Transportation engineering is a wide area that covers different topics including traffic planning, highway design, pavement design, traffic safety, and traffic control. Certain concepts in those topics are challenging and are hard to understand based on textbooks and lectures. In this work, we developed five web games targeting the five topics in transportation engineering education to improve students’ understanding of those hard concepts. The games are hosted in a website server. Students can play these games online after register and login. The server stores the users’ information and their gameplay data. We conducted a Before-and-After study to test the effectiveness of the games in terms of improving the learning outcomes of the students. The results showed that the games could increase the students’ understanding of hard concepts significantly. The developed games can be used in transportation education. This game framework can serve as a reference for other education game developers. We envision that more educational games will be developed by transportation and education communities in the recent future. There will be more than one game for the same topic. We need an approach to select games for different students group. We proposed a gravity model for evaluating the engagement of the students for the educational games. We found that different games have different properties in terms of attracting students’ engagement. The proposed model can be used in the future for selecting educational games for specific students group. / Master of Science / This thesis presents the effort of making computer games for education purpose. I developed five games corresponding to the five areas in transportation engineering courses. The objective of this work is to let the students understand the hard concepts in transportation engineering by playing the developed games. The students can play the games online, and their gameplay data will be recorded as they play. The effectiveness of this work was tested using before-and-after quizzes. We designed a set of quizzes that are within transportation engineering and can be solved using the knowledge learned in the games. We asked the students to do the quizzes and, without any feedback, do the same quizzes again after playing the games. The result showed that their scores improved in general, which means their understanding of transportation engineering was improved. Using the data collected from the gameplay, quizzes, and the students’ course scores, I proposed a gravity model that describes how students were engaged in the games. I found that different games could attract different students.

For my thesis I chose a topic related to the use and limits of the Internet for pupils of primary school in their free time, because I think that this issue is not given sufficient attention. The aim of my work, based on content analysis of literature and other sources and on the research among pupils, is to formulate risks associated with the use of the Internet by pupils of younger school age. Chapters of my thesis provide the readers to the issue of risk phenomena associated with the use of the Internet, which can affect mental and physical health of children. Readers will also find a chapter focused on existing projects dealing with the issue of Internet safety. And last but not least, the work is focused on the possibility of the use and safety of the sites mostly visited by children that resulted from the research. For my work I have drawn mainly from the many Internet publications and brochures, written by the experts in this issue, because the topic is relatively new and it is difficult to find books devoted to it. The work includes also research part, for which I chose the method of questionnaire survey, exploring outlined three areas - the use of the Internet, Internet safety and use of social networks by pupils of 3rd - 5th year of primary school. The results are placed in a table that...

本研究為一初探性研究，研究題目為「線上遊戲作為一種廣告形式之效果研究」，研究的構想來自於對網路現況的觀察。目前網路上有許多網站，包括了遊戲網站與企業網站，提供多種結合了廣告訊息之「線上遊戲」，供網路使用者遊玩以達成行銷之實，本研究即以此為主題，對此新興的手法之效果加以探討。 根據現況的發展，本研究發掘了幾個研究問題： 1.線上遊戲與廣告以不同的形式結合，是否會造成不同的廣告效果？目前有兩種非常普遍的運用形式，一為在遊戲的網頁中附加橫幅式廣告，一乃專為產品設計的線上遊戲，稱之為「品牌遊戲」，本研究的第一個研究目的，即探知兩種形式的廣告效果異同，以「結合形式」為自變項之一。 2.第二個問題，即當產品類型不同時，線上遊戲結合廣告是否會造成不同的廣告效果？以「產品類型」為第二個自變項，而以廣告效果為依變項。 3.根據以往的研究，不論是平面的雜誌廣告，或電視廣告，閱聽眾對廣告的態度，都會影響對品牌的態度，而線上遊戲作為一種新的廣告形式，遊戲者對遊戲的態度，是否會同樣的影響品牌的態度？這為本研究的第三個問題。 在廣告效果的操弄上，本研究的廣告效果包括了「回憶與再認」：廣告回憶、廣告再認；「態度與意願」：廣告態度、對遊戲的喜好程度、品牌態度與購買意願。上述第三個研究問題，探討的即是依變項中「廣告態度」、「對遊戲的喜好程度」與「品牌態度」之間的關係。 進行研究設計前，本研究先針對目前的發展現況作深度訪談，以作為研究設計之背景資料。再以實驗室實驗法進行，探討變項之間的因果關係。在結論方面，本研究發現：「結合形式」不同會造成不同的廣告效果，且「品牌遊戲」所造成的廣告效果會大於僅在一般遊戲的網頁中加上橫幅式廣告的效果，尤其對回憶與再認效果影響最大；「產品類型」沒有差異；而「廣告態度」、「對遊戲的喜好程度」與「品牌態度」間則呈正向的關係，亦即愈喜歡遊戲，也會愈喜歡產品。