The development of a computerised system to help primary school students learn math

By Nicky Jones

A Dissertation for the degree of BSc (Hons) for Computer Games Development

April 2018

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

CS3D660 Individual Project

This is to certify that, except where specific reference is made, the work described within this project is the result of the investigation carried out by myself, and that neither this project, nor any part of it, has been submitted in candidature for any other award other than this being presently studied.

Any material taken from published texts or computerized sources have been fully referenced, and I fully realize the consequences of plagiarizing any of these sources.

Student Name (Printed) Nicky Jones

Student Signature N Jones

Registered Course of Study Computer Games Development

Date of Signing 20/11/2017

Table of Contents

ContentsABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................................... 5

INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................................. 6

PROJECT GOAL.................................................................................................................................................... 6

PROJECT OBJECTIVES.......................................................................................................................................... 6

CHALLENGES....................................................................................................................................................... 6

USEFULNESS OF APPROACH................................................................................................................................ 7

DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES CONSIDERED..................................................................................................7

AGILE.........................................................................................................................................................................7WATERFALL.................................................................................................................................................................8FINAL CHOICE..............................................................................................................................................................9

WHAT IS KEY STAGE MATHEMATICS?.................................................................................................................. 9

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND RESEARCH............................................................................................................... 12

RISKS.......................................................................................................................................................................16Ethics Checklist:.................................................................................................................................................16Legal Checklist:.................................................................................................................................................16

DEVELOPMENT TOOLS.................................................................................................................................................16

CHAPTER 3: GAME DEVELOPMENT AND RESULTS..............................................................................................17

PROTOTYPE...............................................................................................................................................................17Implementation................................................................................................................................................17Schools:.............................................................................................................................................................37Problems:..........................................................................................................................................................37

REVIEW....................................................................................................................................................................39Background colour & and image.......................................................................................................................39Main Menu.......................................................................................................................................................41

CHAPTER 4 – CRITICAL EVALUATION, CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK............................................................42

CRITICAL EVALUATION.................................................................................................................................................42CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................................43

BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................................................. 45

APPENDIX A...................................................................................................................................................... 46

APPENDIX B...................................................................................................................................................... 47

MEETING 0 – 21/09/2017.................................................................................................................................. 47

MEETING 1 – 25/09/2017.................................................................................................................................. 47

MEETING 2 – 02/10/2017.................................................................................................................................. 47

MEETING 3 – 10/10/2017.................................................................................................................................. 47

MEETING 4 – 16/10/2017.................................................................................................................................. 48

MEETING 5 – 23/10/2017.................................................................................................................................. 48

MEETING 6 – 30/10/17...................................................................................................................................... 48

MEETING 7 – 06/11/17...................................................................................................................................... 48

MEETING 8 – 13/11/17...................................................................................................................................... 48

MEETING 9 – 20/11/17...................................................................................................................................... 49

MEETING 10 – 27/11/17.................................................................................................................................... 49

MEETING 11 – 4/12/17...................................................................................................................................... 49

MEETING 12 – 11/12/17.................................................................................................................................... 49

MEETING 13 – 8/1/18........................................................................................................................................ 49

MEETING 14 – 15/1/18...................................................................................................................................... 49

MEETING 15 – 22/1/18...................................................................................................................................... 50

MEETING 16 – 29/1/18...................................................................................................................................... 50

MEETING 17 – 5/2/18........................................................................................................................................ 50

APPENDIX C...................................................................................................................................................... 51

Abstractthe use of educational applications that uses elements from games to help with engaging children to

learn better has become an increasingly desired by schools through a method called "gamification". This

project will use “Gamification” which attempts to distil games into 3 core principles:

The goal

The Challenges

Competition

That is required to make them both addictive and fun. Having tested it on multiple children, the results

have been positive as they found it enjoyable and engaging and was able to learn something new.

Overall, the project as it stands meets and exceeds the requirements when originally made, but has

area’s that can be improved and expanded upon.

IntroductionThe aim of the project is to help children through the medium of Gaming to teach them Key

Stage 1 Mathematics this will be accomplished by using the methodology called “gamification”

which is a technique used to distil all the core elements that make regular games interactive

and addictive to people and apply them to educational games to help people learn quicker and

easier.

Project GoalTo create an engaging and friendly piece of software with game elements to help children learn

Maths in a fun way.

Project Objectives

(1) To investigate the extent to which computer games have been used in teaching

(particularly at Key Stage 1) and to document their success and failures;

(2) To learn the Unity Game Engine.

(3) To articulate the rationale for looking at gamification to help improve engagement with

and success with studying Key Stage 1 Mathematics;

(4) To build design and develop a set of game type modules suitable for helping with the

teaching of Key Stage 1 Mathematics;

(5) To test the impact of the software developed within a suitable environment.

Challenges Thoroughly research the concept of “gamification” to properly understand the best way

to keep children interested while teaching them Math at the same time without

incurring the negative affect that comes with “gamification”.

Using the core concepts of “gamification” and apply them to the project to allow for

greater success in keeping children interested in learning Math.

Research previous peoples work to help see where they succeeded and which area’s

they failed to keep children interested.

Understanding Unity Engine to achieve my desired results.

