Sequential Behavior Analysis of Interdisciplinary Activities in Computational Thinking and EFL Language Learning With Game-Based Learning

The study explored the effects of an interdisciplinary learning approach on developing students’ English learning (EL) and computational thinking (CT) through two different game-based learning approaches. A quasi-experiment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach in terms of enhancing students’ CT knowledge and their EL achievement in an elementary school English as a foreign language learning context. A total of 52 Grade 3 students took part in the experiment, of whom 28 assigned to the experimental group learned with a machine educational robot (machine-ER) board game and 24 assigned to the control group learned with a character educational robot (character-ER) board game. The results indicated that both groups made significant improvements in learning achievement: 1) in EL achievement of learning vocabulary and sentence patterns; 2) in CT concepts, although the machine-ER board game produced a greater increase than the character-ER board game in both language learning achievement and CT knowledge; 3) their learning anxieties were also lower than those of the control group; and 4) the analysis of behavioral patterns also revealed that students playing the machine-ER board game demonstrated better language-learning interaction, while the character-ER board game presented greater CT development in finding solutions.