Abstract
Digital game-based learning is one of popular research fields and also a learning method commonly used in all ages. Today, the popular online games are often highly attractive to users and can stimulate high engagements. Although the digital game-based learning or educational games have already been widely used for years, how to make the games to become very attractive, immersive, etc, is still worthy of exploration. We found that most of those popular online games have competitive mechanism in the game. In addition, we also found that most of traditional competitive activities often divide students into several groups for cooperation and competition. This method often lacks of a competitive environment that get students into the situation. Thus we proposed to design and implement a digital game-based learning system, called Mei-chu game online. This game applies competitive mechanism and combines with the real-life competitive environment of traditional inter-school competition between T and C university in northern Taiwan. Through Mei-chu game online, we hope that the game can inspire students’ learning motivation and enhance students’ engagement. In order to know the effects of using Mei-chu game online, 88 college freshmen from T and C universities participated in this experiment from November 2012 to December 2012.The 88 students used Mei-chu game online learning system for two weeks. After analyzing the data and feedback, the research finding shows that: (1) Mei-chu game online can improve students’ learning outcomes, especially for the students with lower cognitions; (2) Competitive mechanism and the score of post-test present a significant positive correlation; (3) The competitive mechanism and the real-life competitive environment can enhance the degree of involvement and engagement so that they can inspire students’ learning motivation. In summary, both competitive mechanism and the real-life competitive environment have positive effects in this study. Finally, the research indicate some improvement suggestions