*Article* **Developing Physics Experiments Using Augmented Reality Game-Based Learning Approach: A Pilot Study in Primary School**

**Maria Zafeiropoulou , Christina Volioti, Euclid Keramopoulos and Theodosios Sapounidis \***

Department of Information and Electronic Engineering, International Hellenic University, 57001 Nea Moudania, Greece; mariazaf1996@gmail.com (M.Z.); chvolioti@gmail.com (C.V.); euclid@ihu.gr (E.K.) **\*** Correspondence: teo@edlit.auth.gr

**Abstract:** The augmented reality game-based learning (ARGBL) approach is an advantageous pathway for the development and enhancement of teaching and learning processes. To this end, this paper presents the design and development of an ARGBL application for the implementation of physics experiments in the fifth grade of a Greek primary school. The purpose of the ARGBL system is twofold: to educate and entertain. For this reason, a treasure hunt game was implemented, which allows students to interact with a digital world and to manipulate virtual objects with the use of an augmented reality (AR) device. Then, according to the instructions, students have to collect all the materials to conduct the AR educational experiment. Overall, the evaluation of the system's usability by 17 users (both students and teachers) was very promising, indicating that the ARGBL application has the potential to be an easy-to-use educational tool for improving not only the teaching of physics experiments in primary school but also the learning process, by positively affecting the students' motivation and engagement.

**Keywords:** augmented reality; game-based learning; usability; primary school; physics

#### **1. Introduction**

Azuma [1] defined augmented reality (AR) as a technology by which users can integrate 3D virtual objects in real time into their real-world environment. AR is a popular technology that is used in many aspects of our lives [2,3]. The basic reason for its popularity is that it has no special equipment requirements as in virtual reality. A smart device (tablet or smartphone) is enough. Moreover, recently, large companies in the field of information technology, such as Google and Apple, have delivered suitable frameworks and APIs to programmers, in order to develop a high quality of augmented reality applications, such as ARCore [4], ARKIT [5] and libraries for Unity [6].

For the last decade, augmented reality has been used in research to improve the educational process at all levels of education from primary education to university [7]. A remarkable number of augmented reality applications have been created, which basically augment the content of a schoolbook mainly using text, pictures and video [8,9]. Field experiments using AR application in education have shown that the education process was improved by increasing the fun, enjoyment, interest and engagement of students [7]. Furthermore, another interesting approach that has gained attention in education science is augmented reality game-based learning (ARGBL), which can transform the learning experience and influence students' motivation, skill development and knowledge [10]. Apart from the learning process, AR and ARGBL technology can additionally benefit the teaching process. Teachers who integrate such innovative approaches into the teaching process can introduce and explain to students complex and/or abstract concepts through a multisensory way, encouraging social interaction and improving collaboration [7,11]. All in all, AR and ARGBL can be successfully used in educational environments, positively

**Citation:** Zafeiropoulou, M.; Volioti, C.; Keramopoulos, E.; Sapounidis, T. Developing Physics Experiments Using Augmented Reality Game-Based Learning Approach: A Pilot Study in Primary School. *Computers* **2021**, *10*, 126. https://doi.org/10.3390/ computers10100126

Academic Editors: Carlos Vaz de Carvalho and Antonio Coelho

Received: 9 September 2021 Accepted: 7 October 2021 Published: 11 October 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

affecting both the teaching and the learning process, since (a) the cost of materials for the experiment disappears (sometimes a big problem for the education procedure [11]), (b) the experiment can be repeated as many times as the educational process requires (without the thought of wasting materials) and, most importantly, (c) the student can repeat the experiment when studying the course at home.

In this paper, an ARGBL approach was introduced for teaching the experimental part of a lesson of physics in the fifth grade of a Greek primary school. In particular, an application is presented that is based on ARGBL for the development of all the experiments for the unit of physics in the fifth grade of a Greek primary school. The contribution of this research is multifaceted. The case study focuses on lab/practical experiments in a unit such as physics, by adopting a game-based approach, which, according to the literature review, has found limited implementation in primary schools. All the experiments can be executed using an ordinary smart device such as a smartphone or a tablet. Additionally, the applications were designed to be interactive. This was conducted using game-based learning, where students are invited with a treasure hunt game to discover the materials of the experiment in one place. Thus, they are "forced" to pay attention to the materials used for the experiment. Then, after "accomplishing the mission" of finding all the materials, they can "run" the experiment as many times as they want until all the questions regarding the experiment and the physics topic are answered. We used the ARGBL application to perform a pilot experiment in a primary school, where the results were very satisfactory and showed that this approach greatly improves the educational process as it increases the fun, enjoyment, engagement and interest in the course.

This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, AR and ARGBL are introduced. In Section 3, a short review is presented regarding the use of AR and ARGBL in physical science in both primary and secondary school. Next, in Section 4, the description of the suite of applications is analyzed, and in Section 5, the pilot experiment and its results are presented. In Section 6, the discussion of the research work is analyzed, and finally, in Section 7, the conclusions as well as future work are presented.

#### **2. Augmented Reality Game-Based Learning**

AR is an emerging technology, which has great potential. Although the first AR applications appeared in the late 1960s [12], it has become more pervasive and affordable in recent years due to the widespread use of mobile devices [13]. AR essentially blends virtual worlds into real ones, by allowing the user to explore, manipulate and interact in a seamless way with both digital and natural objects in real time [14,15]. Additionally, it allows them to envision objects in different situations and receive immediate visual feedback about their actions in a totally safe environment [12]. Therefore, AR improves learners' ability to understand abstract and complex concepts [16], since it can provide enriched experiential and in situ learning experiences [12].

