The purpose of this study was to examine students' learning of simple machines, a fifth-grade (ages 10-11) forces and motion unit, and student engagement using a teacher-created Multiplayer Educational Gaming Application. This mixed-method study collected pre-test/post-test results to determine student knowledge about simple machines. A survey…

Not long after he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, Mike Van Lent used his interest in videogames and artificial intelligence to land a research professorship at the University of Southern California (USC). There he edits the Journal of Game Development and conducts studies for the Institute for Creative Technologies, a $45…

The communication and collaborative interface known as a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE), has existed since as early as the late 1970s. MUVEs refer to programs that have an animated character ("avatar") controlled by a user within a wider environment that can be explored--or built--at will. Second Life, a MUVE created by San Francisco-based…

There are several major challenges for instructional designers seeking to design learning games. These include the lack of access, the cost of rapidly advancing/expensive technology tools that make developing games uneconomical, the institutional time constraints limiting game use, and the concerns that schools lack sufficiently robust computer…

Drawing on game-design principles and an underlying situated theoretical perspective, we developed and researched a 3D game-based curriculum designed to teach water quality concepts. We compared undergraduate student dyads assigned randomly to four different instructional design conditions where the content had increasingly level of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of engaging students in Kolb's experiential learning cycle on facilitating students' simulation game performance and knowledge application skills in learning with a business simulation game. A sample was drawn from a population of business-major undergraduate students at the School of…

Colleges and universities head into virtual worlds, and student learning and psychology are changed forever. For the past few years, Creighton University, a Jesuit institution of about 6,700 students has hosted GameFest (www2.creighton.edu/doit/gamefest), a 12-hour marathon of high-tech, interactive gaming sessions among Creighton students, using…

Electronic game technologies can prepare novice learners for future learning of complex concepts. This paper describes the underlying instructional design, learning science, cognitive science, and game theory. A structural, or syntactic mapping (structure mapping), approach to game design can produce a game world relationally isomorphic to a…

It is the universal cry of parents the world over, driven mad by the persistent sight of their children investing hours and hours in mastering the many layers of a video game. To the parent, video games are the enemy, the nemesis of homework and learning. But the child sees something of value, something engaging enough to fill a weekend, to the…

Multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) are new to formal educational settings as teaching and learning tools but are growing in popularity. MUVEs simulate real-world problems. They have an ability to reach students in ways that are familiar as they resemble videogames where players assume roles, work in teams, and gather data. MUVEs include…

Michael Young, P. G. Schrader, and Dongping Zheng use the concepts of ecological psychology to examine how massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) promote specific learning processes in their players. In their analysis they identify and define nine principles of learning that allow such games to have valuable potential as tools for educators:…

The aim of the 2018 International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA) conference was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive…

Interactive digital media, or video games, are a powerful new medium. They offer immersive experiences in which players solve problems. Players learn more than just facts--ways of seeing and understanding problems so that they "become" different kinds of people. "Serious games" coming from business strategy, advergaming, and entertainment gaming…

This study used innovative assessment practices to obtain and document broad learning outcomes for a 15-hour game-based curriculum in Quest Atlantis, a multi-user virtual environment that supports school-based participation in socio scientific inquiry in ecological sciences. Design-based methods were used to refine and align the enactment of…

The emergence of human communication systems is typically investigated via 2 approaches with complementary strengths and weaknesses: naturalistic studies and computer simulations. This study was conducted with a method that combines these approaches. Pairs of participants played video games requiring communication. Members of a pair were…