Several researchers have started exploring the possibility of games in education, but not just any type of educational games.Games that are considered Immersive, multi user role-playing games, have brought a new spin on learning within education that is still in the early phases of research. This research will explore how these types of games impact learning in the classroom. Using an experimental pre-post design with a control group, students will be exposed to a game-based curriculum and subsequently tested on content achievement. The control group will receive the typical, lecture, text based curriculum. The experimental group will be actively engaged in an immersive, multi-user game. A validated achievement test will be used to measure mastery of content.
Recently, Dr. Richard Eck wrote an article in the April issue of Educause (month, year), “We are ill-prepared to provide the needed guidance because so much of the past digital game based learning (DGBL) research, though good, has focused on efficacy (the message that games can be effective) rather than on explanation (why and how they are effective) and prescription (how to actually implement DGBL) “ (pg#). This is the exact intent for this research: to focus on, collecting evidence to support game use in curricula, and establish guidleines for how games can effectively be implemented within instruction.
The purpose of this experimental study will be to test the hypothesis that student achievement can be improved using a role-playing strategy game, Civilization IV, beyond the achievement level obtained from traditional lecture and text-based instructional strategies.. Two groups of eleventh graders at one Technology High School will be involved. The independent variable will be the exposure to the experimental condition of using the to the strategy role playing game Civilization IV, is a digitally based history game. The dependent variable will be achievement/mastery of history content. To control possible intervening variables, only one teacher will be involved in the study.
Primary Research Question:
1. What differences in achievement level exist between learning through games and learning through standard teaching practices with next generation learners?
Secondary Questions:
2. What similarities and differences exist between digital history games over time?
3.
Significance of the Study ….Conceptual Support
Gaming in education has been around for several decades, riding the proverbial wave of popularity with educators. In recent years, several middle schools and high schools are now using commercial games to support learning in their classroom. More teachers are finding that these large commercial games are the best educational games out there. Gee states that: “Good games are crafted in ways that encourage and facilitate active and critical learning and thinking (2003)”. Most educational games are not created to facilitate critical learning and thinking; essentially these games are a digital spin on the drill and kill, rote memorization of concepts. Gee goes on to state, “One can learn actively without much critical learning, but one cannot really learn much critically without a good deal of active learning in a semiotic domain (2003)”. For the most part, “edugames” do not provide active learning in a domain, while many commercial games immerse players in an active learning environment with rich context.
In 1980, Malone identified three important elements that have to be present in a game: fantasy, challenge and curiosity (p. 335). Most frequently, game players play to have fun, be challenged, be entertained and interact with others (if online).
A teacher’s ideal class has students who are intrinsically motivated to learn, yet the reality is an extrinsic motivator: grades. So where is the line drawn when assessing students in gaming? Can a grade be given to a student who is intrinsically motivated to play games? Does this take the motivation out of the player? Malone addressed a few of these questions by developing a set of criteria that needed to be present for game play to be effective in instruction:
1. The player can increase or decrease the level of challenges faced, in order to match personal skills with requirements for action.
2. Isolating the activity should be easy at the perceptual level, from other stimuli, external or internal, which might interfere with involvement in it.
3. Clear criteria for performance, a player should be able to evaluate how he/she is doing at anytime during the game.
4. Concrete feedback should be present to determine if criteria is being met through performance.
5. A broad range of challenges should be present in several qualitatively different ranges of challenge so the player may obtain increasingly complex information about different aspects of him/her. (Malone, p. 336)
Malone’s steps to effective instruction contain several components found in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG). The communities in these games are astounding. Sites, blogs, tutorials, books, magazines are all created to support players of that game. The astonishing thing about these artifacts is how much time and effort went into creating and maintaining these portals of information. The intrinsic motivation of games cannot be compared to any type of learning that occurs at school.
The designers of these multi-billion dollar games (MMORPG’s) are among the best designers of content learning. Being able to engage players into playing complex and intricately detailed games takes skill far beyond “edugames”. Masking the notion of learning in games is a task that the commercial game industry has perfected. Several strategy games on the market take at least 100 hours to fully understand how and why the game works. Granted, there are some students that do not have the desire and patience to “master their virtual domain”, but I think the goal of gaming is not to enlist every student, but reach out to those who possibly may never make a strong connection between learning and fun.
