This study adopted a pretest and post-test quasi-experimental design. The study used two groups, including a gaming group and a traditional group. The gaming group played a collocation learning game. The traditional group practiced the same collocations by memorizing collocation lists, reading example sentences, and taking regular quizzes.
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A description to the treatment of the gaming group
A gaming application, named SpinPenguin, was designed for learning the target collocations in this study. It was designed to be a casual game. Juul (2010) gave a description of casual games, as shown in Table 3.
Table 3. A description of casual games proposed by Juul (2010).
parameter content description of casual games Fiction the way the game conveys
its story to the player
typically positive and familiar for casual games
Usability the way the player interacts with the game
typically via familiar controls or interfaces with thoughtful, easy to use design
Interruptibility the frequency at which the gameplay
can be interrupted while still making progress
typically casual games can be interrupted frequently
both through controls (like pause) and by breaks in
the flow of the game such as those naturally occurring easy on ramp for players, but may develop into quite challenging games.
They do, however, frequently allow the player to fail without harsh consequences
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(Table 3 continues)
parameter content description of casual games Excessive
positive feedback (juiciness)
the frequency
and presentation of positive reinforcement
for doing things well in the game
typically casual
games provide a lot of gratifying feedback (both
audio and video) for doing even small things right
Adopted from Klopfer, Sheldon, Perry & Chen (2012)
As noted by Kiili (2004), stories are an important component of games. Even a simple story can set up a background for a game and create players’ meaning for the whole gameplay. This aspect of games design was realized by designing a word map, and the players will be helping a penguin, who was traveling around the world, go through five continents. Figure 2 shows snapshot of welcoming screen of the game.
The outline of the game world is presented by snapshots and displayed in Figure 3.
Figure 2. The welcoming page of the SpinPenguin.
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Figure 3. The outline of the game world.
The interface and the character of the game were especially designed to look appealing. The background music and sound effects were also carefully selected to create an attractive gaming environment. The game consists of five major maps and each map includes 10 levels as shown in Figure 4. The completion of a previous level was a prerequisite for moving on to a next level. In other words, learners can not proceed to a next level if a present level is not successfully completed. Learners are allowed to refer back to previously completed levels.
Figure 4. A screenshot of level one consisting of 10 sublevels.
When learners entered a level, they were shown a Chinese meaning of the collocation they are going to deal with in the present level and noun element of the
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collocation. After that, the game immediately starts by presenting two or more blocks with different verbs and the noun in the middle of the screen. An example is shown in Figure 5. Players’ main goal was to control the penguin to push the block(s) with the correct verb(s) to the middle of the screen within a time limit. In other words, the design of the game directs players’ attention on verbs. To advance successfully in the game, players need not only collocation knowledge but also gaming skill. Incorrect verbs were also presented to learners in the game. This is done for the purposes of facilitating collocation learning and raising awareness of restricted combinations. The second goal was to collect enough amounts of stars to unlock a next map.
Figure 5. A screenshot of level 1-1.
When players pushed the right block(s) to the middle of the screen within one minute, they complete a level. Correct collocations were shown to players again and different amount of stars were given. At this point, learners can move on to a next level or quit the game as they wish. When learners’ pushed a wrong block or can not push the correct block(s) in time, they failed the level. They had to continue playing the same level until they complete the level successfully or they can not advance in the game. The screenshot of the feedback shown immediately after a successful attempt and an unsuccessful attempt are displayed in Figure 6.
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Figure 6. Screenshots of successful attempt and an unsuccessful attempt.
The game also designed a gaming rank. When connected to the Internet, players update their progress and they can view top players’ progress on the rank.
The learning game was designed for encouraging active learning. According to involvement load hypothesis, active vocabulary learning takes place when there is a need, when learners are involved in searching appropriate items and when the outcomes are evaluated.
A comparison between the treatments of the gaming group and the traditional group is presented in Table 4.
Table 4. A comparison between the gaming group and the traditional group.
gaming group traditional
Learning conditions
Active learning in a gaming environment
Need
To advance in the game To learn new collocations To outperform others Search
Hints given at the beginning of each game level encourage learners to form hypothesis.
Memorization and regular quizzes Need
To learn new collocations To perform well on quizzes
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(Table 4 continues)
gaming group traditional
Evaluation
Immediate feedback
Being interactive
Encourage repetitive encounters of materials
Competition/ challenges
Arousing emotional reactions
Learning pace was decided by learners.
Evaluation
Regular quizzes and delayed feedback
Learning pace was determined by the researcher.