"Data Structures is a fundamental Computer Science discipline, challenging students/ abstract thinking, problem solving and programming skills. In this paper, we present an educational game intended to explicate several features hindering students/ understanding of the data structure Stack on conceptual and practical level. The game targets all three aspects of teaching data structures: conceptualization, application and implementation. These aspects are embodied as three parts of the game tied together through a meaningful storyline. The application part targets the use of stacks to solve problems, such as converting arithmetic expressions from infix to postfix notation and evaluating postfix and infix expressions. The implementation part involves solving Parson/s problems and writing Java code for implementing the methods of the Stack class. The results of the conducted evaluation of the game show statistically significant learning gains for the students and a strong positive attitude towards this type of active learning."
Darina Dicheva and Austin Hodge. 2018. Active Learning through Game Play in a Data Structures Course. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 834-839. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3159450.3159605
1. SUMMARY
The paper describes the Stack Game and how it can be used to teach students about Stack - a Data Structure type. The game has missions and levels with actions that mimic stack methods such as pop, push, peek, isEmpty. Both array-based and linked-based stacks are used. Evaluation involves 29 students, and the game was used as a learning activity in two regular classes that were taught by the same instructor. Pre, post and T tests were used. Tover T-test result is 6.25 with effect size of 1. According to the paper, these results demonstrate the usefulness of the game. Qualitative surveys shown that 96% of the students believe the game helped with subject clarification and itself is a useful educational tool.
2. STRENGTHS
The game was designed professionally and has the trendy felling of currently popular games such as Mine Craft. On top of that, game play is interesting with proper levels. The paper spent decent efforts on showcasing those creative sides of the game.
3. WEAKNESSES
The game appears to be capped at 4 levels within the scope of Stack data structure. Also, the paper did not compare the knowledge gains between regular teaching and teaching with this tool. The paper also spent more time describing qualitative results rather than quantitative results. I would personally like the authors discuss more about the qualitative evaluations. Future expansion/development is also unclear.
