Given the increasingly pervasive ownership of smart phones among high school students today, and based on the advantages of game-based learning and the rationale of extending learning context from formal classes to anytime and anywhere, the present study investigated the effectiveness of playing a smart phone collocation learning game and explored the students’ perception of and attitudes about this experience. A total of 55 high school students were recruited to form the gaming group (N=23) and the traditional group (N=32). The results are further discussed in this section.
The first issue the study concerns about is whether playing the smart phone collocation game can actually help learners to learn collocations. The result from this study shows a significant difference between the gaming group’s pretest and post-test scores. It means that the students learned new collocations to a significant extent after playing the collocation learning game. While previous studies have reported positive results of using video games (Chen & Yang, 2012), portable games (Cobb and Horst, 2011) and web-based flash games (Florence and Alvin, 2006) to learn vocabulary, this study shows that a smart phone learning game with a casual design can also contribute to collocation learning.
The actual learning gains can be observed via a closer look at the distribution of correctly answered questions in the pretest and post-tests. This study found that 58 items were correctly answered by at least one student in the post-test. A comparison between the pretest and post-test showed that learning gains can be observed on 45 items. It seems, however, arbitrary to give any explanation to why these 45 items were learned by the learners in this study. Among them, 18 items were the collocations
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comprised of simple verbs such make, take, do, and get (e.g. make contribution, make comments, make attempts, make apology, make judgment, make speech, take temperature, take measures, take revenge, take action, do damage, get revenge.).
The positive result of this study seems to confirm previous studies observing positive effects of using language learning games to learn vocabulary (Corbeil’s, 2007;
Cobb & Horst, 2011). Although these studies focused on vocabulary, a comparison between this study and previous research seems to yield interesting insights. Cobb and Horst (2011) investigated the effectiveness of playing a vocabulary learning game on Nintendo for two months. They study had two classes play the game in turn. While one class played the game (game + regular classes), the other class formed a control group (regular classes only). Their results showed significant improvements for both gaming groups. They found that the first gaming group recognized 99 more words in post-tests and the second gaming group recognized 224 more words in post-tests. The present study, with a focus on learning new collocations, also showed a significant improvement after playing a collocation games on smart phones. Compared with the impressive results of Cobb and Horst’s (2011) study, however, the improvement found in the present study seems not impressive though statistically significant. The average score of improvement is 4.78. In other words, the students produced four to five more correct collocates in average.
The difference might due to the different measurement instruments adopted by the two studies. In Cobb and Horst’s (2011) study, the researchers used a vocabulary size test which gave only an estimate of the number of word families known at each 1000-family level. It means that an actual score of eight out ten was referred as 800 word families known from a certain 1000- family level. It is also possibly because that the time duration in Cobb and Horst’s (2011) study was much longer than the present study. With longer duration, it seems reasonable to say that students may have
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better chance to achieve greater learning gains.
The difference may also be rated to design of learning games used in the two studies. The game used in Cobb and Horst’s (2011) encouraged recycling of contents.
The same would systematically reoccur in different game sets. The game used in this study did not force recycling of materials. There are two situations where players of the collocation learning game would have to work on the same collocation repetitively.
First, players failed to pass a level successfully and stuck at the same level. Second, players choose to go back and replay a level even though they have finished the level.
It is possible when they wanted to get more stars or to review the content.
In addition, while the game used by Cobb and Horst’s (2011) requires only players’ word knowledge to advance in the game, the collocation learning game requires both gaming skill and knowledge of collocations. There might be an effect of overloaded mental effort (DeHaan, Reed & Kudawa, 2010). As revealed from the gaming group’s responses to the question asking about the disadvantages of using the collocation game to learn new collocations, the students thought the game requires much gaming skill other than collocation knowledge. It seems possible that the players were distracted from collocation learning by a focus on employing gaming skill.
Collocation learning has been recognized as problematic for EFL learners. Some empirical research has been conducted to investigate collocation learning after receiving explicit instructions, such as searching and analyzing web concordancers (Sun & Wang, 2003; Chan & Liu, 2005) and reading and cloze tasks (Webb and Kagimoto, 2009). This study found that playing the collocation smart phone game can also help learners to acquire collocations. The positive effects may be attributed to the interactive nature of learning via game play. As pointed out by Kiili (2004), game-based learning should encourage players to use available resources to generate
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hypothesis, to reach a decision and to evaluate their decision depending on the outcomes of their behavior in the game environment. What’s more, it is possible that the learners experienced focused attention or flow experiences (Kiili, 2004) while gaming, which enhanced learners’ learning experiences or motivation to continue working with the materials.
Chan and Liu (2005) had their participants use web-based learning units to learn over 100 verb-noun collocations. They further categorized the collocations into four types, including collocations made of de-lexical verbs, non-congruent collocations between L1 and L2, collocations involving synonymous verb pairs, and collocations associated with hypernymy and troponymy verb pairs. The first two types were learned via using a concordancer and the other two types were learned without the use of the concordancer. Their pretest and post-test included a total of 36 items. The pretest mean was around 10, and the post test mean was around 19. Although it seems game-based learning did not provided superior learning effects, it should be noted that the two studies used test formats of different difficulty levels. While Chan and Liu (2005) provided learners with first letters for each blank, this study did not offer any hints.
This study found that the traditional group also showed significant improvements.
