Pixel International Conferences

While the gaming market dedicated to pure entertainment dominates the industry, serious games, or educational games, are also gaining in popularity. Teachers can use games, especially educational games, as a supplementary teaching method created for a specific purpose, for instance to improve performance at work or school, or with the focus on learning new languages. Some students encounter difficulties when exposed to serious learning for extended periods of time; therefore, teachers should be aware of the possibility of modifying their lessons to fit more types of learners to increase the students’ motivation. When playing games and learning, students tend to be more animated and generally exceed project requirements.  In class, games decrease the level of stress which is known to impede memory formation and retrieval. New language learners can overcome the fear of speaking in a foreign language.  Students are focused on building communication and collaboration skills, but also develop lasting relationships. During leisure time all games, also those meant for entertainment, help refine language skills. Games also tend to influence our behavior and language.  The Author performs an exploratory data analysis (EDA) from Steam reviews created by users to evaluate educational games for language learning. Data gathering and preprocessing is automated.  Natural language processing and machine learning help to determine positive and negative aspects of such games from the user-experience perspective, and provide insights on the skills and knowledge acquired by the users.

Co-financed by the European Union through the European Social Fund (grant POWR.03.02.00-00-I029).

Keywords: natural language processing, educational games, exploratory data analysis, emotion detection, text statistics.

References:

• Aghlara, L., Tamjid N.H.  (2011), The effect of digital games on Iranian children´s vocabulary retention in foreign language acquisition, Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 29, pp. 552-560
• Dsouza C. (2020), Using text analysis on STEAM reviews for Yakuza 0. Available from: https://towardsdatascience.com/using-text-analysis-to-find-out-why-people-like-yakuza-0-e1123540c6b3 [Accessed March 20, 2021]
• Chen, H.H.J.,  Yang C. (2011), “Investigating the effects of an adventure videogame on foreign languagelearning.” In Edutainment Technologies. Educational Games and Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Applications, M. Chang et al. (eds.),  pp.168-175.
• Higgins S., Xiao Z., Katsipataki M. (2012), The Impact of Digital Technology on Learning : A Summary for the Education Endowment Foundation, Durham.