DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-020-10255-8

Summary
The article covers the idea of applying game design and development to teach programming principles in secondary education. The article presents a concept of designing rooms for an escape house by filling the worksheets and implementing the game in Scratch. Firstly, the authors provide state-of-the-art literature reviews on computational thinking and programming learning using games. Secondly, the learning environment and research methodology are presented. The research questions are related to the students’ previous knowledge, progress in using programming structures, attitude towards programming, difference in learning outcomes for students with different initial knowledge, teachers’ perception on suitability of learning approach. The research data was collected using questionnaires as well as classroom observations and discussions. Finally, the results of quantitative and qualitative analysis were presented. The authors conclude that the teachers’ feedback was positive and the students improved their knowledge and skills in programming.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
The authors provide a research how creating games in a structural environment can improve students’ programming and problem-solving skills. In the suggested tasks, students had to modify given worksheets of escape house by using complex programming structures such as loops and variables as programming structures. While focusing on the given problem with teachers’ guidance, students develop their creativity, critical thinking by assessing the results, improve programming knowledge. These conclusions were based on the statistical analysis of students’ pre- and post-questionnaires about the programming knowledge in informatics and skills. Moreover, authors state that during the implementation of the task (construct an escape house), students were collaborative, helpful and in high interest to create a fully constructed, functional and ready for use game.

Point of Strength
The point of strength of this article is a provided research on how programming skills can be improved by creating games in structural environment.