Updating a web-based card game to teach programming, cybersecurity and software development life cycle concepts

Abstract

Game-Based Learning (GBL) has been shown to be effective in teaching software engineering practices and principles. This research updates Program Wars, a web-based card game, to improve the support for learning concepts of various programming structures and concepts (i.e. variables, loop, method). Additionally, the game's support for learning cybersecurity practices and concepts was refined. A user study evaluated this new version of Program Wars, and it was found that the latest version performs better in terms of learning various programming components along with cybersecurity concepts than the older version. Finally, a new gaming mode was introduced to the newest version of the game to teach the Software Development Life Cycle and the Iterative Software Development Methodology. A separate user study is also proposed in this research work to evaluate this version of the gameplay