Usefulness of approachA primary outcome of this project is to demonstrate how the benefits of Gamification can be

applied to the teaching of mathematics. Gaming is a new media for which people can learn and

be educated, gaming in itself has only become a big part of peoples’ lives during the past 20

years and as time has gone on so has the impact gaming has had on society especially children,

not only that but gamification allows for a new way of educating people that is not just in

school, Dale(2014) has said that companies such as DirecTV or Volkswagen are completely

embracing gamification as an aid to educate their employee’s, with gamification itself becoming

a growing industry estimated to grow from $1.65 Billion (£1.24billion) to $11.10 billion (£8.38

billion) by 2020 according to MarketsandMarkets(2016).

Development Methodologies consideredAgile Agile consists of four key statements which represents its foundation which is:

Individuals and interactions over processes documentation

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

Agile focuses more on evaluation where it constantly gets evaluated and changed, it is more of

a mind-set than it is a “thing” that you “do” it is not a list of set objectives that needs to be

completed by a specific time, but it also is not a Gun-oh approach either, it is just more

flexible(Bjork, No Date).

Figure 1 (Bjork, No Date)

WaterfallWaterfall is a popular model for software development life cycle, it is a very linear approach to the

development life cycle where you prepare all of your development a head of actually doing any

implementation and stick to that list you prepared.

The main issue for this life cycle is it does not really allow for change or flexibility.

The stages of development for a waterfall model are as follows (Powell-Morse, 2016):

Requirements: finding the potential requirements during the initialization phase when analysed

is imported.

Analyzation: the system that is going to be built is analysed to properly generate the waterfall

model for that specific system.

Design: the development is largely revolved around the technical design, like programming

language to use, services to use, potential third party services and how the business logic will be

covered.

Coding: development is the implementation of the models designed and analysed during the

previous stages.

Testing: the implementation gets tested by testers to check for bugs. It is not uncommon for the

coding stage to be restarted due to bugs and errors.

Release: the software is released for users, and is maintained and kept up to date.

Figure 2 Powell-Morse, (2016)

Final ChoiceIn the development of the dissertation and reviewing different methodology approaches such

as agile and waterfall, they both have aspects the would be beneficial in the development of

this project such as adaptive planning and evolution development of the process that Agile

offers but also the structure and the linear approach that waterfall offers, so the project is

going to attempt and use the early planning and controlled methodology that waterfall offers

while trying to maintain and element of potential change in the planning and evolution of the

development that agile offers.

What is Key Stage Mathematics?Key stage is a programme used in the UK (except Scotland) which is the national curriculum and

is divided into four stages of development, each with its own prescribed course of study for

educating children.

This project focus on Key stage 1 mathematics that covers the educational material children in

year 1 and year 2 will study in primary school.

First year:Counting:

Count to and across 100, forwards and backwards beginning at either 0 or 1

Count, read and write numbers to 100 in numerals; count in multiples of twos, fives and tens

When given a number, identify and give a number one more and one less than the number

given

Identify and represent numbers using objects and pictorial representations

Read and write numbers from 1 to 20 in numerals and words

Addition and Subtraction: Read and write mathematical statements using (+), (-) and (=) signs

Represent and use number bonds and related subtraction facts within 20

Add and subtract one-digit and two-digit numbers to 20, including zero

Solve one-step problems that involve addition and subtraction, using concrete objects and

pictorial representation and missing number problems

Geometry: Recognise and name common 2D and 3D shapes

Directions and movements, including half, quarter and three-quarter turns.

Multiplication and Division: Solve one-step problems involving multiplication and division by calculating the answer using

concrete objects, pictorial representations and arrays

Fractions: Find and name a half as one of two equal parts of an object, shape or quantity

Find and name a quarter as one of four equal parts of an object, shape or quantity

Measurement:Compare and describe and solve practical problems for

Lengths and heights

Mass or weight

Capacity and volume

Time

Recognise and know the value of different denominations of coins and notes

Year 2:Number:

Count in steps of 2, 3 and 5 from 0

Recognise and place value of each digit in a two-digit number (tens, ones)

Compare and order numbers from 0 to 100, using <, > and = signs

Read and write numbers to at least 100 in numerals and in words

Multiplication and division: Recall and use multiplication and division facts for the 2, 5 and 10 multiplication tables, including

recognising odd and even numbers

Calculate mathematical statements for multiplication and division within the multiplication

tables

Show that multiplication of two numbers can be done in any order

Fractions: Recognise, find, name and write fractions 1/3, ¼, 2/4 and ¾ of a length, shape, set of objects or

quantity

Write simple fractions e.g ½ of 6 = 3

Measurement: Choose and use appropriate stand units to estimate and measure length/height in any direction

Compare and order lengths, mass, volume/capacity and record results using >,< and = signs

Recognise and use symbols for pounds (£) and pence (p); combine amounts to make a particular

value

Tell and write time to five minutes

Know the number of minutes in an hour and the number of hours in a day

Geometry: Identify and describe the properties of 2D shapes

Identify and describe the properties of 3D shapes

Identify 2D shapes on the surface of 3D shapes

Compare and sort common 2D and 3D shapes and everyday objects

Order and arrange combinations of mathematical objects in patterns and sequences

Use mathematical vocabulary to describe position, direction and movement.

Statistics: Interpret and construct simple pictograms, tally charts, block diagrams and simple tables

Ask and answer simple questions by counting the number of objects in each category and

sorting the categories by quantity

Ask and answer questions about totalling and comparing data.

Chapter 2: Background Research Research has revealed that the term “gamification” and what the general concept and ideas it

provides helps in providing a better understanding of what is achievable when using the core

principles of gamification in a game.

