Games+Learning+Society 12 Conference

Inciting out-of-game transfer: Adapting contrast-based instruction for educational games
Chase, Harpstead, Aleven

We adapted a successful instructional principle – contrasting cases – to create an educational game to teach young children physical principles of stability. Our goal was to design a game that would effect transfer - extending the reach of the educational game beyond the game itself. In Study 1, we compared a “standard” version of the game to a “contrast” version that contained contrasting case levels designed to help learners notice the principles underlying game content. In Study 2, we augmented the contrast version of the game with induction levels that focused learners on abstracting general principles from sets of contrasting cases. In both studies, we found that contrast versions of the game facilitated transfer, while standard versions did not. Students found contrast versions of the game highly enjoyable, just as enjoyable as the standard game. Findings have implications for the design of educational games that are instructive yet fun.

How'd That Happen?! Failure in Game Spaces to Prepare Students for Future Learning
Lee, Liu, Jullamon & Black

Educational games can be used effectively in the classroom, because exploration and responses to failure in game spaces can afford productive metacognition that better prepares students for future learning (PFL). In our study, we explored how the role of failure-induced metacognitive appraisal and strategy selection while playing a physics game better prepares students for learning from formal content after gameplay. Our results indicate that experiencing failure to prepare students for future learning can elicit more complex and robust mental representations of a complicated science system. However, experiencing failure unto itself isn’t sufficient for improving general conceptual understanding - a good metacognitive response is required. Further investigation identified response to failure with info-seeking, then fixing one’s answer was found significantly related to learning because it entails an appraisal of knowledge gaps, resolving such gaps through info-seeking, and apply newly acquired information to address prior misconceptions.

When is a Game Not a Game? Considering Player Perceptions of An Educational Game
Barnes & Harteveld
Educational games are designed with playful affordances, yet have the serious purpose of supporting players’ learning. Given this, how players perceive these activities may influence how they interact with them, and therefore, whether they actually learn from them. Case studies are presented here from an educational game teaching Newtonian physics to better understand the relationships between player perceptions and the nature of their game experiences, in terms of reality, meaning, and play. The findings we present indicate that players’ perceptions of educational game affordances as academic or playful contribute to divergent experiences with the same design.