teachers’ competency of
designing game-supported learning activity into course units.

Introduction
Using digital games for learning is becoming a trend in educational technology (Becker, 2007). The terms
“games generation” (Prensky, 2001) and “gamer generation” (Beck & Wade, 2004) have captured the idea that a
group of people born after 1970, who are learning by playing digital game. The generation of people who grew up
after digital game is characterized by differences in thinking patterns, perceptions about the world, approaches to
challenges, evaluation of risk, and expectations of leading and interacting with other people (Gibson, Halverson, &
Riedel, 2007). Will gamer generation be more accepting of games in education when they become teachers? Are
today’s preservice teachers more like gamers? Do they still play games? What do they think about the potential of
digital game-supported learning? Do they prepare to teach with game-supported strategy? These are questions we
would like to know before we design a digital game-supported learning (DGSL) program to develop preservice
teacher’s DGSL knowledge and skill. The purpose of this survey was to investigate preservice teachers’ awareness
of digital game-supported learning. Because there have thus far been relatively few surveys about preservice
teachers’ DGSL, and so far few survey instruments were found in the literature. In order to understand gamer
generation teachers’ perceptions toward digital game-supported learning, we developed a questionnaire focusing on
four dimensions: digital gaming experience, attitudes toward digital gaming, digital gaming self-efficacy, and
awareness of digital game-supported learning.

Literature Review
Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Gaming

FutureLab (2009) conducted a survey of primary and secondary teachers’ (N = 1628) attitudes toward games
in education. Their findings showed that 42% of the teachers never play computer games in their leisure time, 23%
reported that they played computer games less than once a month, and 64% have not used games in their classrooms
for educational purposes. The result also indicated that teachers perceived the benefits of games in enhancing motor
and cognitive skills (85%), ICT skills (73%), and higher-order thinking skills (65%). Though 60% of the teachers
would consider using games in their classroom, the major barriers to educational gaming were related to hardware,
licensing and costs. Furthermore, teachers’ lack of knowledge about games is also a challenge.
Gibson, Halverson & Riedel (2007) conducted a study on preservice teachers (N = 228) to examine the
differences between gamers and non-gamers (based on age of respondents). Their findings provided evidence of key
differences in the values and attitudes held between these two categories of educators. They reported that gamer
teachers vary in their preferred teaching methods, value active learning more than their counterparts, and value
individualized and customized teaching experiences. They also identified strong relationships between teacher who
play games before, during and after college.
Jones, Copeland, & Kalinowski (2007) created Computer Gaming Inventory (CGI) to examine preservice
teachers’ (N = 42) attitudes towards computer games. Using exploratory factor analysis, they found six latent
constructs, including game interference, game enjoyment, friendship related to gaming, features in games, gaming as
diversion, and attitudes toward games concerning the participants' attitudes towards computer gaming.

Teachers’ Perceptions of the Barriers of Games in Classrooms

Rice (2007) used qualitative reviews of several scholarly papers to explore the barriers to the implementation
of computer games in the classroom. Reviewing of the papers led to six major barriers, including negative
perceptions toward video games as educational components, the difficulty of providing state of the art graphics in
educational games, a lack of adequate computing hardware in the classrooms to run advanced video games, a school
day divided by short class periods which hindered long term engagement in complex games, a lack of real world
affordances, and a lack of alignment to state standards.
Baek (2008) conducted a survey of 444 randomly selected South Korean elementary and secondary teachers
from 16 school districts of their attitudes toward the use of games in the classroom. Analyzing the results, six
inhibiting factors were identified. The six inhibiting factors were, in order of greatest inhibition: inflexibility of the
curriculum, negative effects of gaming, students’ lack of readiness, lack of supporting materials, fixed class
schedules, and limited budgets. Lack of teacher professional development has also been cited as a barrier for
implementation of video games in classroom curriculum (Becker, 2007).
Kerbitchi, Hirumi, Kappers, & Henry (2009) surveyed K-12 educators who integrated games in their teaching,
analyzed the existing instructional game websites, and summarized the literature of the using on educational
software in K-12 settings and teachers’ technology training. The results indicated that educators face three main
challenges when integrating games, including curriculum integration, technical and logistical requirements, and
teacher training. To overcome these challenges, they suggested that K-12 educators should be provided with
curriculum resources, game technical information and support, and communication tools.

