Computer Science (CS) is a profession that positively impacts every single area of society without which today’s world would come to a complete halt. Yet, there is a consensus that CS has serious conundrums particularly in attracting students, low motivation for learning computer programming and developing computational thinking (CT) skills. New motivational methods are needed to take the attention of students and adapt to their learning patterns as how people learn have changed drastically over the last two decades. To address these issues, video games and video game-based tools are proposed as a primary approach for motivating and supporting students in developing their skills in CT and support their learning of introductory programming. This research is concerned with the capture of statistical evidence on the educational effectiveness of playing a serious game specifically designed to enhance the development of CT skills to facilitate learning introductory computer programming. A total of 190 students were invited to participate in a quasi-experimental pre-post study for the purpose of analyzing the impact of an adhoc game to students’ confidence in learning programming constructs and using their skills in CT. All students were studying a CS degree at the time and they were all registered to a first-year computer programming course. 151 out of 190 students successfully completed the study and the findings suggest that a) the intrinsic motivation to learn programming; b) students’ perception of their knowledge and their tangible knowledge in key programming constructs (i.e. programming sequence, methods, decision making and loops); and c) students’ confidence in using their CT skills were all statistically and significantly improved after playing the game. Additionally, students perceived computer programming significantly less difficult in their post study responses when compared to their pre study responses.

Psychomotor skills are a series of cognitive abilities often linked with physical movement, coordination and speed that individuals use, to progress through cognitive stages in order to demonstrate fine motor skills. This paper investigates whether or not playing a video game could potentially influence and improve the psychomotor skills of adolescents, particularly their eye-hand coordination, visual response and attention competence, the aim being to provide statistical evidence that video games can be potentially used to enhance psychomotor skills. A total of 62 participants were invited to participate in an experimental study where these participants were divided into two groups, the control group and the experimental group. The participants were aged between 16 and 19 years, and they were asked to complete a building block task that is closely associated with using psychomotor skills, and they did not have any prior experience of. A pre – post study design was used in both groups in order to measure participants’ level of confidence in using their psychomotor skills. Furthermore, the study investigated if the participants in the experimental group integrated elements of video game play into intentional and automatic real-life reactions within the building block task they undertook. The findings of the study suggest that those participants who played the video game were more confident in using their eye-hand coordination and visual response, and managed to complete the natural building block task faster and more accurately than the participants who did not play the video game.