Using Serious Games to Teach Preschool Addition and Subtraction: The Difference Between Two Kinds of Embodied Interactive Games

Abstract

According to the theory of embodied cognition, the body is an important participating factor in the learning process, and learning can be promoted through the interaction and feedback between the body and the environment. In this study, two kinds of embodied interactive serious games, namely a somatosensory-interactive game and a touch-interactive game, were designed and developed by taking the example of children's “Learn to add and subtract within 10”. Through serious games, children use physical behaviors to learn the addition and subtraction of numbers in the educational virtual environment created by games and use the intrinsic motivation of games to achieve educational purposes. This study evaluated the actual effects of two kinds of embodied interactive serious games through quasi-experimental research. The study investigated the differences of intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and academic performance of 60 children in two different embodied games. Through data analysis, the results show that in the two serious games, the learning method of using somatosensory-interactive game can produce stronger intrinsic motivation and also has better feedback on some aspects of academic performance, but there is no significant difference in self-efficacy. The experimental group with high intrinsic motivation achieved better results than the control group with low intrinsic motivation.