Websites like www.adaptedmind.com have been looked at which is an online website using

game elements to help teach children math from 1st to 8th grade. It follows the same construct

as gamification in how it uses elements like a point system and fun animation to keep children

entertained and competitive.

Adaptedmind has put a lot of effort into the principles of Gamification had has used a few of

them very well, it provides a very aesthetically pleasing colour theme, it provides an engaging

animation when going through the math questions that will help keep children’s attention, and

offers a scoring system (diamonds) that allows you to purchase items from a store when you’ve

accumulated enough diamonds.

They offer an excellent hint option when you are stuck on a question and having difficulties

solving a question by providing a video of the question being explained to you with visual help

on a whiteboard.

They do not utilise all of the core principles as they do not offer very much in the way of

competition, currently they give you the ability to get diamonds when answering questions and

which gives children a goal if they want to save up enough diamonds to purchase something

from the store, but they do not offer anything for completing a set of questions in a specific

time or give a difficulty button to allow for harder questions to be given which provides the

children with more diamonds for having a higher understanding of what they are learning.

Figure 3 - AdaptedMind main menu

Another example would be https://www.mymaths.co.uk this company takes an approach more

towards what this project is aiming for but with a little less colourful/game orientated, this

company does a great job of giving you questions that are easy to understand with a set of

instructions to boot with it does have games tailored to math problems but also takes a more

interactive whiteboard approach to teaching.

They allow children to be given homework tasks and have it set up so their teachers have the

ability to see what they have done and how well they have done in the area’s they have

attempted to so far and gives the teachers the ability to provide feedback to the students if

they are struggling on specific questions.

They have also implemented it for the children parents to review their child’s progress on the

website too, so the parents can also take the initiative and help their child with math problems

with which they could be struggling.

This website hits most of the main goals described as the key goals for Gamification with its

combination of whiteboard teaching which provides a goal for a student to complete and with

all the added benefits of teachers and parents being able to see the work and the results the

children are getting along with the games they also provide gives the children friendly

competition with their peers in completing a game first.

According to White(2015) Gamification is not only being used for education in children and

teenagers but also in the workplace too. Such as the UK Government or Dominos food chain.

For example the UK Government communications headquarters put up an encrypted message

on the website known as CanYouCrackIt.co.uk and used it as part of their application process to

find ideal candidates for interviews.

One author, Smith-Robbins(2011) talks about what is Gamification, gamification is a term

invented to describe the application of game mechanics such as points, badges and levels but

the problem is that is not exactly what makes a game a game, to understand what makes a

game we need to look at the core structure of a game.

1. The goal: every game needs to have a goal it is what constitutes as you are winning

the game, every game must have a clear goal which it is built around by giving the

players the tools to get to it, ultimately players need to care enough to get to the goal.

2. The Challenges: Games aren’t much fun if they are easy, difficulties and challenges

should be a part of the game if players aren’t having any difficulties then winning won’t

mean much to them.

3. Competition: There are two ways a game can go about having a goal that’s either

defeating another player or a player defeating the game itself, both helps create

competition either against other people or against themselves.

Gamification requires these three points to be present in your game otherwise players will

either struggle to complete the game, struggle to even bother completing the game or have

zero motivation to better themselves at playing the game.

Why does gamification work? Dale(2014) seems to suggest that the reason gamification works

for companies not just based around gaming is because users respond positively to particular

stimuli or situations with rewards for users exhibiting the right behaviours.

Gamification helps turn software into game entities by using game mechanics and thinking to

help users engage and solve problems. Gamification has been growing vastly in recent years

especially regarding academic papers on the subject also, as you can see from the chart below

roughly 6,600 papers with the word Gamification in it was published between 2010-2013 and

over 18,000 papers have been created between 2013-2017 (as of 21st of November 2017

7:57pm)

Disadvantages: It is clearly established now that gamification has benefits and can be used to

benefit a lot of different scenario’s but there are negatives to gamification too, as like any other

game gamification suffers the same problems. Especially when used in a working environment

compared to an educational environment.

Frequency: because gamification takes elements present in games in an educational way it is

also possible for people to overdo it, which essentially defeats its purpose in the first place,

they should be activities you spend a little time on, it shouldn’t be something that takes

priorities over other commitments, like in a job environment you should be prioritising your

active duties than playing a game that simulates those duties. As the same with children in

education, they should also be learning from the teacher not just playing games that simulates

what the teacher is trying to teach them.

Figure 4 Gamification figures

Relevance: when trying to apply gamification to the work place or to education, a connection

needs to be made to what is to be taught. You want to teach them clearly in your approach

when using gamification, if there is not a clear relevance between the two there is no point in

attempting gamification and other means should be considered instead.

Quality: like in almost any other aspect of life quality needs to be assured, if the game is not

entertaining or competitive which is two of the core structures to gamification then it will fail to

hold the persons attention or teach them anything.

RisksEthics Checklist:

Primary school children will be asked to test the prototype and fill out a questionnaire, all

available options will be explored to make sure that no questions or answers will allow for the

identity of the individual to be shown or found.

Legal Checklist: The software being used to develop the project is Unity, therefore a licence will be acquired to

use the engine. Unity personal is the free licence and is aimed at beginners to the software. This

is the licence I will be using and I will not exceed their limitations for using the software which is

“If your company currently makes more than $100k in annual gross revenues or has raised funds

in excess of $100k, you are not permitted to sue Unity Person, for prototyping or otherwise, as

defined in our EULA Agreement” (Unity, 2017).

