The Effect of Game Difficulty and Conceptual Difficulty on Student Persistence in a Learning Game: A Hierarchical Linear Modeling Approach

• In Event: Perception, Creativity, and Outcomes Related to Gamification

Abstract

Persistence is one of the critical aspects of students’ success in schools. Digital games can be used as vehicles for measuring and enhancing persistence. In this study, we aimed to test the effects of game-level characteristics, and student-related characteristics on student persistence in a game called Physics Playground. The participants were 137, 8th and 9th-grade students from a school in the southeastern US. Using a Hierarchical Linear Modeling Approach, we analyzed the data. Our major findings are (1) the individual differences between the students were statistically significant, (2) both physics understanding and game mechanics difficulty are significant predictors of students’ persistence, however (3) physics understanding difficulty’s effect is greater than that of game mechanics difficulty in predicting students’ persistence.

Authors

• Seyedahmad Rahimi, University of Florida

• Valerie J. Shute, Florida State University

• Qian Zhang, Florida State University