Publication Date

2026

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Hung, Wei-Chen

Degree Name

Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)

Legacy Department

Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment (ETRA)

Abstract

Despite the potential benefits of integrating digital games in teaching and learning environments, little research has been carried out to understand the perception of elementary school teachers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) towards integrating digital games into the classroom. This study aims to understand Saudi elementary teachers’ intention of using the digital games in elementary school classrooms using Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model, and to provide crucial insights for the KSA’s Ministry of Education’s (MOE) administrators in developing evidence-based teacher training and effective school technology-integration policies. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used to assess Saudi elementary school teachers’ attitudes toward the behavior (personal evaluation), subjective norm (perceived social pressure), and perceived behavioral control (perceived ease of use) as factors that may predict teachers’ behavioral intention (BI) to use digital games in the classroom. Additionally, this study examined the effects of demographic characteristics (gender, age, and teaching experience) on attitudes toward behavior (AB), subjective norm (SN), and perceived behavioral control (PBC). Lastly, this study examined the moderating effects of gender, age, and years of experience, on the relationship between the elementary school teachers’ AB, SN, PBC, and BI to use digital games in the classroom. A quantitative correlational design supplemented by qualitative thematic analysis of open-ended responses was conducted to assess how TBP constructs contribute to predicting teachers’ behavioral intention to use digital games in the classroom among elementary school teachers from the Asir district of the KSA. Data were collected using an electronic survey instrument that was modified to address variables pertinent to the research questions, potential participants, context, and subject area of the study. The sample consisted of 100 usable cases drawn from the survey responses from the Asir district of the KSA. The study found that attitude towards the behavior had a significantly positive association with teachers’ intention to use digital games in Saudi elementary schools. The regression results revealed that teacher gender and teaching experience had significant moderating effects. Specifically, females showed a stronger marginal effect of both perceived behavioral control and subjective norm on behavioral intention than males, teachers with more experience see an increase in the marginal effects of perceived behavioral control on behavioral intention. The qualitative findings further explained these results by highlighting themes related to infrastructure and resource constraints, pedagogical benefits, and student-related factors. Study limitations include limited generalizability because the population was limited to a sample of elementary school teachers in one district of KSA. Future research can improve the generalizability of the findings by expanding the study population to include teachers from varying educational levels, which would allow for a comparative analysis of behavioral intentions toward digital-game-based teaching and learning.

Extent

159 pages

Language

en

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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