Enhancing First Year Fundamental Engineering Subject Understandings through Game Based Cooperative Learning

Abstract

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a need for rapid changes to the existing education system to ensure continuous fulfilment of human capital development needs amidst the challenges of social distancing. Thus, game-based cooperative learning carried out via an online environment is proposed for implementation to ensure students stay engaged in the newly created study atmosphere. For this study, online game-based learning is implemented on a group of final year Petroleum Engineering students taking Production Chemistry and Flow Assurance in a private government-linked Malaysian university. Students’ feedback was obtained to analyse the effectiveness of the implemented study upon completion of the semester. The survey questions were grouped into 6 themes, namely Relevance, Reflective Thinking, Interactivity, Tutor Support, Peer Support, and Interpretation. Overall, the implementation was a success indicated by student satisfaction at 88.3% by the first class with room for improvement in the area of peer support. The maximum score of 5 was rated as the mode for 92% of the 24 survey questions while the mean ranged from 4.0 to 4.7. The standard deviation was also found to range from 0.45 to 1.11, showing a relatively collective agreement on the successful implementation of game-based learning.