Student Engagement and Perceived Learning in an Educational Platform Game with Automatic Question Generation: A Brazilian High School Study

Abstract

Introduction: Digital games show promise for engaging students in mathematics, but few studies examine educational games with automatic question generation in real high school contexts. Objective: This paper investigates student and teacher perceptions of Gael, a 2D educational platform game with multiple-choice question generation, for teaching financial mathematics in 11th grade (second year of Brazilian high school). Methodology: An exploratory case study involved 61 students from a Brazilian public high school, using a post-session questionnaire with ten five-point Likert items on gameplay, engagement, content adequacy, and perceived learning, plus three open-ended questions. Teacher feedback and game logs on in-game performance served as complementary data. Results: Students reported high fun, attention, usability, and intention to reuse the game, while perceived learning was moderately positive and varied. Student and teacher comments identified gameplay, aesthetics, and integration of financial mathematics as strengths, and mathematical difficulty, limited prior knowledge, and control issues as main challenges.