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

The study explores 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 is 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 (EFL) learning context. A total of 52 Grade 3 students take part in the experiment, of whom 28 are assigned to the experimental group learned with a machine educational robot (machine-ER) board game and 24 are assigned to the control group learned with a character educational robot (character-ER) board game. Results indicate that both groups made significant improvements in learning achievement: 1) in English-language achievement of learning vocabulary and sentence patterns; and 2) in CT concepts, although the machine-ER board game produces a greater increase than the character-ER board game in both language learning achievement and CT knowledge, their learning anxieties are also lower than those of the control group. The analysis of behavioral patterns also reveals that students playing the machine-ER board game demonstrate better language-learning interaction, whereas the students playing character-ER board game present greater CT development in finding solutions.