If the data of any user is recorded, the data will be protected and secure in the best way

possible per the Data Protection Act (1998).

Due to the age demographic that the project is aimed at all available resources will be used to

ensure the safety of the users by making sure the game follows the guidelines set by PEGI.

A plugin purchased from the Unity Store for the making of the project called “UI button” made

by DOOZY ENTERTAINMENT.

Development toolsUnity Game Engine the free version has been decided to make the software in, the reason Unity

has been chosen is because Unity has already been used to create software/games before and

provides the most experience for a more easy and high-quality production of the software

when completed and released, Unity also has a nice tool for developing on mobile devices also,

so it wouldn’t be too complicated to make the software available via mobile/tablet devices for

kids to learn at home too.

Chapter 3: Game Development and ResultsIn the development of the game, the project went through three stages of process, A prototype, and review of the prototype to see if it is of sound Quality and covers what is needed and if the prototype is of worth it will then go into the final development where it will be in the final product with possible slight modifications if needed.

Prototype

Implementation

So far, the creation of a very simple but effective menu system for the children to navigate

through along with the basic implementation of the times-table, it has a point system which will

be expanded upon to entice competition and more engagement when a system is put in place

to use up points they have collected for doing math questions to purchase themselves

something useful or perhaps theme based that will want to keep them using the software.

Here are some accompanying images to show some of the prototype off:

Figure 5 Main menu

Figure 6 Sub menu

Figure 7 TimesTable Menu

Figure 8 2 TimesTable screen

A basic menu implementation as become the start of the project with a few scenes set up with different

buttons switching between scenes. Timetables was the first mathematical problem that was going to be

implemented first as a basis for what the coding requirements were going to be like.

A difficulty setting has not been added, as it was felt to be an unnecessary addition considering the age

of the children and felt the potential benefits wouldn’t outweigh the cons neither would it provide much

of a benefit.

A new asset called Textmesh Pro has been implemented which is a free asset on the unity store that is

an improved version of what Unity already has which allowed the creation of a gradient for the text and

the background to make it more vibrant and bold. The assert also came with a few free assets, that has

been used, one being the background image and another one that has been used is an arrow during the

tutorial section when pointing specific things out to the children.

Times TableThe times table UI scene was created by placing 10 answer boxes, 10 buttons, 10 message boxes and 10

invisible boxes next to one another in a default layout shown in the image above, two more invisible

boxes were added at the bottom of both lines for the default spawning spot of the images that shows

the box of numbers.

When the child presses the next question button, the code takes the first element from an array of the

images makes it visible then a piece of code gets executed that makes it move up to one of the default

visible boxes next to the text box. That allows the child to either answer each question individually or

they can simply make them all spawn first and then answer them.

Once a child has answered one of the questions they press the button next to the text box which checks

to see if the answer they have input is correct, if it is correct then the button will play the animation for

it being correct while the text box next to the button will also display a text congratulating them for

getting it correct, whereas if they got it incorrect the button will play a different animation and the text

box will also display that they have got it incorrect and prompt them to try again.

Read and writeThis scene is created by having a tutorial to start off with to explain to the children how to play this

scene, so it goes through explaining that the children will be given a number that is either as a value or a

word, and they must type what the opposite is, so if the number is “Five” they have to type “5” in the

answer box and if the number is “10” they have to type “Ten”.

Once the tutorial is over they have given a random number from two lists containing 1-100 in both

values and words it is randomly picked each time so the scene is repeated without the likelihood of

receiving the same numbers constantly, once they have typed in the answer and checked to see if it is

correct, the code takes the random number that was generated and uses that number to get the exact

opposite number from the other list to prevent any kind of error occurring and allowing for less “hard

coding”.

One more one lessThis scene is also set up with a tutorial section to explain to the children how to play this scene it

explains that when given a random number, the children have to type the value that’s one more and

one less than the number randomly generated and the number itself.

The way this works in the code once a number has been randomly generated between 1-20 the code

gets the number randomly picked and adds one value and one less from it and sends it to two different

variables that the answer from the children will be checked against.

Math StatementsThis scene is created by creating a basic layout of how a question is presented with 4 different boxes two

that shows the random numbers, 1 that is the mathematical statement “+ & -“ and the answer box.

This scene is split up into multiple different types of questions, the first 3 gives you two random

numbers with a random math statement of + or – and you must type in the correct answer, after you’ve

answered three, it changes and it gives you the answer but you have to give the correct math statement

that would produce the output given to the children.

In the code this is done very simply by doing basic math, when presented two random numbers if the

math statement that is randomised + or – I simply use that against the two numbers to get the correct

output. And like wise when the child has to input the math statement I check to see what the two

numbers randomised are, what the answer is randomised too and check to see if the math statement

needs to be a + or a – and then check what the student input is against the check.

One digit two digitThis scene is done very similar to the math statement scene except it is done simpler, the child is given a

default answer number of 20, and is given one random number that the student then has to type in the

second number that would make the sum equal 20, this is split up into six questions three of which are

for the + statement and three for the – statement.

ShapesShapes is done by having an imagine on the screen with three different choices to choose from, the

image is chosen from a list of different shapes stored in an array and depending on which image is

shown if the user clicks the correct answer button they receive a message congratulating them

otherwise they are told they are incorrect.

