Game-based learning approach on students’ motivation and understanding of chemistry concepts: A systematic review of literature

Abstract

The past decade has seen a significant shift from teacher-centered pedagogy to a learner-centered approach in chemistry education research. Game-based learning has emerged as one of the most beneficial instructional approaches because it emphasizes “hands-on” and “minds-on” activities in chemistry classrooms. However, there has been a scarcity of review studies in chemistry education research that have attempted to document different educational games implemented and how such games have contributed to enhancing students' motivation and understanding of chemistry concepts. A total of 57 articles were reviewed to identify educational games implemented in chemistry classrooms from 2010 to 2021 to address this gap. All the reviewed articles were downloaded from the Google Scholar search engine and have all been indexed by Scopus. A systematic analysis was adopted to identify the purposes, educational game designs and implementation, and the chemistry content areas of focus for all the reviewed studies. Results show that educational games enhance students’ conceptual understanding of chemistry and increase their motivation to learn and have fun while making sense of the learned content.

Keywords

• Activity-based learning
• Chemistry concepts
• Chemistry education
• Game-based learning
• Secondary school
• Teacher and learner-centered pedagogy