Exploring the effects of using various designs of game-based materials on music learning

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper explores and sheds light on how various designs of game-based learning materials benefit music education. The developed games followed Gordon’s music skill learning sequence of discrimination, and aimed to teach listening and visual skills for the middle C octave. Two genres of game-based learning materials were proposed, one with most game design features and the other which excluded most game mechanisms but retained simple gamification features. A total of 34 elementary school students participated in the experiment and were separated into three groups to learn music with the game-based learning materials. The pros and cons of using various music game-based learning materials for learning performance and learning motivation are summarized. The findings suggest that teachers could adopt the simple version game as a course assisting tool to enable immediate game interaction with students in formal music classes, and the full version game could be provided to learners for after-class informal learning. Besides, the full version could be a trigger for advanced learners to challenge themselves, whereas the simple version would be good for novice learners to acquire the targeted music content more smoothly.