Does Providing a Personalized Educational Game Based on Personality Matter? A Case Study

Abstract

While researchers have highlighted the importance of considering learner's personality as a personalization parameter in computer based learning, very few studies have really addressed this parameter in educational games. Therefore, this paper presents an educational game which models learner's personality, specifically introvert/extrovert dimension, to serve as a personalized game learning environment. Fifty one learners were randomly assigned to a control and an experimental group which learned with a non-personalized and a personalized version of the game respectively. The experimental results show that the personalized educational game did not have a significant impact on learners' motivation, while it did significantly decrease learners' cognitive load. Besides, the learners who learned with the personalized version of the game revealed a significant higher degree of perceived usefulness and intention to use the game than those who learned with the non-personalized version of the game. The findings of this study can be used by educators and game designers to adopt and develop personalized game learning environments based on learner's personality.

Keywords

• Educational games
• personalized learning
• personality
• computer based learning