Assessing the Effectiveness of a Game-Based Educational Package for the Tenth-Grade English Language Course on Students’ Higher-Order Cognitive Levels
Keywords:
Educational package, gamification, English language course, tenth gradeAbstract
The present study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of a game-based educational package for the tenth-grade English language course on students’ higher-order cognitive levels. A quasi-experimental method with a pretest–posttest design and a control group was employed. The statistical population consisted of all tenth-grade students in Rafsanjan during the 2024–2025 academic year. For the screening phase, a sample of 384 students who experienced difficulties in learning English (i.e., obtained scores below 14 in each of the higher-order cognitive levels—analysis, evaluation, and creation—on a researcher-developed English language test) and were willing to cooperate with the researcher was selected. The students were then randomly assigned to two groups of 20 participants each. Subsequently, one group was designated as the experimental group and received English language instruction based on the developed game-based educational package for eight weeks, three sessions per week (from January 4 to March 5, 2025). During the same period, members of the control group received traditional English language instruction and did not participate in any supplementary educational programs or extracurricular instructional activities. Upon completion of the intervention, the English language test was administered to both groups. Data were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) in SPSS version 25. The findings indicated that the game-based English language educational package had a simultaneous effect on the linear combination of analysis, evaluation, and creation in the tenth-grade English language course. The effect size of the game-based educational package on the combined linear construct of analysis, evaluation, and creation among students was 0.819. Furthermore, the effect sizes for analysis, evaluation, and creation were 0.448, 0.643, and 0.658, respectively.
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