One step problemOne step problem is done by giving an image of pairs of items and asking the child to answer how many

of that object is, this is done by going through an array of images that has a number of different pair of

items, each question adds more pairs to the screen prompting the child to check to see how many of

those objects are visible on the screen.

MeasurementMeasurements is done by asking the children different questions regarding measurements such as giving

an image of a jug which a different volume of water and asking the student how much more does it

need to reach a new volume, another set of questions the children will be asked is to convert kg and g

using flour as a catalyst.

They’ll be asked to tell the time from a couple of images of clocks with different times on it and finally

they will be giving images of different amount of money which they’ll need to input how much is being

shown in the image.

Year 2 is a bit more complicated, the children are given multiple images and they have to decide which

one is taller or smaller, or longer or shorter, which can hold more objects or less or which is heavier or

lighter. They are then given a few more images of clocks, which they have to tell the time to 5 minutes.

They are then asked how many minutes in an hour and how many hours in a day.

Multiplication and DivisionMultiplication and division is done presenting the children with the default format of a sum with the

numbers being randomized, but after they have answered the sum correctly they are the prompted with

a box in the middle of the screen with an additional question asking if the answer is an odd or an even

number. The questions are split three for “x” and three for “/”

FactionsFractions is done by offering different images separated into slices with a specific fraction of slices

coloured and the child must click the button that has the correct answer, after answering 5 times the

child is then given two more questions where they are given a number and an answer and is asked what

fraction of that number equals the answer.

GeometryIn year 2 for geometry, they are given a brief description of what the shape is and they have to read the

text and figure out what the shape is. An example of this is “This shape has no straight edges, only one

curved edge, and no corners” the answer to this question would be a circle.

After a few questions of this nature, they are then given 3D shapes that they can move about and they

must answer how many faces, edges and corners these shapes have by moving them about.

An implementation that is key to one of the core principles of gamification called “Goals” as part of this,

a store has been created, so that when a child answers a question correctly they will receive a point,

when enough points have been gathered they can trade those points in to modify something specific

about their game, currently the store allows them to change the background image when choosing

which area of questions, they want to learn in Year 1 and Year 2.

This is the previous default background image:

And this is the new background image when a child buys a new image with their points:

Another implementation that was made was a tutorial example on certain math scenes,

because it was immediately clear what the object was or how to do, a tutorial was created for

the children to have a visual representation of an example in how to do a question so they once

they finished the tutorial they know how to answer the questions properly.

It was decided to add a transparent panel to each section, which has allowed the use of the UI

that has already created for the sections, this prevents children from accessing the sections

straight away and forces them to click to go through each tutorial so they know what they are

doing.

Here is an example of what the tutorial screen looks like now.

A new asset was bought to allow for animations to be done when pressing a button, with this

feature if a child enters a correct or incorrect number when doing the times table, a different

animation will play depending on if the answer is correct or not.

Figure 9 Tutorial screen

Schools: There hasn’t been any movement on finding a school to test the sections that has already been

completed on children to get their feedback, but after having a conversation with Mike Reddy

he mentioned that he was doing something with school’s sometime soon and would get back to

see if there was a chance the project could be tested on school children.

Problems: When creating this project, I decided to make the math problem sections as different UI scenes

rather than new scenes; the problem with this was when switching between different UI scenes

it did not reset the data of the questions, so the data must be reset manually in the code when

the scene is reactivated.

Another problem is trying to find an appropriate colour-theme for the project, it needs to be

bright and cheerful, and it needs to be pleasing to the eye and makes you take a second look. A

few colours have been looked at, specifically a yellow/orange/red blend.

Problems were experienced recently which has resulted in a bit of a delay in some of the

sections being completed later than usual because the project has had a new asset which is an

improved version of the text function compared to Unity’s default text asset, and as doing so it

meant accessing these through code has been a little more complex because there is not a

great deal of documentation or tutorials in accessing it in the way that is needed for the

dissertation project.

With the animation asset that I bought it was difficult to have it do a specific animation for a

specific condition, thus trying to get the button to do different animations depending if the

answer was correct or not took a while to figure out, as the asset is designed to simply execute

one animation when the button is clicked rather than giving you choices.

The way this was solved was by having to manually load the library the animation asset used

and call the animation functions directly in code when specific conditions is being met.

Below is the code that calls the different animation functions.

Review

Background colour & and imageDuring the prototype phase, many different colours were tested as a potential final background colour,

but after a number of tests, it was decided that none of them covered the criteria of:

Child friendly

Eye catching

Bright and cheerful

A website was used that determines appropriate colours that blends will with a specific primary colour

that is entered in, after a few tests a yellow, orange and red colour scheme was decided upon a bold

outline has gone around the writing to help make it pop out and to separate the colour more from the

background as it shares the exact same colour scheme, it was previously mentioned when being tested

that the writing blurred together with the background to much.

Here is an example of what the current colour-scheme looks like from a Menu and a Game.

Figure 10 new colour-scheme

Figure 11 colour-scheme 2

Main MenuThe main menu from the prototype did not look very eye pleasing now was it 100% accurate so

improvements were made to make it looks better and be more accurate.

Here is a picture of the new menu.

Chapter 4 – Critical Evaluation, Conclusion and Future WorkCritical EvaluationWhen critically evaluating the project it is wise to look at the whole scope and not just the

implementation. This includes the process of making the project and then comparing them to what

could be done differently and how.

