Games-based construction learning in upper primary education

Within Scottish schools teachers are being encouraged to make more use of different styles of 
approaches to learning, one of which is the use of ICT to help develop children’s digital literacy 
skills across the whole curriculum. Some suggested means of implementing this are using Glow 
– the Scottish schools’ intranet system – or games-based learning (GBL). The curriculum
encourages GBL by way of children constructing their own games, games-based construction
learning (GBCL).
With applications like Scratch being easily available, game construction is becoming more 
accessible to a wider audience. However, from a teacher’s perspective there are barriers to 
introducing GBCL in their classes from a lack of knowledge around GBCL and games 
construction to not knowing how best to implement this within their teaching. This thesis 
explores the use of game construction in primary school settings and aims to provide empirical 
evidence on the use of Scratch in primary education in Scotland 
This thesis has reviewed the GBCL literature and identified that there is a lack of GBCL 
literature and a lack of implementation frameworks for GBCL within education. An initial 
framework for the implementation of GBCL within primary education has been developed and 
refined through empirical work with schools. This was undertaken during the school years 
2011/12 and 2012/13. 384 children from 16 classes between Primary 4 and Primary 7 
participated with their class teachers. Eight one-hour lessons on games construction using 
Scratch were delivered to each class either by the researcher or class teacher and evaluations 
of them by the children and teachers showed a mainly positive response. Teachers who 
participated gained confidence in their own skills of teaching with Scratch and were pleased 
with the progress their classes had made. Teachers also saw Scratch not only as a game 
construction tool but as a tool that allowed the children to problem solve and work together in 
teams. 
During the study 178 games from all classes were constructed and these were analysed using a 
game coding scheme that was developed to capture the programming and design elements that 
the children had used in their games. Results showed that children could successfully use 
programming constructs such as User Interaction (key handling), Loops (iteration) and 
Conditional Statements to create their own simple games. This is important for teachers when 
considering the implications of not only using GBCL in their class but if they want to start 
looking at computational thinking and teaching programming in class.

This thesis has provided an original contribution to knowledge by showing how GBL/GBCL 
is being used in primary schools and what teachers feel about it. It has shown that through 
surveys and interviews teachers lack knowledge and possibly some confidence in delivering 
GBCL lessons. Additionally, this thesis provides empirical evidence on the use of GBCL 
within primary schools. As well as this, this thesis provides not only a framework for 
implementation that can be used in schools to undertake GBCL as well as a game coding 
scheme to assess Scratch games programming and design but lessons that have been trialled 
and still are being used by children and teachers in schools across Glasgow who now participate 
in an annual event known as the Mini Game Jam to showcase the skills they have learned 
through their Scratch lessons.