Students' Reactions to Different Levels of Game Scenarios: A Cognitive Style Approach

Game-based learning comprises of a set of concrete scenarios, which can be presented with various presentation modalities (e.g., text, text with graphic, and context). Such presentation modalities disseminate information in different ways. On the other hand, cognitive styles affect how people process information. Accordingly, the study presented in this paper investigates the influences of cognitive styles on students’ performance within different levels of game-based scenarios. More specifically, this study examines how students with different cognitive styles (i.e., Holist/Serialist) react to three presentation modalities (i.e., text, text with graphic, and context) in game-based scenarios. The results of an empirical study with 96 students revealed that all students made improvement, regardless of any presentation modalities. However, Holists significantly performed better than Serialists in the context version. According to the results, further suggestions for system design are discussed.