Yildirim Oguzcan, Surer Elif
Department of Modeling and Simulation, Graduate School of Informatics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.
JMIR Serious Games. 2021 May 31;9(2):e25997. doi: 10.2196/25997.
Specific learning difficulties (SpLD) include several disorders such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia, and the children with these SpLD receive special education. However, the studies and the educational material so far focus mainly on one specific disorder.
This study's primary goal is to develop comprehensive training material for different types of SpLD, with five serious games addressing different aspects of the SpLD. The second focus is measuring the impact of adaptive difficulty level adjustment in the children's and their educators' usability and technology acceptance perception. Receiving feedback from the children and their educators, and refining the games according to their suggestions have also been essential in this two-phase study.
A total of 10 SpLD educators and 23 children with different types of SpLD tested the prototypes of the five serious games (ie, Word game, Memory game, Category game, Space game, and Math game), gave detailed feedback, answered the System Usability Scale and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) questionnaires, and applied think-aloud protocols during game play.
The games' standard and adaptive versions were analyzed in terms of average playtime and the number of false answers. Detailed analyses of the interviews, with word clouds and player performances, were also provided. The TAM questionnaires' average and mean values and box plots of each data acquisition session for the children and the educators were also reported via System Usability Scale and TAM questionnaires. The TAM results of the educators had an average of 8.41 (SD 0.87) out of 10 in the first interview and an average of 8.71 (SD 0.64) out of 10 in the second interview. The children had an average of 9.07 (SD 0.56) out of 10 in the first interview.
Both the educators and the children with SpLD enjoyed playing the games, gave positive feedback, and suggested new ways for improvement. The results showed that these games provide thorough training material for different types of SpLD with personalized and tailored difficulty systems. The final version of the proposed games will become a part of the special education centers' supplementary curriculum and training materials, making new enhancements and improvements possible in the future.
特定学习困难（SpLD）包括阅读障碍、计算障碍和书写障碍等多种病症，患有这些特定学习困难的儿童接受特殊教育。然而，迄今为止的研究和教育材料主要集中在一种特定病症上。
本研究的主要目标是为不同类型的特定学习困难开发综合培训材料，设计五款针对特定学习困难不同方面的严肃游戏。第二个重点是衡量自适应难度级别调整对儿童及其教育工作者的可用性和技术接受度认知的影响。在这个两阶段研究中，收集儿童及其教育工作者的反馈，并根据他们的建议完善游戏也很重要。
共有10名特定学习困难教育工作者和23名患有不同类型特定学习困难的儿童测试了五款严肃游戏（即文字游戏、记忆游戏、分类游戏、空间游戏和数学游戏）的原型，给出详细反馈，回答系统可用性量表和技术接受模型（TAM）问卷，并在游戏过程中应用出声思维协议。
从平均游戏时间和错误答案数量方面分析了游戏的标准版本和自适应版本。还通过词云图和玩家表现对访谈进行了详细分析。还通过系统可用性量表和TAM问卷报告了儿童和教育工作者每次数据采集 session 的TAM问卷平均值、均值和箱线图。教育工作者的TAM结果在第一次访谈中平均得分为8.41（标准差0.87），满分10分；在第二次访谈中平均得分为8.71（标准差0.64），满分10分。儿童在第一次访谈中平均得分为9.07（标准差0.56），满分10分。
特定学习困难教育工作者和儿童都喜欢玩这些游戏，给出了积极反馈，并提出了新的改进方法。结果表明，这些游戏通过个性化和量身定制的难度系统为不同类型的特定学习困难提供了全面的培训材料。所提议游戏的最终版本将成为特殊教育中心补充课程和培训材料的一部分，未来有可能进行新的改进和完善。
