Exploring students’ acceptance of educational computer games from the perspective of learning strategy

Abstract

Educational computer games have been widely employed to facilitate students’ learning. Studies have pointed out that these games may improve students’ learning effectiveness when they are equipped with appropriate learning strategies. However, the role of learning strategies in students’ acceptance of educational computer games has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Hence, this research proposed two learning scenarios to address this question. Students in the first scenario were offered an educational computer game with a learning strategy, while those in the second were offered the same game without the strategy. A quasi-experimental design with a research model was constructed to examine the role of learning strategies in students’ acceptance of the given game. In this study, 65 students participated in the two learning scenarios. Two research findings are presented: (1) the adoption of the learning strategy not only affected students’ acceptance of the game, but also made their perceived ease of use significantly influence their perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, and attitude towards using; (2) with or without the learning strategy, perceived enjoyment was the most important factor that affected students’ acceptance of the game, while perceived usefulness, attitude towards using, and perceived control exerted no influence on this issue.