A video game to learn ancient Greek: an exploratory case study on learners’ perceptions of an inclusive Digital Game-Based Learning environment for the ancient Greek language

This dissertation focuses on the investigation of Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) – a digital ludic pedagogy – for ancient Greek language instruction. The approach is complemented by an educationally inclusive implementation for learners with Special Learning Difficulties (SpLD) through the guidelines of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) didactical framework. Thus, this study qualitatively explores whether a didactical video game can be perceived as motivating in learning the ancient Greek language and useful in learning its vocabulary. To address the research questions, the researcher developed an online, inclusive DGBL environment, The Mystery of Pella, for beginners of the ancient Greek language. The DGBL environment was implemented on the OpenILIAS platform of the University of Göttingen. With this didactical video game, she investigated the research questions through: 1) a general online survey with a large international sample; and 2) a pre-quasi-experiment and a quasi-experiment with a small sample consisting of two classes of first-year ancient Greek learners aged 12-17 in England. Findings highlight the positive potential of DGBL for maintaining and increasing intrinsic motivation, vocabulary retention, and meaning inference of unknown words, as well as guaranteeing general educational inclusion in ancient Greek instruction. While limitations and difficulties in terms of didactical implementation and investigation were observed, the project nonetheless highlighted the didactical potential of DGBL, as well as the necessity for further research in this still vastly underexplored field for ancient Greek instruction.