1. Introduction

Upon entering the first year of my MEEF Master's, it was indicated that we would need to write a research paper on a defined problem, drawing inspiration from our experiences and a topic of interest. We had to choose a "seminar" supervised by a thesis advisor. Having a particular affinity for digital technology, I naturally chose the one on Digital Usage. All that was left was to find a context and a problem...

2. A Previous Experience

To find a context, I decided to look back on what I had experienced before entering the Master's program. Notably, during my teaching experience from 2021 to 2022, and in relation to digital technology. In this way, I remembered that I had created quizzes on the Kahoot platform, which seemed to interest the students. I decided to embark on this theme that intrigued me, possibly opening up new innovative learning methods.

3. Emergence of a Problematic

As a result, all that was left was to find a problematic. To generalize the theme a bit more, I moved from focusing only on quizzes to serious games. My thesis advisor suggested I explore the track of student motivation. Thus, I was able to pose my problematic:

How does the use of serious games increase the motivation of middle school students?

Initially, I had not specified the type of student my research was targeting. But, after some thought, I decided to focus on middle school students rather than high school students.

4. Theoretical Research on Motivation and Serious Games and Hypotheses

After posing my problematic, I conducted my theoretical research using scientific sources. I found various information about motivation, such as the theory of self-determination and its various levels of motivation, the motivational dynamics of students, and behaviorism and conditioning with the notable experiment of Pavlov's dog. But also on the use of serious games in a general context and in the school context.

This various research allowed me to establish two hypotheses:

Conditioning Hypothesis: the student, already conditioned to video games, might associate serious games with their hobby, which can be similar in some respects.
Motivational Dynamics Hypothesis: if the student's experience with the serious game is positive and rewarding, it is likely that they will want to repeat the experience.

I now had to conduct a field survey to validate or invalidate these hypotheses...

5. Survey Among Students

After establishing the theoretical part, it was left to design the form of my experimental protocol. I decided to opt for a questionnaire in two different formats: the first in paper format, and the second in digital format using the Kahoot platform. The objective was to offer one of these two formats to the students to study the direct engagement rate (factual opinion of the student) and indirect (student's feeling at the end of the questionnaire).

I was able to survey a total of 192 students (whom I thank) ranging from sixième (sixth grade in the US or year 7 in the UK) to troisième (ninth grade in the US or year 10 in the UK). Among these responses, only 166 were valid, the others being incomplete or lacking seriousness. Then, I entered the responses into an Excel file and created pivot tables to study numerical data.

6. Surprising Results

While I expected significant differences between the paper and digital questionnaires, I was surprised to find that the difference between these two formats was present, but very marginal. Even worse, the students who responded to the digital questionnaire were less serious than those who responded to the paper questionnaire.

During the defense of my thesis, I was able to discuss with the jury who raised an important point that could explain this gap. Although the questionnaire offered on Kahoot seems more attractive to students, it is still a questionnaire. Thus, this may explain why students may not have perceived a big difference between the two proposed formats. It would be necessary to experiment further by pushing the concept of serious games. This is something I obviously plan to do in the future.

7. Conclusion and Resources

After completing my research paper, I was able to see the potential of serious games, although my experiment was not entirely conclusive. I was able to identify what might be problematic, where the element affecting the results may have come from, which encourages me to conduct further trials.

The development of this thesis was a real challenge. This exercise was not trivial for me, having never done something similar in the past. I doubted many times whether I could complete it, but thanks to the support of my thesis advisor and my perseverance, I was able to keep up the pace and meet this challenge.

Here's how I thank my thesis advisor, and also all the people who contributed to its realization, especially at my M2 internship site: my tutor who agreed to distribute my questionnaire, and the students who took the time to answer my questions.

The thesis, as well as the slideshow used to support the defense, are available in the "File" category. Moreover, we were asked in English to make a video presentation of our thesis. Having made a video capsule for the occasion, it is available in the "Video" section.

Thesis on Serious Games in Middle School

2024 1 School Master MEEF SII

Abstract

Video

File

2024
1
School Master MEEF SII