Feasibility, enjoyment, and language comprehension impact of a tablet- and GameFlow-based story listening game for kindergarteners: a methodological and mixed method study (Preprint)

Abstract

Game enjoyment plays a key role in the success and feasibility of digital serious gaming interventions. Unenjoyable games will not be played and in the case of serious gaming, learning will not occur. Given this importance, a so-called GameFlow model has been developed, intending to guide (serious) game developers in the process of creating and evaluating enjoyment in digital (serious) games. Regarding language learning, a variety of serious games, targeting specific language components, exist on the market, albeit often without available assessments of enjoyment or feasibility.

The current study evaluates enjoyment and feasibility of a tablet-based serious story listening game for kindergarteners, developed based on the principles of the GameFlow model. Given the focus on story listening, this study additionally aims at preliminary exploring the possibility of the game to foster language comprehension.

Within the framework of a broader preventive reading intervention, 91 five-year old kindergarteners at cognitive risk for dyslexia were asked to play the story game for 12 weeks, six days per week, either combined with a tablet-based phonics intervention or tablet-based active control games. The story game mainly involved story listening and rating, and responding to content-related questions. Game enjoyment was assessed through post-intervention questionnaire outcomes, a GameFlow-based evaluation, and in-game story rating data. Feasibility was determined based on in-game general question response accuracy (QRA), reflecting the difficulty level, attrition rate, and final game exposure and training duration. Additionally, in order to investigate whether game enjoyment and difficulty could influence feasibility, final game exposure and training duration were predicted based on in-game initial story ratings and initial QRA. The possible growth in language comprehension was explored by analyzing in-game QRA as a function of game phase and baseline language skills.

Questionnaire and in-game data suggested an overall enjoyable game experience. The GameFlow-based evaluation however, implied room for improvement concerning the game design. General QRA confirmed a well-adapted difficulty level for the target sample. Moreover, despite an overall attrition rate of 39%, 80% of the participants still completed 90% of the game, albeit with a large variation in training days. Higher initial QRA resulted in a significantly higher game exposure (P<.001) and lower initial story ratings significantly slackened the training duration (P=.003). In-game QRA was positively predicted by game phase (P=.004), baseline listening comprehension (P=.002), and vocabulary (P=.010), with larger QRA growths over game phases in children with lower baseline listening comprehension skills (P=.044).

Generally, participants experienced the story game as enjoyable and feasible. Yet, the GameFlow-model evaluation and predictive relationships imply room for further game design improvement. Additionally, our results cautiously suggest a potential of the story game to foster language comprehension. Yet, future randomized controlled trials need to elucidate the actual gaming impact on language comprehension.

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