Research Article
Usability Evaluation of Educational Games: An Analysis of
Culture as a Factor Affecting Children’s Educational Attainment
Marwan Alshar’e ,
1
Ali Albadi ,
2
Malik Jawarneh ,
1
Noman Tahir ,
1
and Marya Al Amri
1
1
Faculty of Computing Sciences, Gulf College, Muscat, Oman
2
e Faculty of Computing Sciences and Head Centre for Postgraduate Studies and Research, Gulf College, Muscat, Oman
Correspondence should be addressed to Marwan Alshar’e; marwan@gulfcollege.edu.om
Received 7 April 2022; Accepted 21 July 2022; Published 22 August 2022
Academic Editor: Alessandra Agostini
Copyright © 2022 Marwan Alshar’e et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
Educational games have been employed among Omani schools but those used by local Omani schools were imported and were
mostly designed based on western contexts. For Omani children, these games may be culturally inappropriate and difficult to
comprehend and follow, impeding children’s learning. ree questionnaires and one observational checklist were used to gather
data from 40 respondents (observers). SPSS was used in data analysis. rough experiments, the behavior of Omani students
towards the use of imported educational games was examined. Five main factors, namely, efficiency, learnability, memorability,
errors, and satisfaction, of educational games for a target user were measured using Hybrid User Evaluation Methodology for
Remote Evaluation (HUEMRE), Training Framework for Untrained Observer (TFUO), and Framework on Educational Games
Behavior Intention (EGsBI), which are specifically designed frameworks for this purpose. e results of this study explained that
the Omani children are facing difficulties in using the imported educational games; furthermore, this study proves that culture,
language, animation, and interaction are contributing heavily to benefiting from educational games, and, therefore, these factors
shall be highly considered in the process of educational games design to facilitate and ensure children learning; furthermore, the
findings of this study enrich the comprehension of how the specified factors positively affect behavioral intention of Omani
students in the use of educational games and in improving the behavior intention level of these students.
1. Introduction
Education systems have undergone transformation, with the
inclusion of digital elements, allowing the incorporation of an
innovative teaching-learning ecosystem known as e-learning [1].
As a blanket term, “e-learning” generally relates to some digital
learning environments as can be exemplified by the online and
virtual learning environments, as well as social learning tech-
nologies [2]. E-learning systems provide appropriate flow of
knowledge within organization, facilitate learning, ease the
delivery of knowledge and information, and improve perfor-
mance [3, 4]. E-learning is commonly used in academic insti-
tutions today mainly for the purpose of easing the learning of all
levels of learners, and this type of learning is highly useful in
assisting young learners and those with special needs [5, 6].
As e-learning has expanded and evolved, it becomes a
fitting conduit for educational games. For children espe-
cially, educational games have proven to be effective in
facilitating their learning process, and, for this reason, ed-
ucational institutions are increasingly relying on the use of
educational games. Educational games (or serious games)
are games designed explicitly to teach learner on certain
subject, expound concepts, strengthen development, or fa-
cilitate their skill training or learning during play [7].
Learning through the use of software involves the in-
tegration of science, technology, and society in educational
games. A design model is used in structuring the learning
contents and activities in educational games [8]. In devel-
oping serious games, game designers are often challenged
when dealing with fantasy content and context integration
Hindawi
Advances in Human-Computer Interaction
Volume 2022, Article ID 9427405, 13 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/9427405