Design and Development of Educational Digital Game of Water Cycle for Elementary School Student using Scratch 3.0

Abstract

The objectives  of this research are as follows: 1) to develop an educational digital game implemented water cycle content belonging to science curriculum for Thai elementary school students, 2) to determine the effectiveness of the water cycle educational digital game, 3)  to compare pre-test and post-test learning achievement with  this water cycle educational digital game, and 4) to study the satisfaction of students towards the water cycle educational digital game. and 5)  to compare pre-test and post-test learning achievement with this water cycle educational digital game. The sample group used in this research is 45 students of the fifth grade (the 2nd semester of 2022) from Banjombung school, Ratchaburi province, Thailand. The process in developing our water cycle educational digital game comprises the steps as follows: 1) game analysis, 2) game design, 3) game development, and 4) game testing, based on the rapid application development (RAD)  approach to obtain quality game within the time limit. Our developed game has been evaluated by five experts in science education and technology for the determination of effectiveness of our educational digital game based on white-box and black-box testing techniques. The obtained water cycle educational digital game is composed of eight parts, which are: 1) game starting, 2) gameplay suggestion, 3) player naming, 4) game maps, 5) water cycle contents,  6) playing,  7) testing of the water cycle content learning, and 8) score conclusion. The developed game consists of five stages related to the water cycle content, which are: 1) terrestrial evaporation, 2) oceanic evaporation, 3) condensation, 4) precipitation, and 5) steam flow. The evaluation results from five experts indicate that the overall effectiveness of our game is in the highest level. The students’ satisfaction towards the water cycle educational digital game is in the high level.