Design and evaluation of mobile educational game using m-learning approach for secondary school students

Game-based learning is one of the most widely used methods in education nowadays. Starting with Personal Computer platform games, it has now spread its wings to the mobile platform. However, the studies to evaluate the user acceptance on the required design for mobile-based gaming applications are still not as much. Therefore, this study aimed to identify user acceptance on the characteristics of the design interface that are integrated with M-Learning elements. The characteristics of game design that has been obtained from an initial requirement are based on three main constructs namely interface design, information design and interaction design which are then integrated with the elements of M-Learning that has been identified to develop a mobile educational game application. The action game genre is selected based on user opinions from the pilot study while the acceptance model used as the basis of the study is from the UTAUT-EG acceptance model. The methodology of this study was done by combining the quantitative and qualitative data, where pre-test and posttest were conducted on this mobile game application to evaluate its effectiveness. The process started with the analysis of the game design characteristic based on users’ opinion. The sample of this study consist of 85 secondary school students in Form 5 who studied the topic of Novel Literature in the subject of Malay Language. The objective of this study are (i) to design the interface on mobile game-based learning by integrating M-Learning elements, (ii) to identify the user acceptance of the developed game application and (iii) to evaluate the design of the mobile game once it has been completed. Based on the user acceptance questionnaire that has been used, the study found that the mean value obtained from all factors of user acceptance is positive, overall exceeding 4.00 value. The user and expert ratings on the mobile game applications also showed positive appraisal for all rating constructs with the overall mean value is 4.25 for users and 4.36 for experts. t-tests that has been conducted shows that there are significant differences from user scores before and after using the game application. This study shows that the mobile games that have been developed have a positive impact on user acceptance upon the use of games in their learning. Furthermore, the integration of M-Learning elements was also noticed to have a valuable impact on this study. Thus, educational game designers need to pay close attention to the characteristics aspects that are appropriate before designing a mobile educational game interface that is accessible to the target users