At the beginning of the project, the objectives were set could be used as a guideline for what was

achieved. One of the first objectives that was originally set at the beginning was to gain a higher

understanding of the Unity Game Engine. When looking at the project it is apparent that the knowledge

that has been acquired is of a higher level than at the starting point of the project.

However, although the knowledge of using Unity Game Engine has increased it has not increased

enough to meet all the standards that was expected to be in the program by its completion. Specifically

a severe lack of animation is included, which is a vital part of keeping children’s concentration.

Another objective that fell short of what was expected was the review of the project to the demographic

that it is aimed towards, only two children successfully tested the application and although the review

was well received the lack of additional children meant the reviews that had been received were skewed

and the overall data lacked depth to make an informed decision on whether certain aspects of the

application was good or poor.

The investigation into other computer games that have been developed and their success has been

covered and research well; it provides a good base line to evaluate the project against. Although the

project covers the topics required for the Key Stage 1 and the questions themselves are done well, the

actual cosmetic aesthetic fell short when comparing it to existing successful applications.

It lacked in the child friendly colour and image scheme, but it also did not remain consistent at times

compared to the more successful applications.

ConclusionThe goal of the project was to make a fun and interactive program that would help children to

learn Math for Key Stage 1 both inside and outside of school, to go along with the curriculum

the project’s program has everything that is being taught in the curriculum. Learning a new

game engine for the project and sub sequentially having to better learn the default coding

language of the game engine (C#) which resulted in a few setbacks such as errors with code,

having to learn new ways of coding exclusively for the game engine itself, which unfortunately

resulted in slow progression at times.

Because of these errors and unforeseen issues with the coding, the project moved at a slower

pace at certain parts, which prevented some parts not meeting its timeframe. If given another

chance to work on this project again, focus would be more towards making it more animated to

distinguish itself from a monotone plain text question to question.

The original reason for this project was to make a software application that take gamification a

method to use the aspects from games that keeps people so invested in them, and apply it to

education. Having tested the project on family member children, awhile older than the actual

material used, they found it enjoyable enough to maintain their concentration long enough to

finish some sections of the math problems.

Overall, the project was successfully completed on time with a good level of quality that stuck

to the core principles of gamification.

BibliographySmith-Robbins, S.(2011) ‘"This Game Sucks": How to Improve the Gamification of Education’ EDUCAUSE Review, 46(1), p.58[Online]. Available at: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2011/2/this-game-sucks-how-to-improve-the-gamification-of-education (Accessed: 8 November 2017).

Dale, S.(2014) ‘Gamification: Making work fun, or making fun of work?’ Business Information Review, 32(1), p.82-90[Online]. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephen_Dale2/publication/270723662_Gamification_Making_work_fun_or_making_fun_of_work/links/55d214a308aec1b0429dce63.pdf (Accessed: 21 November 2017).

Marketsandmarkets.(2016) Gamification Market by Solution (Consumer driven and Enterprise driven), Applications (Sales and Marketing), Deployment Type (On-Premises and Cloud), User Type (Large Enterprise, SMBs), Industry and Region - Global Forecast to 2020. Available at: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/gamification-market-991.html (Accessed 21 November 2017).

White, C.(2015) 5 Companies that are successfully using Gamification for Recruiting. [Online] Available at: https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/recruiting-strategy/2015/5-companies-that-are-successfully-using-gamification-for-recruiting [Accessed 31 January 2018].

Gray, P.,(2012) The Many Benefits, for Kids, of Playing Video Games. [Online] (Accessed 21 November 2017).

Heafner, T.(2016) Using Technology to Motivate Students to learn Social Studies. [Online] Available at: http://www.citejournal.org/volume-4/issue-1-04/social-studies/using-technology-to-motivate-students-to-learn-social-studies/(Accessed 21 November 2017).

Kirriemuir, J. & McFarlane Angela, U. o. B.(2006) Literature Review in. Bristol: FutureLab.

MinecraftEdu, n.d. What is MinecradtEdu. [Online] Available at: https://wiki.education.minecraft.net/wiki/What_is_MinecraftEdu(Accessed 21 November 2017).

Teed, R.(2016) Game-Based Learning. [Online] Available at: https://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/index.html(Accessed 21 November 2017).

Powell-Morse, A.(2016) Waterfall Model: What Is It and When Should You Use IT?. Available at: https://airbrake.io/blog/sdlc/waterfall-model (Accessed 16/04/2018)

Bjork, A. (No Date) What is Agile?. Available at: https://www.visualstudio.com/learn/what-is-agile/ (Accessed 16/04/2018).

Data Protection Act 1998 (1998, c.29). [Online] Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/contents (Accessed: 07/10/2017).

Unity (2017) Costs. Available at: https://store.unity.com/products/unity-personal (Accessed: 06/10/2017).

Appendix I - Ethics Checklist

This form is only applicable for assessed exercises that use other people (‘participants’) for the collection of information, typically in getting comments about a system or a system design, or getting information about how a system could be used, or evaluating a working system.

If your proposed activity does not comply with any one or more of the points below then please contact your project supervisor and/or project coordinator for advice. If your evaluation does comply with all the points below, please sign this form and submit it with your assessed work.

