research-article

Using video game development to engage undergraduate students of assembly language programming

Authors:

Robert CollierAuthors Info & Claims

SIGITE '13: Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education

Pages 71 - 76

https://doi.org/10.1145/2512276.2512281

Published: 02 October 2013 Publication History

Abstract

It is widely accepted that the instruction of programming in assembly language is often a challenging and frustrating experience, both to educators and undergraduate students. Although little can be done to simplify the curriculum, it is absolutely crucial that frustration not compel students to abandon the subject. Our use of game development in a second-year course affords a unique opportunity to present this complex subject, without omission, in such a way as to create an experience that most students find entertaining. The results of a class survey indicated that 65% of participants agree or strongly agree that the experience was enjoyable (with only 11% in disagreement). We conclude that this ensures a sufficiently engaging experience that offsets the tedium inherent to the subject. The consensus of most students was that the complexity of video game design does not detract from their enjoyment of the course and contrarily has a positive impact on their learning overall. This position is supported by additional survey results.

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Cited By

Kawash J(2024)Where Do Students Struggle Most in a First Course on Assembly Language?Proceedings of the 26th Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education10.1145/3660650.3660652(1-5)Online publication date: 2-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3660650.3660652
Larraza-Mendiluze EArbelaitz Gallego OArregi Uriarte OIgnacio Martín Aramburu JFrancisco Lukas Mugika J(2024)Basic Concepts of Computer Architecture Through Games and Game DevelopmentIEEE Revista Iberoamericana de Tecnologias del Aprendizaje10.1109/RITA.2024.345886319(195-204)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/RITA.2024.3458863
Black MBrady CGoulski T(2017)Breakout from x86 assembly to a breadboardJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3144605.314463333:1(131-138)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3144605.3144633
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Using video game development to engage undergraduate students of assembly language programming
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
      2. Model curricula

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGITE '13: Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education

October 2013

220 pages

ISBN:9781450322393

DOI:10.1145/2512276

General Chair:
William D. Armitage
University of South Florida, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Rob Friedman
University of Washington Tacoma, USA
,
Ken Baker
CH Mack, USA

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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SIGITE: ACM Special Interest Group on Information Technology Education

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 02 October 2013

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SIGITE/RIIT'13: SIGITE/RIIT 2013

October 10 - 12, 2013

Florida, Orlando, USA

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SIGITE '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 28 of 70 submissions, 40%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 176 of 429 submissions, 41%

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Cited By

Kawash J(2024)Where Do Students Struggle Most in a First Course on Assembly Language?Proceedings of the 26th Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education10.1145/3660650.3660652(1-5)Online publication date: 2-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3660650.3660652
Larraza-Mendiluze EArbelaitz Gallego OArregi Uriarte OIgnacio Martín Aramburu JFrancisco Lukas Mugika J(2024)Basic Concepts of Computer Architecture Through Games and Game DevelopmentIEEE Revista Iberoamericana de Tecnologias del Aprendizaje10.1109/RITA.2024.345886319(195-204)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/RITA.2024.3458863
Black MBrady CGoulski T(2017)Breakout from x86 assembly to a breadboardJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3144605.314463333:1(131-138)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3144605.3144633
Black MDavoli RGoldweber MRößling GPolycarpou I(2017)TetrisOS and BreakoutOSProceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3059009.3072976(88-89)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3059009.3072976
Kawash JKuipers AManzara LCollier RAlphonce CTims JCaspersen MEdwards S(2016)Undergraduate Assembly Language Instruction Sweetened with the Raspberry PiProceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education10.1145/2839509.2844552(498-503)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2839509.2844552
Collier RKawash JDougherty JNagel KDecker AEiselt K(2014)Lessons learned and recommended strategies for game development components in a computer literacy courseProceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/2538862.2538887(157-162)Online publication date: 5-Mar-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2538862.2538887

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