The text here is largely based on presentations and ideas exchanged during a National Science Foundation–sponsored conference (awarded to the first author), Academic Lessons from Video Game Learning: Screen2Screen, convened in October 2010 at the Lincoln Center–New York City campus of Fordham University. During this three-and-a-half day meeting, twenty researchers and practitioners in developmental and cognitive psychology, cognitive science, communications, media, educational technology, and game design (see appendix to this chapter for a list) came together to share their work and to discuss whether and how the learning experienced via video game play transferred to or positively affected the knowledge and skills obtained within formal educational settings (see chapter 9 for a general model of learning in the context of video games). In its most general sense, transfer of learning (as discussed in greater detail in chapters 2 and 13) occurs when learning in one context affects one’s learning or ability to carry out a task in another context. As noted in our conference discussions, evidence supporting transfer of learning in formal and informal learning contexts remain mixed (see chapters 3, 14, and 21 for some of the different perspectives). For example, Masson, Bub, and Lalonde (2011) found that middle school students’ playing of a game emphasizing the trajectories of objects in motion improved their understanding of the shape of the trajectories but not their conceptual understanding of object motion. Similarly, Sims and Mayer (2002) had earlier demonstrated that college students’ experience playing Tetris improved their performance on later tests of mental rotation ability but only when Tetris-like shapes were used.
Despite mixed evidence of transfer, interest in the promise of recreational video game play for reinvigorating classroom learning continues. For example, science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education initiatives, based in the Oval Office, federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, and (p.4)private foundations such as the MacArthur Foundation have fueled an expanding library of educational games (see White House, 2010; MacArthur Foundation, 2012). These games have not been uniformly well-received by the child and adolescent populations that they are designed to serve (Kato, 2012; Papastergiou, 2009; Van Eck, 2006). Reasons for this less than enthusiastic reception (as considered in chapters 10 and 11) may reflect the vastly differing budgets allotted to educational versus recreational games, which have ramifications for the look and feel of the games (although the success of Angry Birds despite its relatively low development budget of $140,000 presents a counterexample; see Crossley, 2011). Users of these games also may perceive the presentation of content or skills to be learned as disconnected from or not well integrated into the goals of the games (Sherry, 2013a). Further, players may perceive educational games as too cognitively demanding or as insufficiently challenging (see Blumberg & Ismailer, 2009). These circumstances clearly affect conclusions about the efficacy of educational games for promoting content learning and skill acquisition in the classroom setting.
Why Develop Educational Video Games?
Overall Appeal
Regardless of students’ tempered interest in playing educational games, the proliferation of these games continues. One clear reason is the appeal of video game play. This appeal, which is found among a diverse age range and among both females and males, has been attributed to the curiosity, fantasy, and challenge inherent in game play, as noted by Malone (1981) in his seminal article on motivation for playing digital games. Notably, the games available at the time in which Malone’s article appeared were two-dimensional and fairly primitive in their graphics by today’s standards (e.g., Donkey Kong). However, factors cited by Malone remain relevant today when considering motivation for playing video games (see chapters 6 and 19 for greater consideration of motivation in the context of video game play).
More recently, other features have been cited as contributing to the appeal of video game play. These features include interactivity, whereby players initiate and receive feedback about their actions, which affects their game play experience (Renkl & Atkinson, 2007; Ritterfeld et al., 2009); agency or control, which refers to players’ ability to manage aspects of their game play, such as the use of the control mechanisms or the unfolding of the story line (Skalski, Lange, Tamborini, Helton, Buncher, & Lindmark, 2011; Qin, Rau, & Salvendy, 2009; Wood, Griffiths, Chappell, & Davies, 2004); identity, which refers to players’ opportunity to form relationships and linkages with game characters or to become game characters via avatar construction (see Blascovich & Bailenson, 2011; Lane et al., 2013; Trepte, Reinecke, & Behr, 2010); feedback, which refers to the information players receive (p.5) about the efficacy of their game actions, which in turn scaffolds the course of their game play (Lane et al., 2013; Lieberman, 2006); and immersion, which refers to players’ sense of presence or integration within the game (see Tamborini & Skalski, 2006). Immersion has been linked to the attainment of the highly pleasurable state of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Sherry, 2004; Weber, Tamborini, Westcott-Baker, & Kantor, 2009), whereby game play is perceived as all-absorbing and seemingly automatic despite the cognitive resources needed to master the game (see Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Collectively, these features and others highlighted in this volume are expected to promote sustained and enjoyable game play. In the context of educational game play in particular, one presumed corollary is that more game play provides more opportunity for learning.
Regardless of the truth of this corollary, which the conference members considered in some detail and demonstrated in their work (see chapter 20), it is also true that many individuals play video games. For example, the most recent findings reported by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA, 2013) indicate that recreational games are played by 58% of the U.S. population and that 45% of players are female. Of those who play video games, 32% are younger than age 18. In fact, 8–18 year olds have been found to spend as much as 90 minutes per day involved in video game play (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). The ESA also reports that game players access games via their smartphones (36%). As the number of game apps available for smartphones increases, one might expect increases in the amount of time individuals engage in game play, particularly among adolescents, who are leading users of smartphones (see Nielsenwire, 2012).
