Novel 3D Contextual Interactive Games on a Gamified Virtual Environment Support Cultural Learning Through Collaboration Among Intercultural Students

This study aims to help international students learn the language and cultural knowledge of their future study destination by collaborating with local students through coplaying games in online virtual rooms. Therefore, this study explores whether the 3D interactive game with specific contexts on a virtual platform can support intercultural collaboration and improve the students’ language and cultural learning. This study created novel 3D contextual interactive games (3DCIGs) in a gamified virtual environment (GVE), established on a unique virtual platform named Terf®. Terf® enables the observing and recording of data related to the conversations and behaviors of users. To investigate the effects of 3DCIGs on students, a focus group consisting of newly arrived Chinese students and Irish students from an Irish university participated in this study. The study adopted mixed methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine whether 3DCIGs effectively motivate the collaborative learning of intercultural students compared with text-based assignments set in the Game Play Rooms. The findings reveal that the novel 3DCIGs developed in this study have a positive potential to motivate intercultural students to engage in team collaboration and help their cultural and language knowledge exchange.