APPLYING BRAINWAVE TO DEVELOP AND EVALUATE A GAME-BASE LEARNING Tzu-Wei Tsai (1), Min-Yan Tsai (1), Shao-Chin Chang (2), Rong-Fa Lin (1) (1) Department of Multimedia Design, National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taichung, Taiwan (2) Alchemy technology, Taichung, Taiwan Learners’ attention is much related with their learning effects. However, most learning systems lack the ability of understanding and responding to learners’ emotion and attention. The aim of study is to apply EEG to develop a game of English vocabulary learning for kids. Furthermore, its effects of usability and learning are evaluated. The game, called “Brain Market” is developed based on the principles of situational learning theory and affective computing technology: Some English vocabularies are embedded in a virtual supermarket which is designed as the situational learning environment. Participants’ brainwave is detected by Brainwave which is one wearable electroencephalograph developed by NeuroSky. Their brainwave data are computed to the attention value in real time. Participants are asked to control their attention to complete the game and learn the vocabulary. The empirical method is executed to evaluate the effects of usability and learning. 34 elementary schools students are recruited to participate. They were divided to the experimental group and the control group. Participants in the experimental group wore the brainwave sensor to accomplish the learning tasks, while the participants in the control group did not wear the brainwave sensor but needed to accomplish the learning tasks in the controlled time limit. The results show that it is effectively to apply learners’ EEG to control the learning games. Participants have positive feedbacks on this system. Also, the before and after learning test reveals that the EEG game could assist participants improved their learning performance. The Motivations and Purposes of the Study Hogle (1996) provided the four advantages that games contribute to learning, which are: the raise of intrinsic motivations, as well as increasing interests, keeping memories and providing practice feedback, and give way to higher level of thinking. Many students prefer to learn through computers, because good games can stimulate the motivation to learn, which is important for learning. Therefore, learning through way of game can create more sustained learning period and motivations(Gee,2004). This study uses the brainewave tool developed by NeuroSky, which is called the MindWave. It transfers the brainwave that it receives into attention value, which is the attention span of the student. This game uses the attention value as one of the conditions for a level of game to be completed. Through the machine that will extract the physical information of the learner and judge whether the learner can absorb all knowledge in the game will be one of the calculation conditions. It is one of the prospects that learners will be truly able to absorb knowledge from the game and increase learning efficiency after the completing the game. This study shall be expected to achieve substantive goals as follow: 1. The evaluation of the feasibility of combining brainwave machine and game learning. 2. Explore whether brainwave developing and game learning can indeed increase learning efficiency.
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Learning through Digital Games The design of learning through game does not only have to consider the characterisitics of a game, but as well as the level of difficulty. Garris et al. (2002) provided learning through game model called the Input-Process-Outcome model. It emphasizes on getting involved in learning through games, giving learners who learn through digital games an analysis model for educational gaming. It also addresses that the purpose of gaming model is producing a model to induce more studies on games, and provide a language and method to examine on how to analyze the usage of education in computer games. Discussion on Theories of Situated Learning Situated learning theory was the topic commonly heeded by American psychiatrists from the late 80s and early 90s. Since Brown et al. (1989) has brought up situated learning, it has been a focus of all. The theory stresses that knowledge is situated, and it is the product from the interaction of activity, situation, and culture. Situated learning can be able to account for the specialty of human recognized activities, and gain insight into nature of knowledge. Schön (1987) has brought up learning concepts such as knowing in action, and introspecting in action. These are one of the very important aspects of situated learning (Ban-Yo, Chung, 1994)。 Situated Learning and Virtual Environment Burdea and Coiffet (2003) think that the components of virtual reality need to have immersion, interaction, and imagination, which are the three main elements. These are called the 3I of virtual reality, because using virtual reality different scenes can be constructed. Thus, various scenes can be constructed for a specific learning content. This is also why present scholars in the education field use virtual reality as learning material, allowing the learners to encounter obstacles and try to solve them in the constructed environment. This will help to achieve the purpose of learning through doing, and doing through learning. The Link between Attention Span, Executive Function and Learning Yi-Ching, Lin et al. (2011) has provided five items from the past documents on the link between attention span and learning. This study will extract five of the following relevant to the study: 1.
