Problem Purpose V 1

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.