Another learning approach that takes advantage of experiential learning theory is game-based learning (GBL), which uses specially designed games to improve the learning process [17]. One of the advantages of GBL is that through games, users construct their own knowledge and develop the ability to transfer it to other contexts, rather than passively absorbing a new concept, a pillar that the traditional educational process supports [18]. Therefore, of particular relevance to the education sector are the two aforementioned pedagogical approaches which both enhance the learning experience and learners' effectiveness by actively engaging them.

The term ARGBL, which is basically the integration of AR into GBL, is gaining more and more pace nowadays. According to Pellas et al.'s [19] systematic review, some of the most popular domains of ARGBL use in primary and secondary school education are formal science [20–23], natural science [24–27], physical science [15,28–31] and social science [32–34]. Additionally, problem solving, performance, motivation, satisfaction, creativity and collaboration [33] are, among others, benefits of ARGBL in the learning experience.

#### **3. Review**

Several previous studies have been conducted to explore the use, benefits and limitations or challenges of AR and ARGBL at all levels of education in the domain of physical science (such as physics, astronomy and chemistry). More specifically, Enyedy et al. [15] developed an AR environment to teach Newtonian force and motion to young children, 6–8 years old. During the activity, children had to predict how the forces would influence the motion of an object (e.g., ball). The results showed that children made significant progress in learning the content and improved their performance, since they engaged, explored and reconstructed their conceptual knowledge through fruitful confrontation and discussion. Additionally, Cai et al. [28] conducted a convex imaging experiment using AR technology, in which the eighth graders explored basic concepts of physics (such as image distance and focal distance) as well as abstract ones (such as what will happen when the object moves closer to the lens). The findings revealed that the AR tool attracted their attention, stimulated their interest and enhanced their learning. A few years later, Cai et al. [29] implemented a system that integrates AR with natural interaction technology by using Kinect, in teaching magnetic fields to students in grade 8. Students could trigger the magnetic field in real time with a wave of their hand in front of the depth camera. The experimental results stated that the system encouraged participants to learn more extensively through a more intuitive way, by activating their motivation and interest in learning.

Regarding astronomy, Zhang et al. [30] designed an AR-based mobile digital armillary sphere for astronomy. An intervention was organized for fifth grade elementary school students, and the purpose was to examine if they could properly identify the constellations through astronomical observation. The analysis indicated that the observation tool, which is based on kinesthetic-style strategies, positively affected participants' motivation and engagement as well as improving their learning experience and observation skills.

Finally, Cai et al. [31] proposed an AR simulation system in which students could control particles in micro-worlds and compose substances. This study was conducted in a junior high school for the chemistry course. Through data analysis, the authors concluded that the AR tool improved the learning outcome and helped students to develop different skills such as problem solving and inquiry-based exploration skills.

Leveraging the aforementioned studies, AR and ARGBL have proved to be advantageous in enhancing performance and learning experiences, developing skills (e.g., problem solving, inquiry-based exploration, observation) and fostering motivation, engagement, attention and interest. Moreover, through AR, students can learn and interact with virtual and real objects in a more intuitive way. Therefore, teachers should integrate such innovative applications which place emphasis on the design of more natural and realistic representations of complicated problems of everyday life into the educational process. However, AR and ARGBL pose some limitations and challenges. Due to the technologies' novelty, proper training and guidance should be provided to both students and teachers [29]. In addition, according to Tobar-Muñoz et al. [35], sometimes there is a gap between designers and teachers in conceiving learning. It is thus important to involve both designers and teachers in the design and development of such AR tools, in order to create a proper learning experience in the classroom that would be only beneficial.

#### **4. Application Description**

An ARGBL application for the physics course of the fifth grade in a primary school was developed and evaluated in the present paper. The application follows the new technological developments of smart mobile devices and introduces the concept of AR to the students. Since the purpose of the ARGBL application is both to educate and entertain, a treasure hunt game was implemented, which allows students to interact with a digital world and to manipulate virtual objects with the use of an AR device. They have to discover all the materials in order to conduct the AR experiment, according to the instructions that correspond to each experiment.

#### *4.1. System Overview*

In this section, the system overview of the ARGBL application is presented. The system consists of the following components: (a) a smartphone device (hardware), and (b) the Unity platform (software), as shown in Figure 1. More analytically, the ARGBL application was implemented using the free version of the Unity game engine and C# as the programming language. The Unity platform was chosen because Unity software is powerful, easy to use and free [36]. Vuforia SDK was also used to ensure a better AR experience. At first, Unity sends the virtual content to the ARGBL application. Then, the input device, which is the camera of the smartphone, scans the QR code of the textbook and sends the real content to the ARGBL application. Subsequently, the ARGBL application processes the virtual and the real contents and finally displays the augmented content through the smartphone screen, which is the display device.

**Figure 1.** Application components.

In Unity, there is a set of elements which together form a game. These elements play a major role in making the game interactive as well as adding features that can vividly express the objective of the game. The proposed ARGBL application includes the following elements: 41 scenes, 88 scripts, 17 packages, hundreds of assets and thousands of 3D gameobjects and prefabs.

#### *4.2. Suite of Applications*

The suite of applications is a collection of six experiments, where each experiment corresponds to one of the six chapters of the fifth grade textbook. According to the curriculum of the 2019–2020 school year, the chapters are: (a) material bodies, (b) energy, (c) digestive system, (d) heat, (e) electricity and (f) light. More analytically, on the start screen (Scene 1), there are six buttons which correspond to the chapters of the book (Figure 2). By selecting a chapter, the application sends the user to the next scene (Scene 2), which is composed of the available experiment.

