NASA Psyche Web-Based Game: Psyche Expedition - Space Spellathon

This study investigates the potential effectiveness of gamification for enhancing educational outcomes through the development and evaluation of the web-based game "Psyche Expedition - Space Spellathon," designed to teach players about NASA's Psyche mission. This exploratory, mixed methods study investigates the potential impact of gamified content on knowledge retention and learners' perceptions of gamified elements. The game, developed in Unity, incorporates a spelling bee format where players spell out answers to trivia questions. The study involved 15 undergraduate computer science students from Arizona State University, aged 18 to 24. Although the small sample size precludes statistical inference, the exploratory results showed an improvement in participants’ post-test scores compared to pre-test scores. This result provides some insights in the right direction that gamified content may have the potential to enhance knowledge retention. However, without a control group for comparison, these findings cannot be conclusively attributed to the gamified approach alone. Additionally, participants' perceptions of the game's narrative and interactive elements were analyzed. Some participants found the game engaging and educational, though there were suggestions for possible improvements in the narrative depth and character development. In the exploratory analysis, even when there seemed to be some differences in perceptions of the game's narrative and interactive elements based on prior online tutoring experience or gender, these differences were not statistically significant. The results obtained in the study highlight the potential of gamification in education but also underscore the need for careful design and implementation of gamified elements to maximize their effectiveness. Future research should explore the long-term effects of gamification on learning, secure a larger sample size, and include a control condition to compare. It is also important to consider diverse participant groups to enhance generalizability. Even with important limitations to consider, this exploratory study contributes to the growing body of literature on gamification in education and provides insights for developing more effective educational games.