Design and development of geomerkez - a web based educati̇onal game on the topics of geometry and center of mass

Its is observed that STEM (SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING and MATHEMATICS) education which gives the priority to the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and advocates an integrated approach in teaching these fields instead of an isolated one, involves certain inadequacies. To deal with them, by adding the ARTS element to STEM education, STEAM education has been proposed as an alternative, and themes such as artistic approach in teaching, learning by having fun and game based education have recently become popular. In this context, with this research, a web based educational computer game GeoMerkez focusing on finding the center of mass of multiple objects in space, is proposed and a prototype with basic components of the game is developed. The literature involves a limited number of educational computer games related to geometry and physics, and compared to those games, GeoMerkez provides an authentic approach in terms of both content and design with the aim of a unique contribution to educational technologies. To assess the effectiveness of the game and have some feedback, separate pilot studies were conducted with 26 undergraduate students registered to Introduction to Physics course, the instructor of the course and three information technology professionals. Referring to their positive comments, specific results of the pilot studies, limitations of the research, and future research directions were discussed.