Motivation, interaction and perceived learning: assessing the impact of an urban game with 7th grade geography students

Abstract

The increasing development of mobile technology devices is revolutionizing education. In this context emerge the mobile location-based games. This research was carried out in an effort to understand the importance of mobile location-based games in informal learning and involved the design of an urban game - “MobiGeo”. MobiGeo was implemented for an outdoor pedagogical activity and enrolled a group of 173 seventh grade geography students. In order to collect data, a questionnaire was developed and validated measuring three dimensions related to educational games: motivation, interaction and perceived learning. Results show that this urban game was an adequate activity to use in informal learning environments because it engaged students in gaming with high degrees of motivation and interaction. In fact, while solving the tasks proposed by MobiGeo, students´ developed their perceptions of learning, consolidating and acquiring new knowledge about the European Union.