**Figure 2.** Application sub-components.

According to the student's choice, instructions are displayed (Scene 3) about how the experiment will be performed using the AR technology. In the next scene (Scene 4), the camera of the user's device is activated, and by scanning the QR code of the textbook page where the experiment is located, an AR door appears. Entering the door, the user is immersed into a VR environment. There are hidden virtual objects that must be collected in order for the educational experiment to be implemented, by using AR. At the bottom of the screen, there is a list with all the materials of the experiment which are hidden behind the AR door. In order for the user to proceed with the experiment, they must first collect all the materials by clicking on them in the VR world. Then, the materials are automatically checked in the list. It is basically a treasure hunt game, representing the first part of the ARGBL application which is for entertainment purposes.

Once the student has collected all the necessary materials for the experiment, instructions for the experiment that will be followed are displayed (Scene 5). After scanning the QR code of the textbook page for the selected chapter again, the available experiment is displayed (Scene 6). The available experiments are performed differently by the user, meaning that each experiment has a different process, instructions and learning outcomes. Moreover, with the teacher's guidance, a fruitful discussion takes place in order for students to draw a conclusion. At the bottom of the screen, there is the "conclusion" button which leads the student to the next and the last screen (Scene 7), which consists of the conclusion. This represents the second part of the application which is for educational purposes.

#### 4.2.1. Experiments

As already mentioned, six (6) experiments were formulated, and each one consists of Scenes 2–7 (Figure 2). Scenes 2, 3, 5 and 7 are almost the same in all experiments, with minor changes in their content. The scenes that differ are Scene 4 and Scene 6. Table 1 analytically describes the process of each experiment.


Two Indicative Examples

In this section, two indicative examples of the experiments are presented. Firstly, the example of the "Electricity" experiment which belongs to the section of "Conductors and Insulators" is described. This section begins with an introductory stimulus and is followed by an experimental approach. More analytically, the introductory stimulus is presented through a school textbook comic, where "Lampakis" and "Volfraimios" (Tungsten) are the main characters. The following information is provided to the students: the material of which the wire in incandescent bulbs is made is called tungsten. Then, the students are asked to read the dialogues in the comic, in order to describe the problem that Lampakis and Volfraimios are faced with. The problem is that the light bulb of the circuit they made by using a rope instead of a cable does not light up. At the end of the introductory stimulus, the teacher helps the students to make assumptions about possible materials that can be used in a closed electrical circuit, in order to light the bulb.

The experimental approach that follows helps students find out that while some materials allow electricity to flow, others do not. The materials of the experiment appear through some virtual objects, as shown in Table 2.


**Table 2.** Objects and the materials they are made of for the "Electricity" experiment.

The AR experiment is carried out with the guidance of the book and the teacher. At first, an electrical circuit is displayed above the QR code of the textbook, using the technology of AR. In addition, at the top of the screen, there are ten buttons that correspond to the ten materials/objects of the experiment. By selecting each button, the corresponding object is placed between the connectors of the electrical circuit. The student, after observing the behavior of the light, notes down the materials with which the light can be turned on or not in the provided table of the textbook. The teacher leads a discussion in the class, through which the students will formulate the conclusion. The teacher also introduces the terms of "conductor" and "insulator" and explains them to the students. The teacher then urges them to classify the materials studied in the above experiment into conductors and insulators. Finally, the following conclusion is drawn in the school textbook:


At the bottom of the screen, there is a "conclusion" button, which leads to the next screen which consists of the conclusion of the experiment, for the students to check the correctness of their answers. After completing the above experiment, the learning objectives that are desired to be achieved by the students are to experimentally establish the existence of conducting and non-conducting materials and to understand the concepts of conductors and insulators.

Another indicative example, which is the experiment of the "Digestive system" experiment which belongs to the section of "The food journey", is presented. Similar to the previous example, it includes two parts, the stimulus and the experiment. In the introductory stimulus, the students are asked to chew bread. Then, it is explained by the teacher that bread contains a substance called starch, and it is stated that saliva breaks down food

starch. The following experiment helps the students to understand the above introductory stimulus, by drawing a parallel between saliva (which breaks down starch) and liquid dish soap (which breaks down oil).

At first, a table in which all the materials of the experiment are placed is displayed above the QR code of the textbook, using the technology of AR. The goal of the experiment is that the student, after carefully reading the instructions provided by the textbook, has to "click" on the materials placed in the AR table in the correct order. At the top of the screen, there is a text prompting the student to "Click on the materials in the correct order to perform the experiment". The correct order, according to the presentation of the textbook, is: water, oil, straw, liquid dish soap and straw. The experiment consists of the steps shown in Table 3. At first, a glass is filled halfway with water, and then a few drops of oil are added. The students have to mix the solution well with the straw. They should also notice that the oil does not dissolve in the water, but floats on it. In the second phase of the experiment, a small amount of liquid soap is poured into the glass with water and oil, and after mixing well with the straw, it should be observed by the students that after adding the dishwashing liquid, the oil dissolves and mixes with the water. Finally, the students learn the usefulness of saliva for the dissolution of food starch and the usefulness of bile in the function of digestion.


**Table 3.** The experiment for "Digestive system" step by step.

The conclusion is established with appropriate questions and discussion in class. Students should be aware that the effect of liquid dish soap on oil is the same as the effect of bile on food fats. Finally, students are asked to formulate the following conclusion: "Liquid dish soap dissolves oil, as saliva helps break down food starch and bile dissolves fats during digestion". Once step 5 is completed, the "conclusion" button appears at the bottom of the screen, which leads to the screen with the final conclusion. Moreover, students can check if their answers are correct.

