Effectiveness of using a video game to teach a course in mechanical engineering

  • Authors:

  • B. D. Coller;M. J. Scott

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115, USA;Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607, USA

  • Venue:
  • Computers & Education
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

One of the core courses in the undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum has been completely redesigned. In the new numerical methods course, all assignments and learning experiences are built around a video/computer game. Students are given the task of writing computer programs to race a simulated car around a track. In doing so, students learn and implement numerical methods content. The design of the course, around a video game, is rooted in commonly accepted theories of how people learn. The article describes a study to assess the effectiveness of the video game-based course. Results show that students taking the game-based course, on average, spend roughly twice as much time, outside of class, on their course work. In a concept mapping exercise, students taking the game-based course demonstrate deeper learning compared to their counterparts taking traditional lecture/textbook-based numerical methods courses.