Programming education is slowly being integrated at elementary school level around the world, with several countries in Europe having added, or being in the process of adding it to their curricula. South Korea is among these countries, with a plan to implement programing education at elementary school level from 2018 onwards. Programming education, however, has always been a relatively difficult subject for students to learn properly, even at university level. K-12 faces even greater challenges when approaching the topic, as the variety of students, learning preferences and interest towards the topics are going to diversified. Gamification could be a potential tool to enhance elementary school students learning of and motivation toward programming education.
With diversified group of potential players a game that lacks adaptation to their personal learning styles and preferred play styles risks alienating some of them and thus lessening their interest towards the game partly or completely.
This thesis’ contribution is twofold. Firstly, potential models were surveyed for use as the base for our adaptation model. A questionnaire made from two combined models, Bartle Player Types and Honey and Mumford Learning Style Questionnaire, was tested at a local Korean elementary school to see whether any promising results are gained.
Secondly, a game, Minerva, built around the topic of programming education, with focus on adaptation to the two models, was created and tested at the same local elementary school.
The evaluations of the questionnaire and Minerva indicated positive results that support the view that programming education game that uses adaptation could enhance students learning.
