A smart collaborative educational game with learning analytics to support english vocabulary teaching

Abstract

Learning Analytics (LA) approaches have proved to be able to enhance learning process and learning performance. However, little is known about applying these approaches for second language acquisition using educational games. Therefore, this study applied LA approaches to design a smart collaborative educational game, to enhance primary school children learning English vocabularies. Specifically, the game provided dashboards to the teachers about their students in a real-time manner. A pilot experiment was conducted in a public primary school where the students’ data from experimental and control groups, namely learning and motivation test scores, interview and observation, were collected and analyzed. The obtained results showed that the experimental group (who used the smart game with LA) had significantly higher motivation and performance for learning English vocabularies than the control group (who used the smart game without LA). The findings of this study can help researchers and practitioners incorporate LA in their educational games to help students enhance language acquisition. © 2021, Universidad Internacional de la Rioja. All rights reserved.