Prensky (2001, pages 118–119) states that computer games can be characterized by six key structural elements which, when combined together, strongly engage the player. These elements are:
1. Rules
2. Conflict/Competition/Challenge/Opposition
3. Goals and objectives
4. Interaction
5. Outcomes/ and feedback
6. Representation or story
“No compulsory learning can remain in the soul...ln teaching
children, train them by a kind of game, and you will be able to see more clearly the natural bent of each. " (Plato, The Republic, Book VII)
Next Generation Learners
For a student to sit hours in front of a given task, be attentive and engaged the entire time is the dream of an educator. Getting students to be engaged in a 45-minute lesson is almost impossible to do today. Students do not learn the same way as students 20 years ago; we are dealing with a different breed of learners. Today’s students – K through college – represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV) (Prensky, 2001). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction with it, today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors. These differences go far further and deeper than most educators suspect or realize. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. (Prensky, 2001) Their world is completely saturated with a media rich society. So why is it so hard to sign on the education sector? Games and simulations are being used in medical research and training, government and military
Cultural historical
Another framework that will be looked at is the cultural historical analysis of strategic games over time. Wikipedia defines strategy games as, “games with the players' decision-making skills having a high significance in determining the outcome. Many games include this element to a greater or lesser degree, making demarcation difficult. It is therefore more accurate to describe a particular game as having a certain degree of strategic elements, as in being mainly based around strategic principles” (Author, 2006, pg#). These games require analytical skills, coolheaded tactics, as the player must balance the relation between resources and various elements in the game. In this dissertation, the history strategy games will be compared to the games of today that are used in the research process. Content in game will be evaluated for parallel curriculum, and assessed based on the next generation learners.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Methods Proposal V 1
Several researchers have started exploring the possibility of games in education, but not just educational games. Immersive, massive multi user role-playing games have brought a new spin on learning within education that is still in the early phases of research. This study is intended to explore the role and capacity (which games play in the classroom, through the implementation of a quasi-experimental design at McKinley Technology High School in Washington, D.C.. A control group and an experimental group of students will be tested on the same material 3 times through the semester, but have the information presented in two different formats. One format will be in lecture format, with a text-based curriculum. The other delivery method will be game-based curriculum with facilitation from the teacher.
The content mastery will be measured to show the effect of game play on content knowledge and accuracy.
“The purpose of this mixed methods research study is to study how the use of an online networked MMORPG game (like Civ 4) can improve test scores of high school sophomores as well as increase engagement in the classroom.
This study is part of a five-study project (cite) intended to make a contribution to the educational experience by understanding the design opportunities in commercial multi-user virtual worlds (games and other applications) that make learning a natural process of developing expertise, supported by tools, artifacts, and people in a meaningful environment, in order to create more vital and engaging virtual learning environments for formal school learning.
As part of the overall project, this study will use as its aligning context a conceptual framework for inquiry that the six cooperating researchers will develop during the first six months of the 30 month project.
This study will focus on how a role playing game can be used to increase student achievement. The dependent variable will be student achievement in history….
Research Design
The design of this mixed-methods research is a quasi-experimental pre-post design. The qualitative aspect of the study will focus on understanding how games actually impact student learning as well as attitudes regarding this type of learning activity . The setting will be within two high school classrooms and will involve observing students in both a control and experimental group and testing for mastery of the history curriculum for the tenth grade unit . Students achievement and attitudes in the experimental group will be compared to those in a traditional classroom to assess differences in learning and attitudes.
Definitions
For the purpose of this study, the following definitions will be used:
• Student- tenth grade student at Public High School in the Disctrick of Columbia..
• Teacher- Certified by the involved District of Columbia Public School teacher at)
• DCPS Curriculum- Curriculum mandated by the district to be taught by the public school teacher.
• Student Achievement- student scores based on testing in the study related to curriculum content mastery.
Sources of Data and collection strategies
One of the most innovative schools incorporating gaming into curriculum is one high school located in….McKinley High School. McKinley is in the heart of Washington, D.C. only 12 blocks from the Capitol, sitting on the corner of T Street, three stories high, consuming 200,000 square feet. The school was recently re-opened with state of the art technology in every classroom. Several cross-platform labs, a motion-capture studio and even a game design program for high school students are on the roster at this school. Two groups of tenth graders with the same teacher will be tested. Instruction in one class will be delivered without games, the other with the use of Civilization IV. Students will take a pre-test before the semester begins, based on content objectives for the county curriculum guidelines. Students will then be tested at midterm, and at the end of the study to assess content mastery.
