Use of commercial video games helps students to learn basic programming

In an increasingly digitized and connected environment, the demand for computer programmers continues to grow and so does the need for training to produce new coding specialists. Often, they are professionals from other sectors who want to switch career paths. In these cases, the acquisition of computational thinking and programming skills is of key importance for them to succeed in this process.

A study promoted by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) has identified a new teaching resource that can help them achieve this goal: playing certain video games that are available to everyone for pure entertainment.

Joan Arnedo, from the Learning, Media and Entertainment Research Group (GAME)—which is affiliated to the UOC’s research unit on culture, creativity, social justice, critical thinking and humanities—and David García-Solórzano from the STEAM University Learning Research Group (EduSTEAM)—which is affiliated to the UOC’s research unit on education and elearning—who both teach in the UOC’s Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications, conducted a study with a group of students from the university that demonstrated the usefulness of two commercial video games in reinforcing the confidence of students taking first level Programming courses.

The scientific literature had already validated the usefulness of games created expressly for this purpose, known as serious games, but research with games that are available to everyone is not so common.

The study, published in the journal Entertainment Computing, tracked more than 50 UOC students from different backgrounds over a period of six weeks. A significant proportion were studying for the Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering, but there were also participants from the Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Data Science, the Bachelor’s Degree in Telecommunications Technologies and Services Engineering and even the Master’s Degree in Video Game Design and Development.

The researchers encouraged the students, who were aged between 18 and 63 and had no advanced coding skills, to play the games “Human Resource Machine” and “7 Billion Humans.” “They are two of the most highly rated programming games on the main digital video game distribution platforms,” explained Arnedo, “and our hypothesis was that, because of their content, they could be useful for reducing friction in learning in a basic course like ‘Fundamentals of programming.’

“We knew that not everyone would start to get full marks because they’d been playing, but what was interesting to see was whether, for example, the students’ confidence in their ability to pass the course was increased, and we saw that this was indeed the case.”

Both video games present a scenario in which, after a twist in the script, humans are subordinated to artificial intelligence for which they have to manage a large volume of data and respond to its requests.

“These are programming games in which you’re presented with puzzles that you have to solve with programming commands, either in pure code or in a more conceptual way. Ultimately, you’re using computational thinking, which is what we want to encourage and make accessible to students,” the researchers explained.

More confidence and better learning through play

During the six weeks that the experiment lasted, the researchers carried out a triple follow-up of the students’ progress: They answered questionnaires, completed a self-efficacy test and kept a personal diary where they reflected on the experience. The researchers drew very positive conclusions from the diary.

“As I didn’t know how to program, I had to work twice as hard but, thanks to the games, I feel that I’m gaining an understanding that I didn’t have before and soon I’ll be able to catch up with the classes,” said one person.

“Finding the solution to a problem inspired me a lot and increased my confidence in my abilities,” said another.

“Every week I notice a progressive improvement, not only in the course, but also in the games. And it’s reassuring to see how you improve little by little, because sometimes you don’t realize it when you’re just studying,” added a third.

The analysis of this triple record of results showed that the use of these games as an educational resource had a positive impact on the students’ interest and sense of self-efficacy, but it was also seen that, in order to achieve this, some important teaching considerations must be taken into account.

The games were well-received and valued, even among the bulk of middle-aged students with little free time because of other work and family responsibilities, who considered them useful for the acquisition of computational thinking and problem-solving skills.

Although some of the positive aspects identified in the analysis became less noticeable as the novelty faded, the perception of usefulness remained constant. Indeed, in the second and third weeks, some participants stated that thanks to the games, they were starting to “think like a computer,” which made them aware of their progress in learning to solve programming problems.

A new educational resource with some challenges to overcome

However, the researchers also saw that some of the students became trapped and frustrated at some levels without knowing how to move forward. This was especially annoying in the early stages of the course, and happened more often when the learning curve was steeper. “We also detected a degree of frustration because it was a game, i.e., an experience that a priori should just be fun,” Arnedo explained.

The researchers therefore recommend accompanying this new educational resource with support materials, such as a sheet giving clues or solutions and a guide to coordinate the level of difficulty of the game with the content that is being worked on at that time in the course.

In view of the usefulness of this scheme, the researchers are now considering the possibility of extending their research through a new study, in this case within the Coding School that the UOC has inaugurated this academic year. Since October, the school has been training specialists from scratch in three languages: JavaScript, Python and Java. Courses are structured in six levels, following the model of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. Of these six levels, the first four are already available, and the last two, C1 and C2, will be rolled out over the next few years.

“More than learning the syntax of programming languages, the challenge is to overcome the conceptual challenge of knowing what you want to do, how to solve problems and the steps needed to achieve this. This is the leap that the scientific literature tells us is most difficult for students to make.

“Using these or other games to achieve it could be interesting, but there are certain obstacles to their deployment at the UOC, such as the issue of licensing, which would have to be resolved before the scheme can be implemented,” concluded Arnedo.