All the experiments are available online (Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=0ST0fkDIFEY, accessed 6 August 2021 and Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=8jnbmKPim5U, accessed 6 August 2021).

#### **5. Pilot Experiment**

The pilot experiment was conducted through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. An unstructured interview along with participant observation was carried out to gather qualitative data. This combination of methods aimed to gain insight about the experience of both students and teachers. Regarding the quantitative method, a questionnaire was administered to all participants aiming to evaluate the system's usability. For the system's usability, we used the system usability scale (SUS) which was developed by Brooke [37] as a quick and dirty survey to evaluate the usability of a given system. The SUS test was used because (a) it provides a single score, (b) it is technology-independent and this makes it quite flexible for the system we had to evaluate, (c) it is easy to handle, (d) the questionnaire is nonproprietary and this makes it cost-effective, (e) it is highly effective in terms of reliability [38] and validity [39], (f) it is translated in Greek [40] and (g) it provides reliable results even with a small sample size [39].

#### *5.1. Participants*

The study took place at an Elementary School of, Thessaloniki, Greece, during the winter period (January 2021). Fourteen (14) students and three (3) teachers participated in the study. The average age of the students was 10 years. The three teachers who took part in the experiment process had extensive teaching experience (more than 10 years).

All students and teachers volunteered to participate in the activity as part of their everyday school activities. Before the experiment took place, there was a training session with the teachers of the classroom about the implementation of the experiment. The experiment was part of the current school curriculum so that the flow of the school curriculum would not be disturbed, and it was performed within the class hour (duration of 45 min). The students were randomly assigned to work in dyads, forming seven (7) student groups in total, while teachers participated as instructors.

#### *5.2. Setting*

Experiments were conducted in classrooms that were offered by schools for this purpose. The classrooms were adequately arranged so that the system was accessible for all students. The system was projected on the whiteboard of the classroom, by the instructor, to be visible to everyone. Additionally, the system was provided to each student group through a smart mobile device.

#### *5.3. Material and Procedure*

Students, their parents and teachers were informed about the pilot study one week before the experiment. The lesson was started with an introductory stimulus related to the experiment by the teacher/instructor. Then, the instructor provided instructions and guidelines to the students on how to use the system. The execution steps of the experiment were displayed simultaneously on both the whiteboard of the classroom through the projector, and the screen of the mobile of each dyad of students.

Data were collected through an unstructured interview, participant observation and a questionnaire. Specifically, during the experiment, participants were observed regarding how they react and behave. At the end of the experiment, questionnaires were distributed to both students and teachers in printed form and were answered individually. The completion of the questionnaires was conducted in the same classroom, always in visual contact with the system. After that, an unstructured interview was carried out with the three (3) teachers.

The collected data from questionnaires were organized in Microsoft Excel 2019 and were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics v23.0. The system usability scale (SUS) test was translated in Greek and was administered to the students in printed form after the interaction with the system.

#### **6. Results and Discussion**

#### *6.1. Evaluation of Quantitative Method*

The data collected from the questionnaires in the pilot, along with the mean values and standard deviations for the students and teachers in each question, are presented in Table 4. The overall SUS score was 84.642 (sd 5.773) for the students, while the score for the teachers was 78.333 (sd 10.735). In both cases, the score is quite satisfactory and shows that the system was quite usable for both students and teachers.


**Table 4.** Mean values and standard deviations of students' and teachers' responses.

More analytically, the average SUS score of the ARGBL application is acceptable for teachers (over 75), while the score for students is relatively high (84.642). This could be explained by the fact that the system worked properly. Although the experiment was successful for both students and teachers, there was a concern about how the students would manage to use the system to conduct the physics experiment. The fact that students are familiar with such devices along with the daily usage of them made it easier for them to handle the device and successfully complete the experiment. However, this led the students to ask questions about the process of the experiment, e.g., how to collect the experiments' materials from the VR room. Although there were written instructions on the screen, students were overwhelmed by the virtual world and, as a result, did not read them. A possible solution to this could be the use of tablets, since the instructions on bigger screens might easily be "caught by the eye".

#### *6.2. Evaluation of Qualitative Method*

Based on the observation data, we noticed that most of the students had the curiosity to try new activities, including conducting experiments using the AR technology through smart devices. Therefore, teachers should try innovative instructional methods, tailored to new requirements relating to the ARGBL application. It is worth mentioning that teachers should conduct a training session for students about how to use the system and how to interact with the QR code, before the experiment takes place. In addition, the performance of QR code recognition is mainly based on lighting conditions. The virtual objects formed under weak light conditions may twinkle at times. As a result, teachers are required to adapt the classroom properly in terms of lighting.

According to the unstructured interview with the teachers about their experience, they supported that the group of two students rather than larger groups is more preferable. It was also mentioned that small groups (two or three students) work better than larger groups, not only in the collaboration between the team members but also in the time that the system is used by each member, a fact that positively triggers students' motivation, engagement and teamwork. Nonetheless, groups of two students would require a lot of equipment (number of smart devices), in the case of a larger sample. Last but not least, the teachers agreed on the fact that the ARGBL application is more advantageous, since it can run offline, without the need of an internet connection. This makes it a lot easier to be used in areas of limited WiFi or data connectivity, such as schools. The students can use the ARGBL application instantly without any delays or internet difficulties. On the

other hand, applications that work offline do not provide the functionality of interaction to users. In the ARGBL application, the interaction between users is conducted face to face in a classroom. This means that a discussion between the students as well as between the teacher and the students is necessary to evolve the learning process.