1. Participants were not exposed to any risks greater than those encountered in their normal working life. Investigators have a responsibility to protect participants from physical and mental harm during the investigation. The risk of harm must be no greater than in ordinary life. Areas of potential risk that require ethical approval include, but are not limited to, investigations that occur outside usual laboratory areas, or that require participant mobility (e.g. walking, running, use of public transport), unusual or repetitive activity or movement, that use sensory deprivation (e.g. ear plugs or blindfolds), bright or flashing lights, loud or disorienting noises, smell, taste, vibration, or force feedback.

2. The experimental materials were paper-based, or comprised software running on standard hardware. Participants should not be exposed to any risks associated with the use of non-standard equipment: anything other than pen-and-paper, standard PCs, mobile phones and PDAs.

3. All participants explicitly stated that they agreed to take part, and that their data could be used in the project. If the results of the evaluation are likely to be used beyond the term of the project (for example, the software is to be deployed, or the data is to be published), then signed consent is necessary. A separate consent form should be signed by each participant. Otherwise, verbal consent is sufficient, and should be explicitly requested in the introductory script.

4. No incentives were offered to the participants. The payment of participants must not be used to induce them to risk harm beyond that which they risk without payment in their normal lifestyle.

5. No information about the evaluation or materials was intentionally withheld from the participants. Withholding information or misleading participants is unacceptable if participants are likely to object or show unease when debriefed.  

6. No participant was under the age of 16. Parental consent is required for participants under the age of 16.   7. No participant has an impairment that may limit their understanding or communication. Additional consent

is required for participants with impairments.   8. Neither I nor my supervisor is in a position of authority or influence over any of the participants. A position

of authority or influence over any participant must not be allowed to pressurise participants to take part in, or remain in, any experiment.  

9. All participants were informed that they could withdraw at any time. All participants have the right to withdraw at any time during the investigation. They should be told this in the introductory script. 

10. All participants have been informed of my contact details. All participants must be able to contact the investigator after the investigation. They should be given the details of both student and module co-ordinator or supervisor as part of the debriefing. 

11. The evaluation was discussed with all the participants at the end of the session, and all participants had the opportunity to ask questions. The student must provide the participants with sufficient information in the debriefing to enable them to understand the nature of the investigation. 

12. All the data collected from the participants is stored in an anonymous form. All participant data (hard-copy and soft-copy) should be stored securely, and in anonymous form.

Student Name: Nicky JonesStudent ID: 14016036Student’s Signature: _______N Jones__________________ Date: __14/11/17______

Appendix II Gantt ChartGantt Chart: This is a Gantt Chart that has been made since the start of Milestone 1 to document the

goals that has been set each week, It is currently up to date for Milestone 2 with what has happened but

is subject to change, a final version will be made for Milestone 3 with updates (if any).

Figure 12 Gantt Chart

Appendix III MeetingsMeetings

Meeting 0 – 21/09/2017Josh and Nick attended the first meeting without me as my car had broken down on the day and was

unable to make it in time. In the meeting, they spoke about:

Confirming the title of the projects

Spoke about what we should go for in our project and how we should go about doing it

What did we want to get out of our product?

We were asked to look up what Agile Development and Waterfall method as the University used

to use the Waterfall method but we were given the choice this year to pick one.

We looked at our timetable to find the best opportunity to meet up within our constrains.

Meeting 1 – 25/09/2017 During our meeting, today myself and Nick (as we are both doing the same dissertation project)

as if we are supposed to focus solely on KS1 or KS2 (Key stage) for our project as primary school

learning for math is split up into 2. Andrew gave us the choice to decide which one we wanted

to do and both picked KS1

We were then asked by Andrew to think about Gamification and do some research on it and

then produce a page or two detailing what we wanted to produce with our project with

screenshots of existing pieces of work.

Meeting 2 – 02/10/2017 At the start of this week’s meeting we spoke about how we wanted our projects to work when

they are finished.

We spoke about what kind of background reading/research we have done on gamification.

Now, I spoke about how well I was getting with my project as I already had experience using the

Unity Game Engine I had planned on using for this project during the summer.

Meeting 3 – 10/10/2017 This meeting was rescheduled because Andrew had family matters that took priority making him

unable to attend the normal meeting on Monday. I was unable to attend today as they had just

started doing work on a busy road I take to University and was unable to make it to the meeting

in time.

Meeting 4 – 16/10/2017 During this meeting, I spoke more about my project and how will I was getting on.

I also sent an email to Andrew during this week before the meeting asking about using other

people’s plugin’s they have made for Unity Game Engine to assist in the overall quality of the

project, which he said was fine if I stated in my documentation what plugin’s I used and who

they were by.

We also agreed that I was show my project and what I have done so far in next week’s meeting.

Meeting 5 – 23/10/2017 During this week, I was meant to show my demo, but apparently, I missed a file that was needed

to run the executable on Andrews computer, so we agreed for me to show it next week.

I spoke a little more about the changes I made to my project, and the issues I had when I

realized I was making my project on the wrong aspect ratio which caused all my UI to be

incorrectly drawn when loading it up from the executable.

Meeting 6 – 30/10/17 This meeting I showed my demo, and explained about the things I know is wrong and needs

changing or are temporary until I find something I like better.

Josh also showed his demo in this meeting and we gave constructive criticism

Meeting 7 – 06/11/17 In this meeting, I went over my documentation with Andrew as I had emailed him earlier in the

week if he could look over my documentation and see where I need to improve on.

Nick showed us the start of his project this week which was just the basic menu.

