[quoting Noah, 21 Jan 95] I recently conducted a survey of game use by K-12 teachers and found that they distinguish the types of learner they are most likely to use games with, the learning task they hope to accomplish (motivation, reinforcement, introduction of new material, etc.), and the appropriateness of gaming to a given domain.
I'd like to here more about this. While I'd like a pointer to your survey, I wonder if, for the benefit of the list, you have a thumbnail sketch of the results you could present. What types of learner get to use games? And, how often are they used for anything other than motivation/reinforcement (you finished your quiz first, OK you can spend 20 minutes on the computer)? I believe that it's difficult for teachers to understand how to use games and get reflection (you can even discuss search strategies in Doom, though I don't really recommend it). I'd also like to hear if there's any convergence in their belief about what games are usable for what domains.
Our games will be more effective as we come to understand the pedagogical nuances of their construction.
I couldn't agree more. I think this is an under-explored area. Anyone have any pointers to empirical studies of the outcomes of any forms of "edutainment?" I recall Cathy Sherwood (Griffith University) telling me that she found little retention of facts from Carmen San Diego. I'm not really surprised. Vollmeyer, Burns, & Holyoak (Cognitive Science, 20(1)) found that unless learning the relationships was the goal, people shifted to answer finding behavior, solving the problem rather than abstracting to understand the domain. But how about the search skills in Carmen San Diego? (In this game you use a world almanac to look up clues to the location of Ms. San Diego.) Might those be developed?
Yet I believe that we can create games that will lead to retention if that's our goal.
I would enjoy hearing more from you about the relationship of story-line or plot in the context of an educational game. ... How can you map learning sequences into an experience more or less controlled by the player? ... And in an educational game, there would be little point in observing a character learn something while we did not. In other words, experience can be vicarious, but learning cannot.
I'll put my brief answer below, but Rob Moser's indicated he'll send an answer as well, and as it's his Ph.D. thesis, you'll get far more clarity from him.
If you constrain the world so that there are "gates" that require a test of knowledge to pass (embedded thematically, not arbitrary), you can allow exploration of a bit of the world (where they can discover some relationships), but not allow them to another part of the world until they demonstrate they are ready. This actually fits well with the structure of stories. Educationally, they can learn all skills that are independent, and you can have small tests of them embedded in the story (have more than are required, so they can continue practicing if they want), but then have some passage that requires successful demonstration to get past.
It's a balancing act between learner control and the structure of the world in which the fantasy is embedded. You constrain the world to make the story elements match the skill hierarchy.
Now, hopefully Rob will set me straight and make this clearer.