Usability and Learning Effectiveness of Game-Themed Instructional (GTI) Module for Teaching Stacks and Queues

Computer science majors are expected to learn many concepts related to computer programming. Amongst the concepts are data structures - methods used to arrange and store program-related data. Two commonly-used data structures in computer science are stacks and queues. Traditional instruction promises to instill this knowledge in undergraduate computer science majors. However, students sometimes find it difficult to learn stacks and queues (amongst other CS-related concepts) due to the high complexity of the subject. Emerging research has been exploiting virtual reality and gaming as an educational tool. The game-like appeal that these works feature coupled with educational content motivate students to learn and help students understand that subject at hand. Research investigating educational VR has been demonstrating enhancements in students' learning experience. With this said, a game theme based instructional (GTI) module was developed to teach undergraduate computer science majors about stacks and queues. The module features gaming metaphors to help students construct their own knowledge about the two data structures. In this paper, the GTI module's design is discussed along with a user study involving 18 undergraduate students evaluating it. The user study results prove that the proposed module helps students learn stacks and queues while being satisfactorily usable.