The Impact of Language on Students’ Emotional States in Educational Games: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Capturing students’ emotions while playing an educational game is one approach to assess their motivation towards learning. The language of educational games could serve as a motivating factor for players. This study compares two languages (Arabic and English) in an educational game to understand and compare the effect of the two languages on learning motivation via emotions. An experimental study was conducted with 30 Arabic-speaking students (Male n=13, Female n= 17) while playing an educational game in both Arabic and English languages, and their emotions were recorded. The result shows that participants express significant negative emotions (anger [p < 0.05], contempt [p < 0.05], and sadness [p < 0.05]) while playing the Arabic version of the game than the English version. indicating that participants preferred the English version. These findings suggest that emotion might help evaluate language preference in educational games development.