#### **7. Conclusions and Future Work**

Leveraging the aforementioned findings, an ARGBL application was proposed for the implementation of physics experiments in the fifth grade of a Greek primary school. The application is both educational and entertaining, since the students have to conduct a physics experiment by playing an AR treasure hunt game. A pilot experiment was conducted, and a questionnaire was administered to all participants, both students and teachers, in order to investigate the usability of the system. Moreover, this study explored the opinions and the preferences of the participants by the process of unstructured interviews and observations. The results of the pilot experiment are very promising, since the system's usability was satisfactory, revealing that the proposed ARGBL application can provide added value to the educational community. More specifically, what we learned, which is in accordance with the literature review, is that students had a positive attitude towards using the system for their learning process since they fully engaged with it [15,28,30]. In addition, both teachers and students supported that the use of the ARGBL application can attract students' attention and increase their learning motivation [10,29,30,33] in the physics course. Finally, a well-structured experiment should be followed by the teachers, including a training session of how students can use the system, how they can interact with the QR code and what the process of the experiment is.

However, the proposed system has some limitations that merit further consideration in future work. Firstly, although our analysis is robust in small samples, a larger-scale experiment is necessary. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was hard to have an adequate sample size, due to fact that the Greek schools, most of the school year, were closed. Secondly, the ARGBL application refers to a specific subject, namely, physics experiments in the fifth grade of a Greek primary school; therefore, the research results cannot be generalized to other learning topics and to other age groups. Therefore, our future plans are to extend the learning content of our proposed ARGBL application to other age groups by adding more exercises and experiments. Additionally, a long-term experiment would be necessary to further investigate the usability of the system and to extract valuable results about the learning outcomes of the students.

**Author Contributions:** M.Z. implemented the application and, together with C.V., E.K., T.S., conceived, designed and wrote this paper. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and followed the regulations of the National Bioethics Committee. In our study the issue of personal data protection was confronted by keeping the anonymity of the participants, while informed con-sent was obtained.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors of the paper wish to warmly thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, along with the teachers and director of the school for the hospitality and support offered.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


## *Article* **Processing Analysis of Swift Playgrounds in a Children's Computational Thinking Course to Learn Programming**

**Guo-Ming Cheng \* and Chia-Pin Chen**

Department of Industry Technology Education, National Kaohsiung Normal University, 62, Shenjhong Rd., Yanchao District, Kaohsiung 82446, Taiwan; chen.c0902@gmail.com

**\*** Correspondence: t3791@mail.nknu.edu.tw

**Abstract:** Computational thinking courses can cultivate students' ability to apply logic in the fields of mathematics and information science. The new 12-year Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines were implemented in Fall 2019 in Taiwan. Courses on computational thinking, problem solving, and programming are contained in the technology education field in junior and senior high schools. Swift Playgrounds is an innovative app for the iPad and Mac that makes learning Swift interactive and fun. No programming knowledge is required to use Swift Playgrounds, making it very suitable for beginners. This study was carried out by letting elementary school teachers and students participate in Swift Playgrounds computational thinking courses. By trying this app, teachers of different disciplines attempted to realize more learning situations. Students learned how to cope with functions and loop skills by playing with "Byte", which is a character in Swift Playgrounds. There were three purposes for this study: first, designing a computational thinking course for the most basic part, "Hello! Byte", in Swift Playgrounds; second, assigning elementary school teachers to assess the qualitative analysis of tasks in Swift Playgrounds; and third, assigning elementary school students to do the tasks and assign a difficulty index in Swift Playgrounds after learning with this app. The results show that most teachers considered this approach to be able to improve logical thinking and inferential capability after assessing, and most students considered functions and loops quite difficult after using the app. According to the students' indices, about 86 percent of students considered that adding commands is easy, and about 37 percent of students considered that functions are easy. On the other hand, about 24 percent of students considered that applying the Slotted Stairways is difficult, and about 34 percent of students considered that using loops is hard. It is suggested that more instructions for the course or extendibility for classes is required.

**Keywords:** computational thinking; Swift Playgrounds; 12-year Basic Education; Bebras; programming

#### **1. Introduction**

Computational thinking through programming is attracting increased attention, as it is considered an ideal pathway for the development of 21st-century skills; this has led to K-12 initiatives around the world and a rapid increase in relevant research studies [1,2]. Computational thinking is considered an ideal skill for future development [3,4]. Educating future generations in programming and computational thinking is not trivial, and many different platforms and teaching approaches can be used for this purpose [5–7]. Swift is one tool for learning programming, and it is a development tool specially designed for designing iOS applications [8,9]. Swift Playgrounds, announced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2016, is an innovative and powerful app and an exceptionally simple way to build user interfaces across all Apple platforms using the power of Swift. It provides several-hour programming courses, suitable for children and beginners learning programming, and can build user interfaces for any Apple device using just one set of tools and APIs. Beginners can grasp the basic concept of using Swift through tasks, and the strong multitouch function allows easier learning of programming with Swift

**Citation:** Cheng, G.-M.; Chen, C.-P. Processing Analysis of Swift Playgrounds in a Children's Computational Thinking Course to Learn Programming. *Computers* **2021**, *10*, 68. https://doi.org/10.3390/ computers10050068

Academic Editors: Carlos Vaz de Carvalho and Antonio Coelho

Received: 30 March 2021 Accepted: 10 May 2021 Published: 20 May 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

Playgrounds. Simply by touching and dragging commands or inputting text and numbers, the users can interact with the game's role for programming and further learn the basic and solid grammar components of Swift, such as functions, loops, variables, parameters, and arrays [10].

