To date, extensive work has been devoted to incorporating computational thinking in K-12 education. Recognizing students' computational thinking stages in game-based learning environments is essential to capture unproductive learning and provide appropriate scaffolding. However, few reliable and valid computational thinking measures have been…

Contribution: We present a framework for teachers to investigate the relationships between attributes of students' solutions in the process of problem solving or computational thinking. We provide visualization and evaluation techniques to find hidden patterns in the students' solutions which allow teachers to predict the specific behavior of…

Students frequently struggled with the mathematizing process -- forging connections between implicit and explicit mathematical thinking -- when solving a context-rich applied problem. The current research investigated how students interact with and leverage purposively designed "mathematizing" supports when solving applied math problems…

Enhancing students' civic literacy is considered an essential educational goal in the 21st century. Therefore, in the teaching process, how to provide students with opportunities to solve problems and how to provide immediate feedback to help students make correct decisions when facing real problems are important and challenging issues. Digital…

Background: Game-based learning can frame problem-solving as a sense-making experience with domain-specific tasks for school students. However, multiple challenges arise when trying to support learners in such a complex, problem-oriented learning environment. Objectives and Methods: With an architecture-themed mathematics learning game, we…

Play is crucial to children's development. With the prevalent use of digital technologies, children and young adults are seen playing games more often and longer on digital devices. How should teachers capitalize the advantages of games in class, without inducing more health risks or problems for children? To achieve this goal, teachers need…

Designing games from the ground up is a popular activity for helping students think in designerly ways. Despite their benefits, such game design activities may place higher-than-anticipated demands on cognitive and institutional resources. In an effort to alleviate these demands, this study explored how playing and fixing partially completed games…

Building on the original work of Bunker and Thorpe and their Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) approach to physical education, there is now a proliferation of Game Based Approaches (GBA) in the research literature (Bunker & Thorpe, 1982, A model for the teaching of games in secondary schools. "Bulletin of Physical Education,"…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of perplexity in young players' experiences within an educational videogame and how reflective thinking can help them to get out of perplexing scenarios. Design/methodology/approach: We used a constructivist grounded theory approach and the lenses of Dewey's conceptualization of…

Although prior research has highlighted the significance of representations for mathematical learning, there is still a lack of research on how students use multimodal external representations (MERs) to solve mathematical tasks in digital game-based learning (DGBL) environments. This exploratory study was to examine the salient patterns problem…

Given the connection between problem-solving and computational thinking (CT), studying the connections between these two constructs is critical. This study focused on students' computational problem-solving strategies, specifically how they applied conditional logic to solve CT-related puzzles within a game-based learning environment called…

Due in part to its flexibility and open design, the video game Minecraft has emerged as a popular tool for teaching and learning. Inspired by prior research showing the influence of problem-solving mindsets in physical settings, this study is an effort to understand the extent to which an open-ended task influences subsequent problem-solving…

Narrative as a game design feature constantly yields mixed results for learning in the literature. The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods case study was to examine design heuristics and implications governing the role of narratives in a digital game-based learning (DGBL) environment for math problem solving. We collected data via…

Recently, alternate reality games (ARGs) have been applied in museum learning to encourage learners' active engagement through playful problem-solving activities. However, most learners have insufficient prior knowledge and metacognitive skills to complete the learning tasks in such games. To support learning with ARGs, there is a need to provide…

This study focuses on the development and evaluation of a challenge-based hybrid learning approach utilizing a virtual board games platform to enhance international standard student competency. Our research applies educational management theories to challenge-based learning, providing learners with diverse opportunities for engagement,…