Treffer: A New Game-Based Learning Approach for Learning Java on Mobile Devices.

It can be observed that smartphones have been getting more and more popular since the first iPhone was released in 2007. While their hardware become more powerful and touch screens become larger, people would like to use them to surf the web, chat and play games on their smartphones anytime anywhere. Especially young people have integrated these devices into their daily lives. This research project has been developed to connect two worlds: mobile Java learning and mobile gaming. Since many computer science and engineering students are saying that learning programming is hard, this research project introduces a new game-based mobile Java learning approach, which is seen as an extension to traditional teaching methods such as lectures and lab sessions. To test the new approach, a survey has been set up in order to find out how Java is currently taught and what are students’ needs for a mobile Java learning game. A prototype has been developed based on the findings of existing work and the initial survey. The prototype has been tested in a subsequent user study in eight different Java introduction courses. Results of each part of the user study are presented and discussed. Further, the paper will give an outlook to user tests that will be conducted in near future as well as recommendations for similar projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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