Primary Challenge

Not Specified

Champions

Leaders

Description

Digital games for learning and training (DiGLT) are one of the most promising media for the development of innovative educational content (de Castell & Jenson, 2003, 2007; Gee, 2005; Reiber, 1996; Ruben, 1997). Game-based learning integrates game design concepts with instructional design techniques in order to better address the learning needs of this generation of learners, which highly regards doing rather than knowing, making interactive, experiential learning, a necessity for their educational success. While there is ample evidence that edu-games are more appealing than traditional learning environments, there is still little direct, empirical research that supports evidentiary claims about what is learned through play. To date, most of the design and development in this area has been on an ad hoc basis, at best, with few, if any lessons learned shared among developers, and very little coordination of methods to best approach the development of edu-games. Evaluation of these environments has varied so widely methodologically that it is nearly impossible to compare similar kinds of DiGLT played in similar contexts. This project brings together an interdisciplinary team of researchers to develop formal knowledge and methods for the design and evaluation of DiGLTs. The team will pursue two main objectives. The first objective is to explore the role that new media constructs and design paradigms (e.g, gestural, multimodal and multi-touch interaction, user-adaptive game elements, levels of realism and learning via game design) play in effective edu-games, through the development of innovative game prototypes in a variety of domains. The second objective is to integrate the research experiences thus gained for defining and validating a comprehensive DiGLT design framework and evaluation methodologies to create games that teach and engage.

In the past year, Jenson, Antle and their students have compiled extensive literature reviews on games and education. These reviews will form the basis of understanding among the DiGLT team for the defining the DiGLT design and evaluation methodologies, along with the direct experiences that DiGLT researchers are gaining by designing and testing new games prototypes that investigate a variety of innovative edu-games constructs.

Conati and her students have been looking at user-adaptive game components that can respond to each player’s specific needs in real-time. In particular, Conati has been working on user-adaptive hints in PrimeClimb, an edu-game for number factorization. The hints are tailored to each individual student based on user models designed to capture the student’s pedagogical and affective needs as the interaction with PrimeClimb progresses. In the past year, the game has been re-engineered to facilitate rapid prototyping and evaluation. The new game platform allows players to login remotely, and saves all the relevant interaction information on a server-hosted database, for later analysis. The database also includes all the relevant parameters that can be modified to change game and hinting behaviors, in order to create versions with different levels of adaptivity. Conati’s students are currently working on developing an administrator interface that will allow researchers to easily modify each and every parameter in the database as needed. An empirical evaluation to compare a version of PrimeClimb with adaptive hints and a version with static hints is being planned for early Spring 2011.

Conati and Kapralos started investigating the addition of adaptive elements to highly realistic and multimodal simulation-based edu-games. Realism and multimodality in edu-games are the focus of Bill Kapralos’s DiGLT research, specifically, their effect on knowledge transfer/retention/immersion. In the context of this research, Conati and Kapralos are investigating the role of individual differences (e.g. personality, learning style, existing knowledge, level of attention, motivation) in learning through games with different levels of realism/multimodality, as a first step to understand whether/how realism and multimodality should be user-adaptive in edu-games.

Jenson, Hughes and 2 graduate students (one at York and one at Concordia) began to explore how gestural interface games might be developed for educational ends. They have begun a review of commercially offered games to establish a kind of interaction protocol that will be used to develop methods for designing a gestural game with educational aims. Wakkary’s PhD student has joined this group, as she is beginning a study of interactive games in museums which might well include gestural interfaces.

Antle and her students have been investigating the role of tangible, multi-touch tabletop interfaces in collaborative game-based learning. They designed and evaluated a series of prototype table-top games. Based on the results of these evaluations, they have devised a new tabletop platform that can support tangible and multi-touch information tools to augment game experience. A new game prototype built on this platform will be evaluated in the upcoming months.

Biddle and post-doc Sonia Chiasson are developing a serious computer game framework to learn about everyday users' understanding of computer security and to teach users how to behave more securely online. They are exploring the use of a simulation role-playing game where players are citizens of an online virtual world. Players will be involved in commerce and social activities lightly mirroring real-life scenarios, designed to model life online and establish a context reflecting the behavioural setting and pressures that make computer security so challenging. The goal is to have a game that will allow researchers to engage users while studying their understanding of features similar to those faced in everyday life.

As the development and evaluation of the aforementioned DiGLT constructs and themes progress in the upcoming year, the gained insights will contribute to defining a comprehensive DiGLT design framework and evaluation methodologies for creating effective DiGLTs. This endeavor will also uncover aspects of the design and evaluation processes that require further investigation and that will be targeted in subsequent years, working across teams, and among members of DiGLT