Computational thinking is becoming more important in global information science and information curricula, and methods for including it in curricula are being sought [11–13]. More than 50 countries now participate in the Bebras challenge, which began in 2004. Its thematic short questions allow students from elementary schools through to senior high schools to solve problems online; the problem-solving time for each is about 3–5 min. Some computational thinking skills, e.g., mathematics, abstract making, computational thinking, problem solving, and estimation and induction, are also included. Bebras questions cover algorithms, data structures, programming, the Internet, databases, and social and moral issues [14].

In the experimental class in this study, 29 G5 students attended the 2018 Bebras International Challenge on Informatics and Computational Thinking in the first term and participated in the Swift Playgrounds computational thinking curriculum in the second term of the 2018 academic year. Practice with Bebras questions could train students' computational thinking capabilities, including programming capability, problem solving skills, decomposition of complicated tasks into simple components, algorithm design, and pattern recognition, to conform to the Curriculum Guidelines of 12-Year Basic Education— Technology, covering data representation, processing, analysis, algorithms, and information technology applications [15].

Consequently, this study aimed to (1) design a six-session Swift Playgrounds iPad app computational thinking course for elementary schools, (2) arrange for nine elementary school teachers to assess the tasks in the Swift Playgrounds iPad app and to provide qualitative analysis, and (3) arrange for 29 elementary school G5 students to provide difficulty analyses of task learning with the Swift Playgrounds iPad app.

#### **2. Literature Review**

Computational thinking [16,17] includes data collection, data analysis, pattern searching, abstract making, data resolution, modeling, and algorithms. Computational thinking can be applied in real life to break down problems, make complicated problems into simpler ones, and follow the context to solve problems and gain more information [18,19]. Its application to each subject is similar to including computational thinking in the technology field, in 12-year Basic Education [15]. A transnational study on robotics education between China and the USA developed a tool to evaluate elementary school G5 students' computational thinking capability, to assist students in learning problem challenges and computational thinking capability [20]. The Swedish government introduced digital computational thinking capability training courses and included them in the K-9 programming curriculum in 2018. More than 100,000 teachers had to learn programming and computational thinking instruction in a short period [21]. Such a changing trend of thought is unprecedented; even the 2019 12-year Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines in Taiwan stressed the teaching of a computational thinking curriculum.

For the challenge of computational thinking, the Italy Bebras official website [22] has provided services to teachers and students since 2015 to support task preparation and train students in solving problems; it manages about 25,000 teams and training courses. Lithuania and the UK have supported curriculum teaching and practice for the Bebras challenge, using the Bebras platform [14] to encourage students in information technology and computational thinking and educators in taking the computational thinking syllabus into account. The Bebras challenge provides creative and interesting tasks. Previous research [23] analyzed the Bebras task performance of 115,400 G3–G12 students in Italy, Australia, Finland, Lithuania, South Africa, Switzerland, and Canada; Bebras task performance data were collected and analyzed to reflect learning in computational thinking challenges. Algorithm and data representation questions dominated the performance of

challenge tasks, comprising about 75–90%. For this reason, when providing teachers with a computational thinking curriculum, algorithm and data representation questions could be listed as the main points, and abstract, parallel, and question resolution items should be supplemental [24]. The author of [25] arranged for elementary school G5 students to participate in the 2017 Bebras International computational thinking challenge and discussed questions for elementary school students via Padlet and team discussion; the technology acceptance model tool was used for 333 students filling in feedback on the "perceived usefulness" of Padlet, and 74.4% of them considered it helpful.

In the Everyone Can Code plan in Chicago [26], the curriculum in the full-featured app was designed by Apple, allowing students to construct personal designs by exploring basic coding concepts. It provided all G3–G12 students with opportunities for coding education, as well as volunteers and students with opportunities for practicing programming in local enterprises to expand opportunities for students cultivating coding skills and inquiring into career development. KIBO's programming kit [27] was composed of 21 unique cards to assemble complicated sequences, including loops and conditional and embedded statements. Furthermore, in order to enhance interdisciplinary integration of STEAM, the tool contained various art creation materials for children making personalized products. Falloon indicated in research in 2016 [28] that the Scratch Jnr coding curriculum for students aged 5 and 6 in New Zealand provided an important method to train students in complicated computational thinking and critical thinking ability, and it provided critical evidence for teachers of the students' thinking processes in computational tasks. Regarding the coding curriculum in elementary schools in Italy [29], vocational high school students, in the theoretical framework provided in computational thinking, taught junior high school and elementary school students to use the App Inventor to create apps on smartphones in an Android environment; this formed an interesting cooperation pattern between elementary schools and high schools.

#### **3. Research Method and Results**

A survey research method was utilized in this study. The researcher instructed a G5 computer class. The designed teaching process contained 6 sessions, with 1 session (40 min) per week practiced in the computer class. Nine teachers from different fields were invited to try out and assess the "Hello! Byte" computational thinking curriculum on Swift Playgrounds, and 29 students learnt the "Hello! Byte" computational thinking course on Swift Playgrounds. After participating in the experiential learning, teachers and students responded to a Google form to explain their qualitative analysis and difficulty analysis of the computational thinking curriculum. In Figure 1, the Google Form of the feedback for the degree of difficulty is shown in the screenshot. In Figure 2, the screenshot on the left is the role of "Byte" in the Swift Playground app, and the one on the right presents the scene of the task for the coding game.

#### *3.1. Teaching Process Design and Feedback Analysis after Students' Learning of Swift Playgrounds Computational Thinking*

A Google form was used to collect difficulty feedback from the 29 elementary school G5 students after they learned the Swift Playgrounds computational thinking curriculum, from Task I to Task VIII, for six sessions (240 min). The feedback was analyzed using a Google form linear scale (the most difficult tasks were given a score of 1, the easiest tasks were given 10). The researcher proposed a linear difficulty scale of 1–3 as difficult, 4–7 as moderate, and 8–10 as easy, as shown in Figures 3–12.