Digital Gaming Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy, defined as “beliefs in one’s capabilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, and
courses of action needed to meet given situational demands” (Wood & Bandura, 1989, p. 408), has been studied
extensively in organizational research. According to social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986, 1997), self-efficacy
beliefs vary on three dimensions (a) level of magnitude (particular level of task difficulty), (b) strength (certainty of
successfully performing a particular level of task difficulty), and (c) generality (the extent to which magnitude and
strength beliefs generalize across tasks and situations).
Chen, Gully, & Eden (2001) developed the New General Self-Efficacy Scale (NGSE) and compared its
psychometric properties and validity to that of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (SGSE) developed by Sherer,
Maddux, Mercandante, Prentice-Dunn, Jacobs, and Rogers (1983). Studies in two countries found that the NGSE
scale has higher construct validity than the GSE scale. The NGSE scale demonstrated high reliability, predicted
specific self-efficacy (SSE) for a variety of tasks in various contexts, and moderated the influence of previous
performance on subsequent SSE formation.
In the digital game-supported learning field, several researches used the self-efficacy theory to revise General
Self-Efficacy Scale to examine self-efficacy levels of participants playing the educational games. Lin (2009)
developed the on-line game self-efficacy and creative self-efficacy to explore the influence of on-line game
self-efficacy and creative self-efficacy on creative performance. Hung (2008) tried to find out the influence of
self-efficacy and self-regulation on flow experience in game play.
We developed the Digital Game-Supported Learning (DGSL) Awareness Questionnaire consisting of four
dimensions: digital gaming experience, attitudes toward digital gaming, digital gaming self-efficacy, and awareness
of digital game-supported learning. We adapted items from exiting questionnaires and added some question items.
The Exploratory Survey
Participants

The participants were selected from the students enrolled in “Teacher Preparation Program for Secondary
Schools” at a national university in the north Taiwan. There were 165 students in three teacher preparation courses,
125 students completed the questionnaire, 56 male and 69 female. They were born between 1980 and 1990, the
average age was 21.7 years old. Most participants majored in Science (40%), and the remaining participants majored
in Language (15.2%), Mathematics (12%), Music, Art and Physical (10.4%), Information Technology (9.6%),
Social Science (8%), and others (4.8%).

Digital Game-Supported Learning (DGSL) Awareness Questionnaire

The DGSL awareness questionnaire includes four dimensions and 42 questions.

 Digital gaming experience (14 questions)
The patterns of participants’ experience of digital game play include game types, play frequency, and places.
 Attitudes toward digital gaming (5 questions)
The questions include engagement, friendship, time arrangement, academic achievement, and enjoyment.
 Digital gaming self-efficacy (5 questions)
These questions were revised from New General Self-Efficacy Scale (Chen, Gully, & Eden, 2001), which
include "I can achieve most of the setting goals”, “overcome the difficulties, have confidence to complete the
tough tasks”, “believe that my performance is better".
 Awareness of digital game-supported learning (18 questions)
The questions include the benefits of digital game-supported learning, the barriers to integration of games in
education, and the adoption of game-supported learning.
The questionnaire used a 4-point response format, ranking from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree) in
which a higher score means stronger agreement.

Data Analysis

Data collected from the survey questionnaire were coded for statistic analysis and entered into a computer
database. The quantitative analysis was conducted by using the SPSS for Windows (Version 18) through the
following statistical methods: (1). Descriptive statistics were computed to summarize the participants’ responses. (2).
Independent-Samples T Test was used to examine the effect of gender on participants’ responses.

Results
Preservice Teachers’ Digital Gaming Experience

The results showed that almost all participants played digital game. Only 4 participants have never played
digital games because of no interest or no time. As shown in Table 1, the types of digital game platforms they played
were computer games (standalone) (83.5%), mobile games (68.6%), and online games (57.9%). Table 2 shows the
different types of games played by the surveyed participants. 70.4% of the participants started playing digital games
when they were in elementary school; and 69.6% participants currently still play digital games. Most participants
responded that they usually play digital games for entertainment (75%) and kill time (66.4%), and yet 10.3%
participants thought playing digital game was to escape from real world. However, the participants who stopped
playing digital games pointed out that they had no time (79.6%). More than 79% participants played digital games at
home, 48.8% played at the dorm. Regarding game playing frequency, participants usually played digital games on
Saturday (83.5%), Sunday (69.4%), and Friday (60.3%). Figure 1 illustrates that the participants usually played
digital games at the period from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., and 76%of the participants played digital games about 0-5 hours a
week.
 Digital game platforms N Percent (%)
Computer games (standalone) 101 83.5
Mobile games 83 68.6
Online games (internet) 70 57.9
Video games 40 33.1
Portable games 39 32.2
Others 1 0.3

Table 1: Types of digital game platforms played (N=121)

Digital game types N Percent (%)

