Measuring student acceptance of game based learning for game and technology education curriculum development

Abstract

Technological education is the modernized practice of learning through the use of technologies. Edutainment is a kind of education which integrates entertainment for educational purposes and uses video games for education. It is a hybrid learning system that depends basically on narrative, visual materials or game-like formats, with less didactic address styles and on a more informal way. Game based learning or edutainment, just like other technology-based education methods, is being used in western or developed countries. Saudi Arabia is considered a developing country just like other Arab countries; hence, computer education has recently appeared in Saudi Arabian education. Therefore, studying this new development in the Saudi educational systems will effect significantly on the speed of developing the educational systems in Saudi Arabia. However, no edutainment games have been designed for this new curriculum. Therefore this research ultimately aims to design a new edutainment game to be used for the computer technology curriculum. To design an efficient edutainment game system, edutainment game effectiveness and the attitudes of students will be measured to know their technology acceptance level for the new edutainment tool and curriculum. The study is carried out using Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), based on four factors; usability, usefulness, ease of use and effectiveness.