Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to describe a novel development of a classroom game called “The Passing Game” that explore the student engagement element and involvement improvement , thus looking into the effectiveness of using “The Passing Game” in enhancing the learning environment and students’ understanding of the subject. In most traditional engagement measures, focuses were drawn on quantitative elements such as class attendance and absenteeism, test results and graduation rates, leaving students and classroom learning engagements such as interest on the subject, task and the enjoyment in learning mostly left out. In fact, most literature highlights the student engagement and disengagement issues occurred in the high school. The authors created a game Kit according to the subject. The method of playing this game is rather simple. As this kit comes with a box, lecturers will place the questions strips from the chapter that had been taught in the box. Musical elements were added and the box will be passed around to the students. Once the songs of choice were played, the box will be passed around by the students among themselves. When the music stop (controlled by the lecturer), the student who’s holding the box will have to pick a question from the box and answer them. The qualitative method was used in order to identify the effectiveness of using “The Passing Game” in students’ subject understanding. Grounded theory was used to explore the element of student engagement and involvement improvement using “The Passing Game”. Students evaluations reveal that “the Passing Game” was fun and engaging. Apart from fun and engaging, students also found that this is an interesting game, good for study revision, assimilation and communication. A discussion regarding the effectiveness and engaging of “The Passing Game” is provided. While most studies of classroom game development revolves around High School scene, this paper looks at the tertiary education scene. This paper also ventured at the development of “The Passing Game” kit as an academic game/product to be used in the classroom.