Role Play Games 85 70.2
Adventure Games 64 52.9
Puzzle Games 64 52.9
Action Games 53 43.8
Strategy Games 51 42.1
Shooter Games 48 39.7
Sport Games 41 33.9
Simulation Games 37 30.6
Social Games 17 14
Others 2 1.7
Due to the multiple choices, the sum of the above percentages may over 100.
Table 2: Types of digital games played (N=121)

Figure 1: Time period of game-playing

Preservice Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Digital Gaming

The large majority of the participants (94.4%) perceived that games can motivate players to engage in the
situation. Approximately 58% of the participants agreed that games can improve their friendship, and 97.6% felt that
games can bring people a lot of joy. On the other hand, 78.4% of the participants believed that games interfered with
their time arrangement, and 66.4% of the participants believed that games influence their academic performance.
The result of the Independent Samples T Test showed that no significant differences between the genders of
the participants in attitudes toward digital gaming.

Preservice Teachers’ Digital Gaming Self-Efficacy

When having challenges in playing games, almost three-fourths of the participants (75.2%) were willing to
try even harder to conquer the challenges. 74.3% of the players had confidence to achieve most of the goals of the
game that they had set for themselves, 78.5% of the players had confidence to face the challenges in digital games.
Even if facing difficult gaming tasks, 74.5% of the players believed they can overcome the challenges to achieve the
gaming goals. Compared to other players, 40.5% of the players in this study believed they perform better on many
digital games.
As shown in Table 3, analysis of the Independent Samples T Test revealed that there were significant
differences between the genders of the players in digital gaming self-efficacy. The mean of male players was higher
than female, which indicated that male players’ digital gaming self-efficacy were significant higher than female.

Male Female
Items T
Mean SD Mean SD
When having challenges in playing games, I will try even harder
3.07 .568 2.66 .756 3.399*
to conquer the challenges.
I have confidence to achieve most of the goals of the game that I
3.09 .581 2.63 .547 4.468**
have set for myself.

I have confidence to face the challenges in digital games. 3.20 .553 2.68 .615 4.851**

Even if facing difficult gaming, I believe I can overcome the

3.04 .602 2.63 .575 3.781**
challenges to achieve the gaming goals.
Compared to other players, I believe I perform better in many
2.71 .706 2.18 .610 4.428**
digital games.
*p<0.05 **p<0.01
Table 3: Digital gaming self-efficacy (N=121)

Preservice Teachers’ Awareness of Digital Game-Supported Learning

The results suggested that 64% of the participants had played the educational games, 89.6% participants
thought educational games can facilitate teachers’ teaching, and 93.6% participants thought educational games can
promote students’ learning motivation. The majority of participants (85.6%) thought they want to use educational
games in the subject they will teach. Participants in the survey reported that they believed that educational games
can help students to get better grades (85.6%), to promote students’ imagination (88%), thinking ability (85.6%),
and problem solving ability (75.2%) and to develop the habit of information seeking (68%). However, they
disagreed that educational games can promote communication (62.4%) and collaboration (51.2%).
68.8% of the participants thought it is possible to use educational games in classrooms, and 82.4% reported
that they believed that educational games can be integrated with subjects. 42.6% of the participants thought schools
now have enough technology facilities to support the use of educational games. 40.8% of the participants thought
parents will accept the use of educational games in the classroom, and 62.4% reported that teachers will accept the
implementation of educational games.
The result of the Independent Samples T Test showed that no significant differences between the genders of
the participants in digital game-supported learning awareness.

Conclusions
With the increase of digital games sales, and the corresponding increase in the number of people playing these
games, it is important to understand the gamer generation teachers’ attitude and perceptions of digital
game-supported learning. The results of this survey indicated that most preservice teachers are currently still playing
digital games, and they believed digital games have potential to draw students into learning and help them learn
information, skills, attitudes, and ways of thinking. However, the preservice teachers also sensed that there are some
possibly negative effects of game playing. They pointed out that some schools do not have enough technology
facilities to support the use of educational games in classroom, and worried about the negative impressions of
parents and communities. Because the preservice teachers in this survey have no real teaching experiences, in the
next survey we will collect inservice teachers’ awareness of digital game-supported learning. The digital
game-supported learning awareness questionnaire we used in this exploratory survey will be modified.
Although this exploratory survey has shown that preservice teachers have enthusiasm to integrate digital
games in classroom, they perceived there are some main barriers, especially a lack of skill and knowledge to
integrate digital games effectively in classrooms and courses. We expect the project following this survey:
“Teachers as educational games designers” (which is supported by a research grant from Taiwan National Science
Council for two years) will enhance the preservice teachers’ digital game-supported learning knowledge.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from National Science Council (NSC 99-2511-S-003 -014) of Taiwan.