ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Enhancing EFL Vocabulary and Psychological Well-Being in Chinese Undergraduates through Adaptive Digital Games with Mind Mapping and Runge-Kutta Modeling
Provisionally accepted
- Shangrao Normal University, Shangrao, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
In China's exam-oriented EFL education system, undergraduates face high academic pressure, hindering vocabulary mastery and psychological well-being; this study introduces an adaptive framework to address these challenges. This study presents a groundbreaking approach to improving English as a Foreign Language (EFL) vocabulary mastery and psychological well-being among Chinese undergraduate students by combining an adaptive computer agent-based digital game (ACA-DG) with mind mapping and Runge-Kutta Pairs of Orders 6(5) modeling. Adaptive agents customize interventions to align with students' learning and emotional requirements, mind mapping structures vocabulary knowledge, and Runge-Kutta methods simulate dynamic learning and psychological processes. A 12-week experimental study at a Chinese university compared an experimental group (ACA-DG with mind mapping, n=75) to a control group (standard DGBL, n=75). Vocabulary assessments, motivation, self-efficacy, anxiety, and life satisfaction scales, alongside interviews and observations, revealed a 30.2% vocabulary score improvement, increased motivation, and reduced anxiety in the experimental group. The Runge-Kutta model predicted learning paths with 95% accuracy. This interdisciplinary framework provides innovative tools for EFL educators, merging computational accuracy with emotional support, and advocates for scalable technology-driven learning solutions.
Keywords: adaptive digital games, Mind mapping, Runge-Kutta modeling, EFLvocabulary, psychological well-being
Received: 11 Jun 2025; Accepted: 06 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ziqiang Cai, tdpa00@163.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.