**Figure 1.** The Google Form of the feedback for the degree of difficulty was shown in the screenshot. The Chinese meaning of this picture is the feedback of the degree of difficulty for Task I "Issuing Commands".

**Figure 2.** The Screenshot of the Swift Playground app presents the role of "Byte" and the scene of **Figure 2.** The Screenshot of the Swift Playground app presents the role of "Byte" and the scene of the task for the coding game (Retrieved 13 October 2020, from https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds, accessed on 13 October 2020).

**Figure 3.** Difficulty analysis of Task I: "Issuing Commands".

**Figure 4.** Difficulty analysis of Task II: "Adding a New Command".

**Figure 5.** Difficulty analysis of Task III: "Toggling a Switch".

**Figure 6.** Difficulty analysis of Task IV: "Portal Practice".

**Figure 8.** Task VI: "Creating a New Funtion".

**Figure 9.** Difficulty analysis of Task VI: "Creating a New Funtion".

**Figure 10.** Task VII: "Slotted Stairways".

**Figure 11.** Difficulty analysis of Task VII: "Slotted Stairways".

**Figure 12.** Task VIII: "Loop Jumper".

#### 3.1.1. Coding Command (80 min)

Task I: Preceding the "Issuing Commands" task in "Hello! Byte" on Swift Playgrounds, the teacher displays the iPad picture, prompts task goals, touches it with their finger, and writes to add commands moveForward() and collectGem(). After adding the commands and pressing "execute my code" on the picture, the "Byte" moves forward 3 steps (1 step for going up/down the stairs), collects jewels, and reaches the destination. In Figure 3, the result of the difficulty analysis for class students learning Task I: "Issuing Commands", 24 students, among the 29, considered the degree of ease to be 10 (82.8%), 1 student considered the degree of ease to be 9 (3.4%), and 2 students considered the degree of ease to be 8 (6.9%). In total, 27 students (93.1%) considered Task I: "Issuing Commands" to be easy.

Task II: Preceding the "Adding a New Command" task in "Hello! Byte" on Swift Playgrounds, the teacher demonstrates the iPad picture, prompts task goals, continues the previous task, and adds the command turnLeft(). After adding the command and pressing "execute my code" on the picture, the "Byte" moves forward 2 steps, turns left, moves forward 2 steps, and collects jewels to reach the destination. In Figure 4, the result of the difficulty analysis for class students learning Task II: "Adding a New Command", 18 students considered the degree of ease to be 10 (62.1%) and 7 students considered the degree of ease to be 9 (24.1%). In total, 25 students (86.2%) considered Task II: "Adding a New Command" to be easy.

Task III: Preceding the "Toggling a Switch" task in "Hello! Byte" on Swift Playgrounds, the teacher displays the iPad picture, prompts task goals, continues the previous task, and adds the command toggleSwitch(). After adding the command and pressing "execute my code" on the picture, the "Byte" moves forward 2 steps, turns left, moves forward, collects jewels, moves forward, turns left, moves forward, and performs a Toggling a Switch to reach the destination. In Figure 5, the result of the difficulty analysis for class students learning Task III: "Toggling a Switch", 14 students considered the degree of ease to be 10 (48.3%), 4 students considered the degree of ease to be 9 (13.8%), and 8 students considered the degree of ease to be 8 (27.6%). In total, 26 students (89.7%) considered Task III: "Toggling a Switch" to be easy.

Task IV: Preceding the "Portal Practice" task in "Hello! Byte" on Swift Playgrounds, the teacher demonstrates the iPad picture, prompts task goals, continues the previous task, and adds the command toggleSwitch(). After adding the command and pressing "execute my code" on the picture, the "Byte" moves forward 3 steps, turns left, moves forward 2 steps, does a Toggling a Switch, moves forward, enters the Portal, exits the Portal, moves forward, turns left, moves forward 2 steps, and collects jewels to reach the destination. In Figure 6, the result of the difficulty analysis for class students learning Task IV: "Portal Practice", 7 students considered the degree of ease to be 10 (24.1%), 8 students considered the degree of ease to be 9 (27.6%), and 4 students considered the degree of ease to be 4 (13.8%). In total, 19 students (65.5%) considered Task IV: "Portal Practice" to be easy.

#### 3.1.2. Building Functions (80 min)

Task V: Preceding the "Composing a New Behavior" task in "Hello! Byte" on Swift Playgrounds, the teacher displays the iPad picture, prompts task goals, adds the following commands, and presses "execute my code" on the picture. The "Byte" moves forward 3 steps, turns left 3 times (without the command to turn right), moves forward 3 steps, and collects jewels to reach the destination. In Figure 7, the result of the difficulty analysis for class students learning Task V: "Composing a New Behavior", 9 students considered the degree of ease to be 10 (31%), 6 students considered the degree of ease to be 9 (20.7%), and 4 students considered the degree of ease to be 4 (13.8%). In total, 19 students (65.5%) considered Task V: "Composing a New Behavior" to be easy.

