Assessing the Effectiveness of Game-Based Learning vs. Traditional Learning: A Teacher-Based Perception in Higher Education

Abstract

Background: Game based learning (GBL) is steadily gaining popularity in higher education to improve learning environments in the classroom and to overcome conceptual obstacles. For this to be successful, however, it is necessary to be aware of the views of the teachers who create such settings. The focus of this study is on teachers' perceptions about the effectiveness of GBL and that of traditional lecture-based instruction.
Methodology: The method of the study was descriptive survey which was used to gather data from faculty of higher education through a structured questionnaire. The instrument contained six key pedagogical dimensions of educators' attitudes rated on a five-point agreement scale: engagement, learning outcomes, skills development, adaptability, assessment, and effectiveness.
Results: The analysis showed that there was a significant clustering of positive responses to the agreement spectrum, suggesting a moderate level of dispersion or non-polarization of responses. Teachers were overwhelmingly in agreement that GBL would be more effective than traditional teaching methods to engage the students' interest and motivate them. The two areas that had the strongest consensus were conceptual retention and academic achievement. In contrast, endorsement added to the cautious stance on application of external skills and adaptability in institutions, and assessment plus feedback was found to be the weakest, most conflicted aspect.
Findings: Educators believe that GBL is an effective affective-cognitive catalyst which could be a very effective way to improve the motivation and information retention of students over traditional models. But they are not very confident of its ability to conduct formal, summative evaluation, and they have identified as structural barriers, digital readiness, and infrastructure, as well as various concerns related to replacing traditional approaches completely.
Conclusion: Teacher perceptions strongly advocate a hybrid pedagogical framework, rather than an outright replacement of traditional teachers’ lectures. Higher education institutions need to use GBL as a way of engaging, visualizing and obtaining quick formative evaluation for experience, while maintaining the structural rigour and established assessment techniques of the traditional approaches.

Keywords