The results seem to confirm previous research showing the effectiveness of explicit instruction on collocations (Webb & Kagimoto, 2009). Webb and Kagimoto (2009) used a reading task and a cloze task. They found both tasks helped learners to acquire collocations. In this study, the traditional group’s learning gain was around four points (pretest: 10.50; post test: 14.03). Webb and Kagimoto (2009) found both groups learned around 15 collocations after treatment. The difference may be induced by different measurements used in the two studies. Webb and Kagimoto (2009) measured recognition knowledge, using multiple choice questions and questions eliciting the L1
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meaning of a given English collocation. But this study tested productive knowledge, requiring learners to produce correct collocations. It seems likely that this study did not capture possible learning gains occurred at a recognition level.
Webb and Kagimoto (2009) also used translation task to measure productive knowledge in post test. Both reading group and cloze group produced around 12 correct collocations. Their learning gains on productive knowledge, however, were not clear, since their pretests only measured receptive knowledge.
This study found both gaming group and traditional group improved after treatment. Moreover, neither the gaming group nor the traditional group outperformed the other. The results seem confirm those of Cobb and Horst’s (2011). They also found that a gaming group which played a vocabulary learning game on Nintendo after regular classes did not achieve better post test scores than a control group which only received regular classes.
Florence and Alvin (2006) used two vocabulary learning sites where vocabulary games are available for their participants. Unlike the present study, they found that a gaming group achieves better improvement than a control group. It should be noted that the students used the websites to learn vocabulary in class. What’s more, the websites not only provide games but also vocabulary information. The different findings between these two studies might be related to the presence or lack of presentation stage before game or the different learning contexts. Another possible explanation can be related the feedback provided by the game, as discussed earlier.
It is, however, perhaps safe to say that learning collocations via playing the smart phone game can be as effective as traditional memorization-and-quiz method in terms of learning gain.
This study also explored the participants’ perception of and attitudes at learning collocations by playing the smart phone game. The study found that the participants
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show an overall satisfaction toward the learning experience. They thought it is a fun way of learning, and felt happy to use the game to learn new collocations.
They, however, agreed less on that learning via playing the game can fit into their everyday schedules. Due to the limited data, it is not clear why it is so. It can be speculated that some of the students are not allowed to carry their phones to school, therefore can only play the game at home or on weekends.
The second part of the questionnaire concerns about the satisfaction of the physical condition of playing the game on smart phones. The participants were especially satisfied with the font size and the display of the game. It seems that smart phones today can provide a good platform for playing learning games. But they thought the game is not easy to use. As shown by the open-ended question asking about the disadvantages of using the game to learn collocations, it is possibly due to a dislike of the rule for controlling the character.
The study also explored the students’ perception while they were playing the game. As pointed out by researchers (Vandercruysse, Vandewaetere & Clarebout, 2012; Prensky, 2001), a part of the benefits of game play on learning or the what make people engaged in games lies in the emotional reaction games can stimulate from players. This study shows that the students experience a sense of achievement and a desire to beat other players. Due to the portability and casual design of the game, the smart phone game were played within time duration not longer than ten minutes each time when the participants started the game to play. The study shows that when used for the purpose of learning, smart phone casual game can also bring emotional effects, which might benefits learning.
It was also found that the students feel a greater degree of frustration when they could not advance because of time constrains set by the game. In addition, they reported a greater degree of frustration caused by time constrains than that by poor
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gaming skill or collocation knowledge. While time constrains are often used as a hook to create challenging tasks or to add excitement (Dickey, 2005), the study suggests that in the case of learning games, a possible negative feeling might be aroused by setting time constrains for learners to finish their tasks.
The students’ perception of the support s for learning embedded in the game environment was positive. They thought both the hints given at the beginning of each level and the feedback given at the end of each level are helpful for learning collocations in the game. It was very likely that the hints at the very beginning of each level stimulate players’ word knowledge in order to tackle an ensuing task (Pivec, Dziabenko & Schinnerl, 2003). For example, when given the hint “破紀錄：? + records,” players may produce their own guesses before continuing the game. This may encourage active involvement of learning from the players or a stage of idea generation before making any decisions (Kiili, 2004). Although it can not be guaranteed that the participants actually exercised this mental effort while playing the game, the participants reporting positive judgments about its function in game-based learning seems to echo the model proposed by Kiili.
The importance of feedback has been recognized by researchers (Kiili, 2004;
Prensky, 2001; Vandercruysse, Vandewaetere & Clarebout, 2012). The feedback given at the end of each level, however, was assigned slightly lower scores by the students.
According to Kiili, 2004, feedback in a game should encourage learners to evaluate their decisions and do reflective observations. A closer look at the feedback given in the collocation learning game, it seems that the feedback is not informative. When players failed, the game only encouraged them to try again. When players succeeded, the game gave complements and showed a correct collocation again. The findings seemed to suggest that learners expect feedback to be informative even when learning in a game environment.
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The study also shows that the very few participants used reference materials to help them play the learning game. The findings seem to echo the observation made in Chen and Yang’s (2012) study. Their participants were found making little notes while playing a video game, even though they were encouraged to do so. It seems possible that the context for playing a smart phone game is not convenient for players to look up dictionaries or to find reference materials at the spot. Although playing the smart phone game seems not encourage behaviors such as looking up a dictionary, the study showed a change in attitudes at collocation learning. An informal interview between the researcher and the students after pretests revealed that most of the students are not aware of collocations. After the game play, the students recognized that learning collocations is also an aspect of vocabulary learning and wanted to know more rescores which can help them learn collocations.