Learning Through Games: Essential Features of an Educational Game
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Syracuse University SURFACE Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation - Dissertations School of Education 5-2012 Learning through Games: Essential Features of an Educational Game Kannan Amr Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/idde_etd Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Amr, Kannan, "Learning through Games: Essential Features of an Educational Game" (2012). Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation - Dissertations. 56. https://surface.syr.edu/idde_etd/56 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Education at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation - Dissertations by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSTRACT This study investigated the following research questions: (1) Do instructional games augment learning? (2) What is the impact of the challenge and fantasy features in instructional games on learning? For the purpose of this study, a game called “Humatan” was designed to teach human anatomy to high school students based on the Baltimore County Public Schools curriculum. Four different versions of the Humatan game were created: • A game with only the challenge feature turned on • A game with only the fantasy feature turned on • A game with both the challenge and fantasy features turned on • A game with challenge and fantasy turned off. High school students from Baltimore County Public Schools (n=202) were randomly assigned to play one of the above four versions of the Humatan game after taking a pretest on human anatomy. After playing the game, they also took a posttest and a survey to obtain information related to their Grade Point Average (GPA), Socioeconomic Status (SES), game skillfulness, gender, and the ethnicity. Since there were no existing survey instruments available for measuring game skillfulness, the researcher created a new survey instrument which was validated by the Survey Research Laboratory in the University of Illinois at Chicago. All the four groups showed an improvement in learning, which suggests that instructional games augment learning. Students who played the game version with only the challenge feature turned on (n=48) scored a higher average gain score than the students who played other variations of the game. Analysis of variance showed a main effect of challenge on the gain score, F (3, 198) = 4.71, p = .003. Students who played with only the fantasy feature turned on (n=52) obtained the lowest average gain score. This implies that the challenge feature significantly improved learning and the fantasy feature did not significantly improve learning. The GPA, SES, game skillfulness, gender, and the ethnicity of the students did not show any significant impact on learning. LEARNING THROUGH GAMES: ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF AN EDUCATIONAL GAME By Kannan AMR MS Syracuse University 1999 MS Syracuse University 2010 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation in the Graduate School of Syracuse University Syracuse University May 2012 Copyright © Kannan AMR 2012 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am not sure whether an individual can achieve anything in this world without help from others. Any doctoral degree student would vouch for the above statement. I am thankful to Almighty who is constantly taking care of me and nurturing me. I am very grateful to several people who have given their generous time and help in a gracious manner. I am very thankful to my doctoral dissertation committee members Dr. Rob S Pusch, Dr. Tim Eatman, and Dr. Kathleen Austin. Dr. Pusch, I am highly indebted to you for your constant guidance and support. When it comes to paying attention to details, you are my role model. Dr. Eatman, I am very grateful to you for guiding me through the study design and for inspiring and encouraging me. Dr. Austin, without your ideas and continuous help, the game design would not have been possible. I am very thankful to Dr. Bellini, who gave his valuable time to make sense out of my statistical analysis. I am thankful to Dr. Jeff Elliott and Professor Srini Rajagopalan for their help with statistical analysis. I am grateful to Dr. Kamala Raghunath for her generous time and help to edit the dissertation. I am also very thankful to Mr. George Newberry, Director of Science (PreK-12) Baltimore County Public Schools for his generous time, support, and encouragement. I am grateful to the teachers of Baltimore County Public Schools, for accommodating my research during their class time. Many thanks to Dr. Gary Brager, Supervisor of Research Baltimore County Public Schools, for approving the study, for guiding me, and providing important data for the study. I am very grateful to Dr. Gerald Mager, Associate Dean of the School of Education for his continuous support and help. I am also very much indebted to Ms. Linda Tucker, Office v coordinator of IDD&E department and Ms. Diana Hahn, Associate Director, Graduate Recruitment & Retention for their excellent support and assistance. Special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Chawan for their wonderful hospitality and for making my stay in Syracuse a memorable one. If I were to thank my family I would have to allocate a couple of pages! I am thankful to my family and friends for their time, support, and constant inspiration. vi Table of Contents Chapter I: Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 Problem Statement ...................................................................................................................... 2 Educational games might help to mitigate the problem .............................................................. 3 Not just for entertainment, games can also have educational value ............................................ 5 Research purpose ......................................................................................................................... 7 Expected research contribution ................................................................................................... 9 Definition of the term “game” by various scholars ................................................................... 11 Working definition of video games ........................................................................................... 18 Chapter summary ...................................................................................................................... 19 Chapter II: Literature review .................................................................................................... 20 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 20 Why study games? .................................................................................................................... 21 Games in various disciplines ..................................................................................................... 22 Games and culture ..................................................................................................................... 24 Technology in teaching and learning ........................................................................................ 26 Video games: Origin and the present status .............................................................................. 27 Why do people play games? Games and motivation ................................................................ 31 Piaget and Vygotsky on play and games ................................................................................... 33 Constructivism epistemology: Theoretical framework for educational games ......................... 36 Radical and Social Constructivism ........................................................................................... 38 Radical constructivism .............................................................................................................. 38 Social constructivism ................................................................................................................ 39 Constructivist’s approach to instructional design ..................................................................... 41 Constructivist’s approach to instructional game design ............................................................ 43 Instructional games: Can they be fun? ...................................................................................... 45 Instructional games and learning ............................................................................................... 47 Gender and Games ................................................................................................................. 48 Important features of instructional games ................................................................................. 50 Challenges ................................................................................................................................. 52 Fantasy ...................................................................................................................................... 59 Endogenous and Exogenous fantasy ..................................................................................... 64 Feedback ...................................................................................................................................