Hasiah Mohamed Omar

Students Perceptions of Using Educational Games to Learn Introductory Programming

Educational computer games studies experienced rapid growth due to the belief that games can offer various learning benefits being highly popular among younger generations. Programming is considered a challenging subject by students and teachers, consequently students feel less motivated to learn it. It is important to know how educational games can help to enhance our student’s motivation and learning perceptions towards Programming. This paper discusses the authors’ pilot study of undergraduate students’ perceptions towards using educational games as their learning medium using five constructs: motivation, attitudes, cognitive development, interface and expectation with 24 items. The findings indicated that most students had encouraging positive attitudes and were more motivated to learn Programming using games compared to conventional methods. The findings are hopefully will help to enrich knowledge in understanding students’ perceptions regarding educational games for learning, particularly in the Malaysian context.

Playability Heuristics Evaluation (PHE) approach for Malaysian educational games

Heuristics evaluation is one of the common techniques being used for usability evaluation. The potential of HE has been explored in games design and development and later playability heuristics evaluation (PHE) is generated. PHE has been used in evaluating games. Issues in games usability covers forms of game usability, game interface, game mechanics, game narrative and game play. This general heuristics has the potential to be further explored in specific domain of games that is educational games. Combination of general heuristics of games (tailored based on specific domain) and education heuristics seems to be an excellent focus in order to evaluate the usability issues in educational games especially educational games produced in Malaysia.

Methodology to evaluate interface of educational computer game

Game is an application that is popularly used in teaching and learning by some of educational institution to-date. Educational computer game (ECG) is a game being used for teaching and learning. Comprehensive methodology that consist of techniques and tools need to be developed to assist the development of ECG. ECG is an application that combines elements of fun and education and the evaluation criteria need to be able to covers all the important criteria. There are 5 heuristics identified; interface, pedagogical, content, playability and multimedia. Two techniques are identified to be used in evaluation process; PHEG for expert evaluators and PAEG for real user. The tool, online evaluation system (AHP_HeGES) is the tool that can be used to simplify the evaluation process. This research is important because it can help the game developers and educationist to conform the important elements that need to be exists in any ECG through evaluation process.

Usability of educational computer game (Usa_ECG): applying analytic hierarchy process

Evaluation technique for Educational Computer Games (ECG) known as PHEG (consist of 5 heuristics and 37 subheuristics) was developed based on the needs to evaluate the usability of Educational Computer Games (Usa-ECG). Heuristic based concept was used in the development of PHEG. The fundamental issue of PHEG is to help evaluators in evaluating ECG in order to detect Usa-ECG through formative evaluation. At the end of the ECG development, it should be able to integrate educational elements, content, multimedia and it is playable to users with pleasant interface. PHEG was developed through the involvement of expert and verified by prominent experts. To further explore the importance of PHEG, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was performed by 15 experts from various fields. Result shows that Interface heuristic (40.8%) is selected to be the most important heuristic in evaluating Usa_ECG. The second important heuristic is educational element (25.44%) followed by Content (14.57%), Playability (11.2%) and Multimedia (8%) heuristic.

Conceptual Framework for a Heuristics Based Methodology for Interface Evaluation of Educational Games

The use of educational games in teaching and learning is an increasingly relevant trend. Games interface and usability are common elements in games development and important elements for evaluation purposes. This study is aim to develop a methodology for heuristics based formative usability evaluation that can be used to evaluate interface of educational games. The methodology includes set of evaluation questions for different types of evaluators and it is expected to optimize the use of resources based on online evaluation tool. The methodology is intended for the evaluation of educational games during its development process.

Design, implementation and evaluation of a Virtual Showroom

This paper presents the design, development and evaluation of Virtual Showroom that focused on interactivity in manipulating the capabilities of VRML technology. The Virtual Showroom provides virtual furniture that can be viewed, navigated and interacted by the user. Besides that, users are given an option to create the interior design of their own room by dragging virtual furniture provided. Development process involves specific process such as planning, object modeling, navigation, web page integration and evaluation. Evaluation has been done using questionnaire by 30 participants that concentrate on six criteria such as ease of navigation, effectiveness of the interface and user acceptance. Result shows that all of the participants give positive feedback regarding the evaluated criteria and it proves that the objectives of the project have been successfully achieved and able to satisfy both the developer and customers. The development of Virtual Showroom showed that it is possible to have a virtual furniture shop that provided full control for the user while navigating. This can gave a new perspective for the user while do online shopping. The next step is to enhance the application by integrating avatar in order to help first time users in navigating the virtual showroom.

Virtual Handycraft: Interactivity in 3D Product Using VRML

This paper presents the development of Virtual Tembaga (brassware) that focused on interactivity in 3D product using Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). The Virtual Tembaga can be viewed, navigated and interacted by the user. 3D products are well known as an object that can be viewed in 360 degree and it can encourage user’s shopping experience when viewing the 3D object. VRML allows creating “virtual worlds” that are networked via the Internet and provides interactivity for the user. The 3D objects were integrated with three main interactions that were ‘move’, ‘click’ and ‘drag’. The development of Virtual Tembaga showed that it is possible to have a Virtual Heritage shop that provide full control for the user while navigating the virtual product. This can give a new perspective for the user while do online shopping. The next step is to develop an e-commerce application that can really emulate the shopping experience for the user.

Effect of temperature to the structure of silicon nanowires growth by metal-assisted chemical etching

A simple and low cost method to produce well aligned silicon nanowires at large areas using metal assisted chemical etching at various temperature were presented. The high aspect ratio structure of silicon nanowires growth by anisotropic wet etching method was observed. Prior to the etching, the formation of silicon nanowires was by metal assisted chemical etching (MACE) in solution containing hydrofluoric acid and hydrogen peroxide in Teflon vessel. The silver nanoparticle was deposited on substrate by immersion in hydrofluoric acid and silver nitrate solution for sixty second. The silicon nanowires were grown in different temperature which are room temperature, 30°C, 40°C, 65°C and 80°C.The effect of increasing temperature to the formation of silicon nanowires was studied. The morphological properties of silicon nanowires were investigated using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDX). The optical properties of silicon nanowires were investigated using Uv-Vis spectroscopy.

Notice of Retraction Conceptual Framework for a Heuristics Based Methodology for Interface Evaluation of Educational Games

The use of educational games in teaching and learning is an increasingly relevant trend. Games interface and usability are common elements in games development and important elements for evaluation purposes. This study is aim to develop a methodology for heuristics based formative usability evaluation that can be used to evaluate interface of educational games. The methodology includes set of evaluation questions for different types of evaluators and it is expected to optimize the use of resources based on online evaluation tool. The methodology is intended for the evaluation of educational games during its development process.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Conceptual framework for a heuristics based methodology for interface evaluation of educational games

The use of educational games in teaching and learning is an increasingly relevant trend. Games interface and usability are common elements in games development and important elements for evaluation purposes. This study is aim to develop a methodology for heuristics based formative usability evaluation that can be used to evaluate interface of educational games. The methodology includes set of evaluation questions for different types of evaluators and it is expected to optimize the use of resources based on online evaluation tool. The methodology is intended for the evaluation of educational games during its development process.