Attention span and execution function and academic performance: Past studies indicate that 5th and 6th graders’ execution function has to do with their academic performances (Clair-Thompson &Gathercole, 2006). Those with better working memory performed better in English and mathematics courses than others.
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Attention span and execution function and reading ability: Past studies indicate that observing the attention span of pre-school age children will lead to effective prediction of the reading ability performance of children in their elementary school period. (Horn & Packard, 1985). The more attention children places on learning, the better memory of literary works they will have.
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Attention span and execution function and calculation ability: Studies indicate that the efficiency of exeuction ability can be used to predict the early calculation ability of children (Swanson, 2006). When children display similar ability in solving mathematics problem, those with better execution ability are more likely to have better ability in solving mathematics questions involving multiplication (Agostino et al.,
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2010). Experiment Procedure The main target of this study will be the development of brainwave as part of learning through game, while evaluating the learning circumstances before and after using the game. A systematic evaluation analysis will be given by way of questionnaire after the test. Testing Subjects and the Environment The study subject will be general 6th grade students, and 34 of them will be invited to this experiment. 17 of them will be randomly assigned to the experiment team, and 17 of them to the controlled team for testing. The experiment environment will be the teaching study room in the elementary school, which is in the quieter area of the school. It will prevent students from disturbances by outside noises while being tested. The location is amply lit by light, and will not interfere with other rooms. The experiment time will be two days, and 3 hours each day. Research tool The research tools that are used in study include “brainwave game-based learning” and “pre-test and post-test evaluation,” “System Usability Scale ,” and “Affective Usability Scale” and others(Table 1). For category of vocabulary test, it has mainly obtained from the stipulated 1,200 words that must be memorized by elementary school student and preliminary 2,000 words by junior high school students of the Ministry of Education. After discussions by the focus group, it has chosen those food vocabularies that have frequently showed up in daily life, and are suitable to be placed in the shopping mall.
Table 1- Category, mode, and number of question of the Questionnaire Point of timing for test Pretest Post-test
Category of test Test of English vocabulary Test of English vocabulary Usability scale of SUS system AUS emotion application questionnaire
number question 10 10 10
10
of
purpose of measurement Appreciate the English level of learner before learning the game Appreciate the English level of learner after learning the game The system usability scale is used to measure the subjective perception of the subjects Usability of measurement tools, and the learning motivation, satisfaction, and intention of continuous use of the test subjects
Game design Game design will make use of 3ds Max and Unity3D game engine as the start tools for game. Of its composition, a virtue episode is created as the primary axis of the game for proceeds, and then it will base on the game story to produce scenes and figures of the game. Besides, game rules defined in the last previous episode will be realized when the game is
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produced. And the game will exploit software languages of C# and JavaScript. In figure 1, it is the elaboration on the game interface.
Figure 1Introduction of game interface
The opening scene of the game is the briefing on game mission and explanation how the game is to be conducted. The mission will, clearly, explain to players that they have to obtain 10 kinds of commodities in the convenience store, and when players have understood the mission and the rules of the game they can then press the START button and begin to play. When players enter convenience store, their mission will then begin. And the greatest difference between the control and experimental group is that the condition the experimental group reckoned to obtain the commodity is when learners stand in front of the commodity picture card of English vocabulary will appear. Right then, clock will begin to tick, and there will be 10 seconds. As time is up, learners will then obtain the commodity. And the difference of condition if experimental group has obtained the commodity is by using brainwave analyzer to detect the size of attention value. When the attention value has reached high level of attention of 80 and lasted for 5 seconds, learners can then obtain the commodity. Research results As indicated from the learning evaluation analysis in figure 2, it is clearly shown that though the average 24.7 of pretest for the experimental group lacks behind 28.23 of the control group; however, when the two groups have utilized different modes of game-based learning, the score of the experimental group has, as average, advanced by 25.88, far more superior than 17.05 by the control group.
