A Maths Serious Game for Mobiles: A Study on Design and Development

Abstract

Serious games, which are an important and promising alternative to the traditional learning environment, are used in different learning areas. Many empirical studies on serious games as an educational tool have yielded positive results. Games improve students’ learning and motivation in the domain of STEM, in particular math. Many math games have been developed to support student learning and to be fun. This research aims to design, develop, and test the usability of a mobile game for primary school students to be used in mathematics education. Usability and user experience are important measures of the quality of software. For serious games to be effective in supporting learning, games must be usable in a way that supports student learning. For this purpose, a 2D mobile game was developed with Unity and usability tests and conducted with 10 primary school students. As a result of the usability test carried out for the current study, the efficiency of the game was evaluated and solutions were considered for the deficiencies identified. Looking at the results, the participants generally liked the game. However, the learnability of our educational game is weak. In addition, the study identifies various limitations of the game and areas for improvement. The game mechanics need to be improved in order to increase efficiency. The memorability level of the game is low. Participants often made the mistake at the start of each level of forgetting to pop at least two balloons. Suggestions on how to overcome these limitations are presented. For future studies, we intend to develop our game in view of the deficiencies highlighted here in order to offer a more efficient and usable learning material. It is hoped that this study will contribute to studies aimed at developing digital educational games by suggesting ideas for reducing usability problems. © 2022 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.