Serious Games Requirements for Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Science Education

Education in the 21st century emphasises the mastery of higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) in the pursuit of developing competitive human capital globally. HOTS can be taught through science education. However, science education is considered very challenging leaving students feeling less interested and less motivated. Apart from that, students are found to be weak in mastering their thinking skills based on the decline in students’ achievements in the Trend in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme International Students Assessment (PISA) tests. This situation highlights the need to change the approach of teaching and learning science in line with the current technological changes to meet the challenges of globalisation. Previous studies showed that the use of serious games in learning can enhance students’ thinking skills. Thus, serious games can be used to develop higher-order thinking skills among students. This paper presented results of preliminary study using interviews, document analysis, and questionnaire survey. Findings have shown that there are several issues and challenges of teaching and learning in implementing HOTS in science education, in addition to game design requirement for science education. The requirements will be used to design a serious game implementing HOTS in science education.

@article{Noh2020,
  title     = {Serious Games Requirements for Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Science Education},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {11},
  number    = {6},
  year      = {2020},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Siti Norliza Awang Noh and Nor Azan Mat Zin and Hazura Mohamed},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2020.0110627},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2020.0110627}
}