Effectiveness of Social Media Communication in Game Development Study using Team-based Learning

Team-based learning helps students understand methods of usability enhancement by discussing problems and improvements during product development. In this paper, we examine the types of discussions and communication among the teams and their members that were most important for progressively better results in terms of learning reflection. In this study, three teams from two different countries are compared: 1. Arabic team (consisted of 3 Arab students); 2. Japanese team (consisted of 4 Japanese students); and, 3. International team (consisted of 3 Japanese students and 2 Arab students). All the students were between 18 and 24 years old. Each team started with the same level of a basic HTML and javascript browser game, and this was provided by the experimenter. Teams were required to develop the game with user testing between versions. The game was developed using an online game editor provided by the experimenters. Code changes and updates were based on user testing by the other teams. The study lasted 3 weeks, with 3 development cycles. At the end of the study, the participants provided their social media communications, including Skype messenger, Facebook messenger, and other instant messaging applications. Based on their communications, we examined the relationships between team activities and their learning experiences with the project overall. The discussions and communications via social media of each group were categorized as: Proposal, Permission, Encouragement, and Acknowledgment using protocol analysis. The analysed results indicate that the learning satisfaction is influenced by what was communicated. In addition, we concluded that Proposal was the most effective type of communication among teams in terms of the learning reflection, especially for satisfaction and achievement. This paper reports on our findings and implications for team-based learning using online media.