Gamification and game-based learning have received wide attention in the past few decades. By blending game design and mechanics into traditional learning environment, they enhance students’ participation, motivation and engagement. Squla is such a gamified learning platform where we can find game components like coins, virtual shop, competitive activities and collectables. Besides the above gamified elements, Squla has also transformed standard questions into fun games such as shooting catapults and clicking the popping bubbles. These games are designed to further engage the students and improve their learning.
In this project, we analysed player game type preference based on their game log data, and measure the impact of customised game type delivery. We targeted education group 4 and 5 students users, and focus on catapult games and bubble popper games as they are the most played. A set of features that could reflect students’ preference and emotion states are selected and analysed, including correct ratio, playtime, quitting possibility, etc. Using data clustering, we group students who have similar behaviour and predict their preferred game types. We identified three group of students, one shows high completion rate on all forms of questions, another shows rather low overall completion rate, and the last group has rather high completion rate on bubble popper games and lower completion rate on the catapult shooting games. Based on such findings, we conducted experiment on them to look into different gaming contents’ impact on their learning and engagement. A final experiment consists of a short math quiz and a follow-up questionnaire. The two-week online experiment receives 91 valid responses. Post-play questionnaire, as well as the game log suggest different contents could affect students’ engagement. In particular, preferred contents can elevate a sense of happiness and enhance perceived learning.