UTILIZING SCRIBBLENAUTS TO INCREASE READING COMPREHENSION AND IMPROVE LITERACY SKILLS OF THIRD GRADE STUDENTS

The LEA’s problem of practice upon which this research was focused on improving academic achievement in the areas of reading comprehension, fluency and other literacy skills. In particular, the LEA is very concerned about third grade reading scores in the light of North Carolina legislation that implements a reading proficiency test to be taken by all third grade students. The focus of this research was to use "Scribblenauts Unlimited," a commercial-off-the-shelf video game to bolster the reading skills of third grade students in an elementary school located in a rural school district in eastern North Carolina. The research design of this action research study utilized pre - and post- assessment to measure the effectiveness of students’ involvement with “Scribblenauts Unlimited.� The intervention time-line consisted of sixteen weeks of intervention during which two sections of students alternated the roles of intervention and control groups at the eight-week mark. The intervention was implemented for one hour per week during student computer laboratory times. The one-hour per week exposure was divided into two thirty-minute sessions, one on each of two days each week. The quantitative data consisted of participant’s scores on the Reading 3D assessment. The qualitative data was gathered by means of video observations of selected small groups of students and, snapshot insights into individual participants’ learning experiences by means of experience sampling methodology. During each intervention time, a video camera was set up in the computer laboratory and focused on a small group of four or five participants. One or two of the members of the group on which the video camera was focused were invited to “think aloud� through excerpts of the edited videos. The aim was to capture the participants’ learning experience in their own words at what they seem to be key points of their learning trajectory. At the end of each eight-week intervention session, a survey designed to measure the extent to which participants experienced flow was administered to the participants in the intervention

Videogame-based learning: a comparison of direct and indirect effects across outcomes

2017 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Recent years have shown a rise in the application of serious games used by organizations to help trainees learn and practice job related skills (Muntean, 2011). Some sources have projected a continued growth in the development and application of video games for novel purposes (Sanders, 2015). Despite the increasing use of video games for workplace training, there is limited research evidence to justify the use of video games for learning. Additionally, this research has generated mixed results on the utility of serious games (Guillen-Nieto & Aleson-Carbonell, 2012). One contribution of this study is a review of the research literature to understand why videogame-based learning research is producing inconsistent results. From this review, I present several current challenges in the research literature that may be contributing to these inconsistencies; distinguishing videogames from similar training media, identifying game characteristics, exploring the possible mechanisms in the training experience, differentiating training outcomes, and making accurate implications for research. The purpose of this study is to design and test a new approach to game-based learning research that would explore the context in which games are effective learning tools. This study tested and expanded the model from Garris et al.'s (2002) game-based learning I-P-O model to determine the extent to which one game characteristic (i.e., human interaction) influences two training outcomes (i.e., declarative knowledge and affective states), as well as the possible mechanisms through which this occurs. The present study found that active learning is a mechanism through which human interaction influences both declarative knowledge and affective states. Although the effect size was large for affective states, it was small for declarative knowledge. The mediating effect of active learning was greater for the relationship between human interaction and affective states than for the relationship between human interaction and declarative knowledge. I also found that perceived value mediates the relationship between human interaction and affective states

Digital natives: a proposal to desing a videogame-based syllabus to develop communicative skills in children

Engaging and involving our students while learning English as a foreign language is a topic of great interest for teachers. Different strategies and methods are developed in order to provide learning environments where learners can improve their communicative skills and the use of videogames for learning proposed within this research project is not an exception. Applying the use of commercial videogames is not the same as using educative videogames in classroom. For that reason, it was necessary to design a videogame-based syllabus but using videogames produced for entertaining purposes since it was necessary to provide a real engagement in learners without altering the course of the teaching and learning goals, producing learning activities in which learners can feel self-confidence, commitment and self-awareness with the English learning process while having fun

