A Systematic Mapping Study on Game Elements and Serious Games for Learning Programming.

This work aims to verify how serious games and their composing elements are used and evaluated to support learning programming. Serious games have been used as a tool to support learning in several areas and subjects. To achieve its educational goals, a serious game must consist of a set of game elements that are related to the learning outcomes. In Computer Science, educators are also using serious games and their elements to enhance learning of programming-related disciplines, which are often considered challenging by first-year students. To achieve our goal we defined three research questions: (1) What are the serious games for learning programming? (2) What are the game elements in the serious games for learning programming? and (3) What is the empirical strategies and methods used to evaluate existing game elements? A systematic mapping study on the use and evaluation of game elements for learning programming was conducted. Our systematic literature search found 27 elements of games distributed in 43 serious games. The elements of games are present in 39 primary studies that date from 2007 to 2016. The elements of games more reported in the literature were: Fantasy, Goal, Level, Point System, and Quest. Our results also indicate that game elements are only evaluated indirectly by means of their serious games. Furthermore, we identify some shortcomings in primary studies found, such as the lack of systematic evaluation, for instance, by means of controlled experiments and the low number of quantitative studies.