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Figure 2 line graph of pretest and post-test between experimental group and control group
60 50 40
Control group
30 20
Experimental group
10 0 Pre‐test
Post‐test
In the SUS system, the average score of test subjects for the system is 63.82, the median as 62.5, while the greatest and smallest value are respectively as 87.5 and 35. As seen, the average score is 63.82, which has reached the scale standard, yet difference remains between the whole and the total, telling the fact that there is still space of improvement with the system. The analysis of AUS has reached the ideal value as 0.815, and the average of the whole is 3.67, showing the fact that responses to each question of this emotional application questionnaire by test subjects are found between “fair” and “satisfactory.” Thus the percentage of the highest and second highest score is selected, showing the fact that 58.41% of the test subjects are found with the status as satisfactory or more than satisfactory. It has then indicated that the game evaluation is of positive response and satisfactory. Conclusions The use of game-based learning with brainwave development is conducive to enhance learning effect. And after the analysis of learning evaluation score between pre-test and post-test as focused on the experimental and control group by this study, it is found that the learning effect of the former, after test subjects of the experimental group has used brainwave analysis to conduct the game, is evidently better than that of the control group, if the test subjects of the latter do not exploit brainwave analyzer. Though the score of pre-test average by the experimental group far lags behind the average score of pre-test by the control group, the average score of the experimental group in post-test has dramatically increased, and fared much higher than that of the control group. Also, the game-based learning developed with brainwave used in this study can help learner to use more easily. As based on the evaluation results of the USU system usability scale, it is realized that test subjects have, after the use of this game-based learning, awarded positive assessment to this game-based learning, and the score is 63.82 after the calculation by the system evaluation, reckoned to be of the better score. The game-based learning using brainwave for development in this study can help learner to generate positive emotion, and the usability, learning motive, satisfaction, and continuous intention of use by learner have shown relatively percentage after the evaluation by AUS emotional application questionnaire. It has then indicated that learner will be willing and be on own initiative to use brainwave game-based learning to learn English vocabulary if there
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is another chance to use this game-based learning after the conclusion of this experiment. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We/The authors thank Crimson Interactive Pvt. Ltd. (Ulatus) for their assistance in manuscript translation and editing KEYWORDS INDEX Game-base learning, Situational learning, Attention, Brainwave REFERENCES Agostino, A., Johnson, J., & Pascual-Leone, J. (2010) Executive functions underlying multiplicative reasoning: problem type matters. Journal of experimental child psychology 105(4):286-305 Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989) Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher 18(1):32-41 Burdea, G. C., & Coiffet, P. . (2003) Virtual Reality Technology, New Brunswick Clair-Thompson, H. L. St, & Gathercole, S. E. (2006) Executive functions and achievements in school:Shifting, updating, inhibition, and working memory. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 59(4):745-759 Gee, J. P. (2004). Learning by design: Games as learning machines. Interactive Educational Multimedia 8:15-23 Hogle, J. G. (1996) Considering Games as Cognitive Tools:In Search of Effective "Edutainment", University of Georgia Horn, W. F., & Packard, T. (1985) Early identification of learning problems: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology 77(5):597-607 Schön, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner, San Francisco:San Francisco Swanson, H. L. (2006) Cognitive processes that underlie mathematical precociousness in young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 93(3):239-264. Lin Yi-Chin Lin, Le Guan-hui, Song Wen-shin, Ke Hua-wei, Ovid Tzeng, Hong Lan & Ruan Qi –hong (2011) with approach of cognitive neural science to investigate the connection between development and learning of children’s attention, psychology bulletin, Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University 42(3):517-542. Chung Bang-you, (1994), Production study on contextual computer-aided math learning software. Dissertation, National Taiwan Normal University.
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