A critical analysis of mystery in videogames

Historically, videogame research has focused on how different videogame attributes (like challenge, fantasy, control, goals, etc.) impact the player experience. This type of research is important because it can provide insight into how to design more enjoyable videogames. However, very little exists within the current literature that focuses on mystery and its impact on the player experience. This dissertation is concerned with providing the research community with a better understanding of how mystery manifests in videogames and consequently impacts the player experience, specifically curiosity and motivation. To this end, the research questions are: 1. How do players experience mystery in videogames? 2. How do game designers consider mystery when designing their games? 3. What is the relationship between player-centered and designer-centered views of mystery in videogames? 4. What is the impact of player-centered and designer-centered elements of mystery on player motivation? Such understanding of mystery in videogames is provided in the form of a detailed taxonomy that concentrates on mystery from both the videogame designer and player perspectives. After a thorough review and summary of the related research, this taxonomy was created through two qualitative studies utilizing Grounded Theory. The findings of those studies were validated through an empirical instrument via a third, quantitative study. The conclusions and outcomes of this dissertation provide the gaming community with the knowledge on how to optimize mystery in videogame design which increases player curiosity and motivation. It also offers greater insight to the research community on the impact of mystery, as a videogame attribute, on the player experience. This dissertation describes in detail the methodology and processes of these research studies and how this taxonomy was established, and it explains the impact of this work as well as suggests areas for future work

Feasibility of Home Videogames as a Self-Help Tool for Children

The purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility of using home videogames as a self-help tool for children. A review of the related literature lends support to this concept by exploring the effects of television and videogames, and the theories of learning through play as described in the appropriate journals. Many parent opportunities to serve as role models for their children are being reduced because of economics and dysfunctional marriages. Much of the time formerly spent with their children is also being displaced by the media in the form of television and videogames . A survey designed to answer questions about parents\u27 and children\u27s attitudes and perceptions of home videogames should add to the limited research in this area. The survey indicates that parents believe children are learning skills when playing home videogames. It also shows an interest in having home videogames teach more defined skills. There is a favorable acceptance by both the parents and the children in home videogames as indicated by three outs of four households reporting owning a home videogame system. The research indicates that an infrastructure and desire to play home videogames exists. Taking advantage of these elements and providing didactic content to the videogames would make their use as a self-help tool for children feasible

Playing class: a case study of ludic pedagogy

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of transforming traditional classroom content and teaching strategy into a gamified version through the use of popular gaming strategy, or, in other words, how a college course can be designed or redesigned to mimic ludic pedagogy, as well as the influence of this pedagogy on student performance in understanding course content and course assessments. The researcher acted as a participant observer and used Constant Comparative Method as data driven teaching focused on student created documents. This research provides an exploration on the use of ludicly styled teaching methodology which includes students as instructors, the instructor as a “game master,” and the impact of Achievments on student performance in an introductory Education survey course. Findings suggest that pre-service teachers of the Millennial generation may flourish in a gamified environment and need to engage in and experiment with using new styles of pedagogy in order to be prepared to teach their future Generation 2020 students

Ideology and interaction in Internet action video games

This thesis is an analysis of how the play mechanics of the Return to Castle Wolfenstein videogame influence player cooperation and competition during play as well as an analysis of player chat as indication of cooperation and competition. While the premise of the game is competition the play mechanics of the game were found to induce intricate and extensive cooperation among players. In this study, player communication was primarily focused on achieving game goals, however there was also communication for cooperative efforts. The play mechanics of the game significantly influences the experience of players. Further research must be conducted to refine methods of analyzing play mechanics and to facilitate comparison among video games and between video games and other similar computer-modeled environments

