Fifteenth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society

Abstract

Despite the evidence of the utility of serious games and gamification to highly involve students and improve the learning process, there is lack of serious games developed to improve English linguistic skills. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to describe the design and the psychological implications of a new serious game called Clutter. It is aimed at strengthening English skills - including oral and written production, grammatical structure and vocabulary. Clutter uses an active methodology and applies the game-based learning as a pedagogical approach. During Clutter, the students have to sort words to form a grammatically correct sentence and pronounce it correctly. Clutter has a didactic sequence and computerized game mechanics, which allows the evaluation of learning and metric data that is reported online. A second objective was to analyze the psychological implications of Clutter through the Game Experience Questionnaire-post game module. Participants were 71 college students aged 18-24 who responded an online survey after participating in English classes using Clutter. Students evaluated positively the experience because they felt revived, energized, satisfied and proud. They informed they did not feel ashamed, regretted, guilty, nor weary or exhausted. It was not hard for them to get back to the reality and they did not feel disoriented after the game. In conclusion, Clutter is a new serious game for strengthening English skills that generates in the students positive psychological imports for learning.