A mixed-methods study of the incidental acquisition of foreign language vocabulary and healthcare knowledge through serious game play

Abstract

While the study of serious games has received due attention, few studies have investigated their potentials of simultaneously offering a route to both content and language acquisition. Understanding the interdisciplinary educational affordance of serious game play is significant, as it might provide game designers and teachers with insight into how to best design and implement serious games. In our study, the serious game Saving Lives was used to teach healthcare knowledge and English vocabulary to Iranian nursing students in an experimental group (N = 80), while control group students were taught healthcare knowledge and English vocabulary using traditional methods (N = 80). Using a mixed-methods approach (pre- and post-tests, an open- and closed-ended questionnaire), intentional content learning, incidental vocabulary acquisition, and learners’ perceptions of digital game play were investigated. Results showed statistically significant improvement in participants’ healthcare knowledge and incidental vocabulary acquisition in the experimental group compared to the control group. Vocabulary and content knowledge gains in the experimental group were the result of students’ positive attitudes toward game play, the multimodal contextual clues provided during game play, and repetitive exposure to target words in the game instructions. Using serious games to integrate content and language teaching for specific purposes, such as nursing, was found to be both a viable option for teachers and a preferable medium for fostering students’ learning and engagement.

Keywords:

• Serious games
• digital game-based language learning
• content learning
• incidental vocabulary acquisition
• perception

Notes on Contributors

Ali Soyoof is a PhD student at Monash University. His research interests include video games and language learning, CALL, digital literacy, and early childhood education.

Barry Lee Reynolds is Assistant Professor of English Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Macau. He has taught EGP, EAP, ESP and trained language teachers in the USA, Taiwan, and Macau. He conducts interdisciplinary applied linguistics, language, and literacy research.

Rustam Shadiev is professor in the School of Education Science, Nanjing Normal University, China. His research interests include HCI for collaboration, speech to text recognition and computer assisted translation technologies, EFL learning and cross-cultural understanding.

Boris Vazquez-Calvo is an assistant professor in EFL and L2 education at the University of Malaga, Spain. His current research interests touch upon language learning and translation, digital culture and fan practices, and technology-mediated discourse.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The research reported in this manuscript was supported by the University of Macau under research grant No. MYRG2019-00030-FED.