Data Collection Tools
The test to measure mastery of content Iwill be created based on the DCPS curriculum for the tenth grade history class and validated with other teachers familiar with the curriculum. The teacher involved with the study will be included in this validation process to ensure ….. used and evaluated in this will be
A pilot test of the test’s ability to measure learning will occur with individuals similar to those who will be in the study. The test will be administered three times, pre-, midterm, and posttest for students for evaluation of content mastery. The DCPS content objectives will be considered and correlated to the tests (See Appendix A).
Considerations for use of human subjects
As this study poses minimal risk to subjects it meets Federal Criteria for studies consider to be be exempt from full IRB review. Subjects will only be identified by category (teacher, student, etc.). No specific names or titles will be used.
Other considerations
Things such as validity and reliability of instrumentation, scoring, and achievement of research purpose are areas that I am still working on and will continue to develop up until the research is conducted.
The content mastery will be measured to show the effect of game play on content knowledge and accuracy.
“The purpose of this mixed methods research study is to study how the use of an online networked MMORPG game (like Civ 4) can improve test scores of high school sophomores as well as increase engagement in the classroom.
This study is part of a five-study project (cite) intended to make a contribution to the educational experience by understanding the design opportunities in commercial multi-user virtual worlds (games and other applications) that make learning a natural process of developing expertise, supported by tools, artifacts, and people in a meaningful environment, in order to create more vital and engaging virtual learning environments for formal school learning.
As part of the overall project, this study will use as its aligning context a conceptual framework for inquiry that the six cooperating researchers will develop during the first six months of the 30 month project.
This study will focus on how a role playing game can be used to increase student achievement. The dependent variable will be student achievement in history….
Research Design
The design of this mixed-methods research is a quasi-experimental pre-post design. The qualitative aspect of the study will focus on understanding how games actually impact student learning as well as attitudes regarding this type of learning activity . The setting will be within two high school classrooms and will involve observing students in both a control and experimental group and testing for mastery of the history curriculum for the tenth grade unit . Students achievement and attitudes in the experimental group will be compared to those in a traditional classroom to assess differences in learning and attitudes.
Definitions
For the purpose of this study, the following definitions will be used:
• Student- tenth grade student at Public High School in the Disctrick of Columbia..
• Teacher- Certified by the involved District of Columbia Public School teacher at)
• DCPS Curriculum- Curriculum mandated by the district to be taught by the public school teacher.
• Student Achievement- student scores based on testing in the study related to curriculum content mastery.
Sources of Data and collection strategies
One of the most innovative schools incorporating gaming into curriculum is one high school located in….McKinley High School. McKinley is in the heart of Washington, D.C. only 12 blocks from the Capitol, sitting on the corner of T Street, three stories high, consuming 200,000 square feet. The school was recently re-opened with state of the art technology in every classroom. Several cross-platform labs, a motion-capture studio and even a game design program for high school students are on the roster at this school. Two groups of tenth graders with the same teacher will be tested. Instruction in one class will be delivered without games, the other with the use of Civilization IV. Students will take a pre-test before the semester begins, based on content objectives for the county curriculum guidelines. Students will then be tested at midterm, and at the end of the study to assess content mastery.
Data Collection Tools
The test to measure mastery of content Iwill be created based on the DCPS curriculum for the tenth grade history class and validated with other teachers familiar with the curriculum. The teacher involved with the study will be included in this validation process to ensure ….. used and evaluated in this will be
A pilot test of the test’s ability to measure learning will occur with individuals similar to those who will be in the study. The test will be administered three times, pre-, midterm, and posttest for students for evaluation of content mastery. The DCPS content objectives will be considered and correlated to the tests (See Appendix A).
Considerations for use of human subjects
As this study poses minimal risk to subjects it meets Federal Criteria for studies consider to be be exempt from full IRB review. Subjects will only be identified by category (teacher, student, etc.). No specific names or titles will be used.
Other considerations
Things such as validity and reliability of instrumentation, scoring, and achievement of research purpose are areas that I am still working on and will continue to develop up until the research is conducted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)