<br/>This paper will outline the development of a short game for chemistry courses, starting with some freely available online tools and scaling this initial game into fully developed content. The game was developed to ask students to exercise skills relating to naming of molecular compounds and stoichiometry while proceeding through a level-based narrative. Naming of chemical compounds is an important threshold concept for students, necessary in order to read scientific journals or communicate their research with other scientists, as well as to function effectively in industry, and it is a skill that lends itself well to gamification. In its final form, the project design brings together open-source tools with Microsoft's Visual Studio, so that the game can incorporate at minimum the social element of class leaderboards, displaying, for instance, the top ten scores in the class (further social elements are desirable, but will depend on the complexities of incorporation). As a further incentive, “achievements” can be included, perhaps allotting “badges” and/or real-world rewards such as extra points on an assignment. This project offers more and different opportunities for students to remain engaged with coursework and with their classmates. Studies have shown that pedagogical games improve working memory and potentially decrease test anxiety. In addition, many students are already comfortable using smartphones for study and research, as well as for social communication. Many also already engage in some type of mobile gaming, and mobile games should therefore yield increases in student engagement and success by providing portable, flexible, and fun additional practice, while leaderboards, achievements, and rewards give students a reason to return to the game and practice further.

Developing a mobile-compatible interactive game for naming molecular compounds

255th National Meeting (2018)

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