Enhancing automatic level generation for platform videogames

This dissertation addresses the challenge of improving automatic level generation processes for plat-form videogames. As Procedural Content Generation (PCG) techniques evolved from the creation of simple elements to the construction of complete levels and scenarios, the principles behind the generation algorithms became more ambitious and complex, representing features that beforehand were only possible with human design. PCG goes beyond the search for valid geometries that can be used as levels, where multiple challenges are represented in an adequate way. It is also a search for user-centred design content and the creativity sparks of humanly created content. In order to improve the creativity capabilities of such generation algorithms, we conducted part of our research directed to the creation of new techniques using more ambitious design patterns. For this purpose, we have implemented two overall structure generation algorithms and created an addi-tional adaptation algorithm. The later can transform simple branched paths into more compelling game challenges by adding items and other elements in specific places, such as gates and levers for their activation. Such approach is suitable to avoid excessive level linearity and to represent certain design patterns with additional content richness. Moreover, content adaptation was transposed from general design domain to user-centred principles. In this particular case, we analysed success and failure patterns in action videogames and proposed a set of metrics to estimate difficulty, taking into account that each user has a different perception of that concept. This type of information serves the generation algorithms to make them more directed to the creation of personalised experiences. Furthermore, the conducted research also aimed to the integration of different techniques into a common ground. For this purpose, we have developed a general framework to represent content of platform videogames, compatible with several titles within the genre. Our algorithms run over this framework, whereby they are generic and game independent. We defined a modular architecture for the generation process, using this framework to normalise the content that is shared by multiple modules. A level editor tool was also created, which allows human level design and the testing of automatic generation algorithms. An adapted version of the editor was implemented for the semi-automatic creation of levels, in which the designer may simply define the type of content that he/she desires, in the form of quests and missions, and the system creates a corresponding level structure. This materialises our idea of bridging human high-level design patterns with lower level automated generation algorithms. Finally, we integrated the different contributions into a game prototype. This implementation allowed testing the different proposed approaches altogether, reinforcing the validity of the proposed archi-tecture and framework. It also allowed performing a more complete gameplay data retrieval in order to strengthen and validate the proposed metrics regarding difficulty perceptions

Motivating children to learn effectively: exploring the value of intrinsic integration in educational games

The concept of intrinsic motivation lies at the heart of the user engagement created by digital games. Yet despite this, educational software has traditionally attempted to harness games as extrinsic motivation by using them as a sugar coating for learning content. This article tests the concept of intrinsic integration as a way of creating a more productive relationship between educational games and their learning content. Two studies assessed this approach by designing and evaluating an educational game called Zombie Division to teach mathematics to 7- to 11-year-olds. Study 1 examined the learning gains of 58 children who played either the intrinsic, extrinsic, or control variants of Zombie Division for 2 hr, supported by their classroom teacher. Study 2 compared time on task for the intrinsic and extrinsic variants of the game when 16 children had free choice of which game to play. The results showed that children learned more from the intrinsic version of the game under fixed time limits and spent 7 times longer playing it in free-time situations. Together, these studies offer evidence for the genuine value of an intrinsic approach for creating effective educational games. The theoretical and commercial implications of these findings are discussed

Leveraging Students’ Game Culture in Education: Validating the benefits of utilising videogames to inform pedagogy

Checkpoint | Brunel University London . September 2023 Research Paper. All images used in this publication are for illustrative purposes only and do not represent the students involved in the study ©monkeybusinessimages, iStock: ©SeventyFour, iStock.A blog post about the pilot, Videogames + Education: A Powerful Synergy for the Future of Learning by Tamer Asfahani, April 20, 2023, is available online at: https://checkpointmagazine.com/videogames-education-a-powerful-synergy-for-the-future-of-learning/ .Research Objectives: The overall challenge this research responds to is the need to increase all children’s engagement with education. One solution (among many) is to work through a game-based lesson content approach, as exemplified by Checkpoint Learning Materials (CLM). The aim of this research was to evaluate the ‘engagement value-add’ of CLM which, in turn, will enable greater outreach to schools of the Checkpoint materials. The sub-challenge is to work with Checkpoint to evidence the effectiveness of their Video Game culture-based learning materials, as outlined by their in-house pedagogy, in ways to support the National Curriculum in key stage 2 (years 3-6). The project will allow Checkpoint to further develop and market their learning materials to publishers and education providers. The aim is to validate Checkpoint’s pedagogy and lesson plans. It will enable Checkpoint to help design school CPD for training primary school teachers