Students as Game Designers: Fostering AI Literacy through Project-Based Learning and Design Thinking

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the digital landscape, highlighting the importance of cultivating AI literacy from an early age. Recognising the need to equip students with the competences required to navigate this new reality, contemporary educational curricula, including those in primary education, consider constructivist, innovative pedagogical approaches particularly effective. Among these, Project-Based Learning (PBL) is widely adopted, as it actively engages learners in processes of responding to authentic challenges, making decisions, and collaboratively creating meaningful outputs in the form of physical, digital, or hybrid artefacts. However, PBL usually follows linear pathways, which does not fully align with the inherently iterative nature of design and construction processes. Consequently, the integration of complementary methodologies that emphasise iteration and creative problem-solving is considered beneficial. Design Thinking (DT), which shares common pedagogical foundations with PBL, can be smoothly aligned with project-based practices, enriching them through iterative cycles of ideation, prototyping, and refinement. This study explores whether a combined PBL-DT approach can foster AI literacy in primary education through game design. The methodology was implemented in the context of an e-course lab delivered to primary school students and was further enriched with design tactics proposed by the Room2Educ8 framework. The students assumed the role of designers and collaboratively developed an augmented escape board game, addressing key aspects of AI literacy. The intervention adopted a pre/post-test design, and its findings indicate that engagement in the PBL-DT workflows seem to support the enhancement of students’ AI literacy effectively. This work contributes by proposing a practical and scalable instructional model that aligns with current educational priorities. It also contributes empirical evidence to the growing field of education for AI literacy and provides insights for researchers and practitioners interested in fostering AI competences using curriculum-aligned, student-centred, game-design methodologies at early stages of education.