Enhanced Cognitive Skills
Educational game development also may continue to expand, given the type of learning that occurs within game play in general. For example, as noted by Gee (2003; 2008) and Squire (2006), video game play serves to captivate and challenge its players as they use the type of reasoning skills that they may be expected to show in more formal learning settings (see chapters 5 and 17). The most compelling reason pertains to the accumulating evidence, among primarily adult participants, that links frequent video game play to enhanced problem-solving and inductive reasoning (Blumberg, Rosenthal, & Randall, 2008; Fisch, Lesh, Motoki, Crespo, & Melfi, 2011; Greenfield et al., 1994; Pillay, 2002), mental rotation and spatial visualization (Okagaki & Frensch, 1994), spatial distribution of attention and visual selective attention (Boot, Kramer, Simmons, Fabiani, & Gratton, 2008; Green & Bavelier, 2003, 2006, 2007; Karle, Watter, & Shedden, 2010), metacognition (VanDeventer & White, 2002), and memory (Boot et al., 2008). Recent findings also show that executive functioning (Best, 2013; Staiano, Abraham, & Calvert, 2012) may be enhanced through the playing of exergames (e.g., WiiFit). (See chapters 4 and 15 for greater consideration of cognitive skills enhanced via exergame play.) Recent findings also indicate that frequent action game play may (p.6) facilitate neural plasticity and the enhancement of cognitive skills that help prepare us for “learning to learn” (see Bavelier, Green, Pouget, & Schrater, 2012; see also chapter 3).
What Do We Need to Know About Game Play?
While researchers have examined the nexus of video game play, learning, and acquisition of cognitive skills among college age participants (Boot et al., 2008; Green & Bavelier, 2007; Green, Li, & Bavelier, 2009; Greenfield, Camaioni, et al., 1994; Greenfield, DeWinstanley, Kilpatrick, & Kaye, 1994; Spence & Feng, 2010), very little is known about the ramifications of video game play for the child and adolescent participants for whom many educational games are designed (see Blumberg & Altschuler, 2011; Blumberg, Altschuler, Almonte, & Mileaf, 2013; DeLisi & Wolford, 2002; Salonius-Pasternak & Gelfond, 2005).
What we do know is that the extent to which cognitive skills are enhanced via video games is largely dependent on the frequency of play. We also know that the types of strategies that children and adolescents use may be influenced by age and frequency of play. Surprisingly, the developmental appropriateness of a given educational game is seldom considered as a critical aspect of the game development process or assessment of game efficacy. This situation, in fact, was addressed by conference members, given the importance of the developmental appropriateness of a game for learning (see Blumberg & Ismailer, 2009; Sherry, 2013b; and chapter 12 for game design strategies that could be used to rectify this situation). For example, frequent players show greater proficiency in spatial skills (DeLisi & Wolford, 2002; Okagaki & Frensch, 1994; Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 1994), planning and metacognition (VanDeventer & White, 2002), and visual attention skills (Dye & Bavelier, 2010) than infrequent players. Child and adolescent players who play frequently also show different strategies for game play from those who play infrequently. For example, Blumberg and Sokol (2004) found that second-and fifth-grade frequent players reported greater use of self-reliant strategies such as trial and error than infrequent players, who reported greater use of other-dependent strategies, such as watching others play or asking others for help. Hamlen (2011) found that fourth- and fifth-grade frequent players were more likely than infrequent players to cite repetition and cheat codes as ways to master a game (see chapter 16 for further consideration of strategies used to master games). Very recently, Blumberg and Randall (2013) found that in the think-aloud protocols of fifth- through seventh-graders who were learning to play a novel video game, fifth- and sixth-graders made greater reference to short-term goals and mastery of specific actions within the game than the seventh-graders.
(p.7) Overall, the lack of research concerning what children and adolescents learn in the context of video game play, and what skills might be facilitated by that play, compromises what we can say about the type of learning or skill acquisition that occurs during game play (see Sherry & Dibble, 2009), much less what transfers from game play to classroom settings. Exploration of this issue was one of the motivations for the conference.
Another motivation was how best to enrich the study of children and adolescents’ learning in the context of video game play by drawing on relevant perspectives from other disciplines, such as media and communications (see chapters 8 and 18) and other areas of study, such as expert performance (see chapter 7).
The chapters that follow reflect the fruits of our discussions and presentations as supplemented by contributions from other scholars and practitioners whose work concerns effective game design and the study of factors contributing to children and adolescents’ learning in the context of video games and digital media in general. The hope is that readers of this volume will see themselves, as we did during the conference, as being one step closer to bridging a significant gap as noted by Levine, Takeuchi, and Vaala (chapter 22, p. 333), “… between the promise of game-based learning and the current reality. This gap is especially evident in transforming games from effective research trials into financially sustainable products that can reach and affect students through either formal or informal channels.”
No comments:
Post a Comment