A time sequence-oriented concept map approach to developing educational computer games for history courses

Abstract

Concept maps have been recognized as an effective tool for students to organize their knowledge; however, in history courses, it is important for students to learn and organize historical events according to the time of their occurrence. Therefore, in this study, a time sequence-oriented concept map approach is proposed for developing a game-based environment to facilitate students' learning of historical events and their organization during the gaming process. With this approach, students can easily learn the precedence relationships among the historical events that occurred in different time periods with the time sequence-oriented concept map. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a historical role-playing game has been developed for an elementary school history course to examine the students' performance in terms of learning motivation, self-efficacy and learning achievements. A subject unit, the “Siege of Fort Zeelandia by Zheng Cheng-Gong,” was chosen as the history topic. The results show that the proposed approach can significantly enhance the students' learning achievement, but did not affect their learning motivation or self-efficacy for the history course. As a consequence, it is concluded that students can benefit from concept maps in terms of enhancing their learning achievement, but they do not necessarily enjoy using concept maps in game-based learning activities.

Keywords:

• time sequence-oriented concept maps
• game-based learning
• history education
• cognitive load

Notes on contributors

Dr Hui-Chun Chu is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Information Management at Soochow University in Taiwan. Dr Chu received her Ph.D. degree from that department in July, 2009. Dr Chu has published nearly 80 academic papers, including 37 academic journal papers in such professional journals as Interactive Learning Environments, Computers & Education, British Journal of Educational Technology, Educational Technology & Society and Electronic Library among others. Her research interests include mobile and ubiquitous learning, digital game-based learning, information technology-applied instructions and knowledge engineering in education.

Dr Kai-Hsiang Yang is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Information Education at National Taipei University of Education in Taiwan. His research interests include digital game-based learning, information technology-applied instructions, data mining and web-based learning.

Mr Jing-Hong Chen is a graduate student of the Department of Computer Science and Information Management at Soochow University in Taiwan. His research interest is digital game-based learning.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Cheng-Kong Elementary school of Tainan County of Taiwan in this study. This study is supported in part by the National Science Council of the Republic of China under contract numbers NSC 101-2628-S-031-001-MY2, and NSC 102-2511-S-031-001.