Task VI: Preceding the "Creating a New Funtion" task in "Hello! Byte" on Swift Playgrounds, the teacher demonstrates the iPad picture, prompts task goals, and establishes a turnRight() function by adding the command turnLeft() 3 times in func turnRight(){ }, and subsequently uses the function to complete the program command and function, as shown

in Figure 8. By pressing "execute my code" on the picture, the "Byte" moves forward, turns left, moves forward, turns right, moves forward, turns right, moves forward, enters the Portal, exits the Portal, turns right, moves forward, turns left, moves forward, and does a Toggling a Switch to reach the destination. In Figure 9, the result of the difficulty analysis for class students learning Task VI: "Creating a New Funtion", 11 students (37.8%) considered Task VI to be easy (degree of ease 8–10), 16 students (55%) considered Task VI to be moderate (degree of ease 4–7), and 2 students (6.8%) considered Task VI to be difficult (degree of ease 1–3).

Task VII: Preceding the "Slotted Stairways" task in "Hello! Byte" on Swift Playgrounds, the teacher displays the iPad picture and prompts the task picture and goals as in the following figure. The "Byte" repeatedly collects jewels back and forth. This major task can be decomposed into 3 minor tasks, which are simplified with functions or commands for subsequent use of the Slotted Stairways. To practice the establishment of the collectGemTurnAround() function, in Figure 10, the commands to move forward 2 steps, collect jewels, turn left twice (turn backward), and move forward 2 steps are added in func collectGemTurnAround(){ }. To practice the establishment of the sloveRow(){} to complete the minor task of collecting 2 jewels, on the left of the figure, the commands collectGemTurnAround() 2 times, turn left 3 times (turning right), move forward, and turn left are added in func sloveRow(){ }. By pressing "execute my code" on the picture, the "Byte" executes the different commands, functions, and Slotted Stairways. In Figure 11, the result of the difficulty analysis for class students learning Task VII: "Slotted Stairways", 5 students (17.1%) considered Task VII to be easy (degree of ease 8–10), 17 students (58.6%) considered Task VII to be moderate (degree of ease 4–7), and 7 students (24.1%) considered Task VII to be difficult (degree of ease 1–3).

#### 3.1.3. Building Loops (80 min)

Task VIII: Preceding the "Loop Jumper" task in "Hello! Byte" on Swift Playgrounds, the teacher demonstrates the iPad picture and prompts task pictures and goals. To find the step for repeatedly operating tasks on the picture, the part which is to be repeatedly executed can be searched on the task picture. After adding commands to move forward 2 steps, collect jewels, turn right, move forward, turn left, move forward 2 steps, collect jewels, turn right, move forward, enter Portal, exit Portal, and turn left for *i* in 1 . . . 2 { }, "execute my code" in the picture is pressed to have the "Byte" move forward, turn left, repeat the above loop twice, move forward 2 steps, and collect jewels to reach the destination, in Figure 12. In Figure 13, the result of the difficulty analysis for class students learning Task VIII: "Loop Jumper", 5 students (17.1%) considered Task VIII to be easy (degree of ease 8–10), 14 students (48.2%) considered Task VIII to be moderate (degree of ease 4–7), and 10 students (34.4%) considered Task VIII to be difficult (degree of ease 1–3).

**Figure 13.** Difficulty analysis of Task VIII: "Loop Jumper".

The students are requested to fill in the Google form "student feedback on iPad Swift Playgrounds learning".

#### *3.2. Qualitative Feedback Analysis after Teachers' Assessments of Swift Playgrounds*

Nine teachers—2 gifted education program teachers, 2 English teachers, 2 ICT teachers, 2 science teachers, and 1 art teacher—were asked to assess the Swift Playgrounds iPad app. During the Professional Learning Community (PLC) gathering time, lasting about 2 h, they learned computational thinking and programming on their own and then filled in the Google form. From Table 1, which presents qualitative feedback analysis of the teachers' assessments of the computational thinking curriculum, most teachers considered that the basic course "Hello! Byte" on the Swift Playgrounds iPad app could train logical thinking and reasoning ability to largely help beginners learn a basic programming.

**Table 1.** Qualitative feedback analysis after teachers' assessments of Swift Playgrounds.


#### **4. Conclusions and Suggestions**

In the 12-year Basic Education practiced in 2019, the technology field reinforced problem solving and programming in computational thinking. This study re-wrote a lesson plan for technology pilot schools in the 2018 academic year into a paper. Computational thinking skills are becoming essential in all aspects of work and life and have become a part of the K-12 curriculum around the world [30]. For the many different program languages and computational thinking courses, the use of different training and learning tools has essential learning effectiveness [20,31–33]. In the study, a Swift Playgrounds computational thinking curriculum, lasting six sessions, was first developed, and nine elementary school teachers were asked to assess Swift Playgrounds. It was discovered that the tool could train students in logical thinking and reasoning capability. After the research, most teachers considered the tool as being able to train logical thinking and reasoning capability. Analysis of the students' learning feedback showed that 86% and 37% of students regarded adding commands and functions, respectively, as being easy, while 24% and 34% of students considered applying the unit step function and using loops, respectively, as being difficult. It is suggested that the curriculum should be explained in detail, or the schedule extended to allow most students to keep up with the schedule.

Before the end of the course, the teacher announced the codes for all tasks. This allowed students to build the learning scaffold and complete task operations more fluently during self-learning. All students were asked to fill in their feedback on a Google form in the last session, for summative evaluation. Swift Playgrounds is an iOS app. It can only be learned on an iPad, and most schools in the nation could not furnish each student, or even each class, with an iPad for this learning experience. A class was therefore arranged for trial teaching in this study. For a second class, we would need to establish students in different classes but with the same seat number on Swift Playgrounds for the "Hello! Byte" course. These restrictions might be factors that adversely affect the popularity of the course. Apple could release the app for different platforms to allow access to more teachers and students for learning.

**Author Contributions:** Data curation, G.-M.C.; validation, C.-P.C.; writing—original draft, G.-M.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**