Meeting 8 – 13/11/17 In this meeting, I talked about the changes I had made to my documentation based off the

feedback from the previous week, plus additional information I added to my documentation

I also inquired about if we should add the meetings we’ve been keeping track of in our

milestone 1 documentation with a little a concern about how the layout should be for the

document which Andrew said he will look over in next week’s project meeting when I’ve added

the meeting to my documentation.

Andrew looked over my milestone 1 and gave me some feedback specifically on the title “Why

this project was chosen” because I struggled to come up with a reason why I chose this project

while maintaining an impersonalized view.

Josh showed an update of his Game to us and the things he have changed, along with some

feedback from Andrew in regards to two of his games and how he could improve them.

Meeting 9 – 20/11/17 Nick showed his milestone 1 documentation progress to Andrew and spoke about some of the

things he perhaps needed to improve.

I showed Andrew my milestone 1 documentation listing the improvements I’ve made from last

week’s advice on where to improve.

I asked Andrew for advice as I felt my documentation was still missing important information

especially regarding my background research which I felt was weak and didn’t really have any

ideas on how to improve it.

Andrew showed me a few errors that I still had in my documentation that required fixing and

mentioned that I am missing something in my background research and that’s “why does

gamification work” and advised me to consider some academic papers to find out why

Meeting 10 – 27/11/17 Finalizing the milestone 1 documentation to be handed in so not much actual dissertation

prototype work was done this week.

Meeting 11 – 4/12/17 Spoke about the plans over Christmas that we wanted to achieve before returning next term in

2018

Meeting 12 – 11/12/17 Wasn’t in this week due to having snow in my area which prevented from driving to university

and the train line was also down.

Meeting 13 – 8/1/18 Didn’t have any meetings this week as we still needed to talk about a new date to meet

up due to changes in the timetables

Meeting 14 – 15/1/18 Today we all spoke about what we have done over the Christmas holidays

I demonstrated my progress this week as it was the first time anyone specifically Andrew has

seen my update to a finalized version of the colour-scheme and I wanted his opinion on it.

Was told the because the text follows suit in the colour-scheme that it sometimes blended

together with the background and needed to make changes to differentiate the two.

Was also told by Andrew that went choosing a specific learning option like choosing a number

that’s one greater and one less between numbers of 0-100 I wasn’t actually telling them what to

do and needed to introduce some sort of tutorial to tell/show the user exactly what they are

supposed to be doing, and how to do it.

Meeting 15 – 22/1/18 Today I came back with the updates that was mentioned to me last week from Andrew with

solutions.

I asked about how the marking would work and what would happen in the event that I didn’t

successfully add everything that’s in the Key Stages for my dissertation.

Meeting 16 – 29/1/18 Today I just spoke about adding a new section of the Key Stages to dissertation while everyone

else was demonstrating what they have done over the Christmas break as they haven’t

demonstrated since we’ve come back.

Meeting 17 – 5/2/18 Today I spoke about some of the wording in regards to the guidelines and asked for a bit more

of a clarification in what is expected to teach the children. Josh spoke about the problems he is having with his implementation and how he broke it when

adding something and spent all week trying to fix it. Nick talked about the tutorials he has been going through to help with his implementation

The remaining 7 meetings can be summarised with everyone explaining what we have done since the previous meeting and any issues that may have incurred during that time.

Appendix IIII TimelineThe initial timeline of this project is going to revolve around the 3 milestones and their dates

which are, Milestone 1 – 24/11/2017, Milestone 2 – 02/02/2018 and Milestone 3 – 20/04/2018.

Each of these milestones will have goals to complete in many different aspects awhile allowing

for some level of failure in each goal as unexpected problems can arise its unwise to make

predictions on work being completed further than roughly 2 weeks ahead of themselves.

Milestone 1 Download Unity and set up a project

Do background research on the term “Gamification” and what the core principles of it is.

Start using Unity to create a simply Menu system that will be the foundation of the

whole project.

Chose which Key Stage is going to be the focus of the project and plan accordingly to

which parts you are going to start implementing first.

Look at the Unity store for features that could improve the quality of the project

Start to implement one of the requirements from the Key Stage that was chosen to get

an understanding of what will be required coding-wise to implement the rest of the

project

Have the Milestone 1 documentation completed before the deadline date of

24/11/2017

Milestone 2 Complete the Menu system completely before 18th of December

Over the Christmas break work through implementing the requirements for each

problem that is in the Key Stage that was chosen

Implement a scoring system based on:

1. How quickly they completed each question, including if they failed or

answered correctly first and last time

2. Completed a difficulty setting which will be filled with harder questions in

the field they are currently learning in e.g. times tables, multiplications

e.c.t

3. Provide a reason for achieving a higher score by offering something to

show off their achievements.

Provide students with a breakdown of which answers they struggled to get right the first

time at the end of each group of questions so students know what they are struggling

with.

Detail each problem that arises or is expected to arise

Aim for completing the clear majority of the implementation by 12/01/2018

Find a school that will allow the use of the software to be tested on the children to get

valuable feedback on what can be improved from the learning perspective of the

children.

Milestone 3 Update the documentation of the work that’s been undertaken to complete the project,

including background reading, designing, planning, implementation and evaluation.

Submit the documentation plus the code used in the project and the project itself.

Milestone 4 Present the project to both supervisors with a 15-minute presentation followed by 15

minutes of questions.