An Analysis of Narrative-Based Educational Software
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AN ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVE-BASED EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE by DAVID NOAH (Under the direction of Lloyd Rieber) ABSTRACT Instructional designers often rely on stories to structure interactive learning environments. There is little evidence that they bring contemporary critical theory to these designs, especially as it pertains to the narratological implications of a hypermedia environment. The use of stories in these designs raises issues about the relationship between learning, interactivity, and story. Interactivity undermines traditional narrative structures, diminishing their power as structural agents. However, it also creates constructivist affordances for the instructional designer. How are designers resolving this conflict? How are they using story? This research study examines the use of story and instructional design in selected educational CD-ROMs. The works of Propp, Campbell, and Gagne are used as models for the analysis of the stories and instructional events. The results indicate that instructional presentation in narrative environments is usually sequestered from the main narrative, though there is some relation between story elements and instructional design. The designers do use story to engage learner attention, though there is little consistent correlation with the story models chosen for this research. Character transformation, important in narrative, is not addressed in the software. Simulations offer the most integrated approach to story and instruction, but at the cost of traditional story models. I conclude that story and instruction are largely incommensurable when instantiated within a hypermedia environment. Instruction is transparent in the sense that we go to it in order to get something else: learning. On the other hand, story is opaque in the sense that it is an end in itself. Though we learn from stories, they are in the end too powerful and mysterious in their effects to be entirely harnessed to the horses of instruction. Though instruction can be entertainingly crafted, its didactic nature can never allow it to be only entertainment. The use of story in interactive instruction must necessarily be a balancing act. INDEX WORDS: Narrative, Instructional design, Educational software, Interactive multimedia, Simulaitons, Gaming AN ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVE-BASED EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE by DAVID NOAH B.S., Jackson State University, 1988 M.Ed., The University of Georgia, 1996 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2002 © 2002 David Noah All Rights Reserved AN ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVE-BASED EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE by DAVID NOAH Major Professor: Lloyd Rieber Committee: Michelle Ballif Michael Hannafin Michael Orey David Reinking Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2002 DEDICATION This is dedicated to the one I love: Sandy Bird. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation could never have been completed without the generous help and guidance of many people. I would especially like to acknowledge Lloyd Rieber, whose patience has been exemplary, Morgan Nolan, whose conversations have been crucial, and J. S. Bach, whose music has been an inspiration. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................. 1 Background ................................................................................................... 3 Implications of the Study ............................................................................ 12 Statement of the Problem ............................................................................ 13 Research Question....................................................................................... 14 2 LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................ 15 Introduction……………………………………………………………….15 Sequence in Instructional Design............................................................... 16 Story Structure............................................................................................ 23 Hypermedia Learning Environments ......................................................... 52 Chapter Summary....................................................................................... 63 3 METHODOLOGY........................................................................................... 65 Overview .................................................................................................... 65 Purpose....................................................................................................... 67 Sample........................................................................................................ 67 Research Design......................................................................................... 69 4 ANALYSIS ...................................................................................................... 77 Operation: Weather Disaster ..................................................................... 77 th JumpStart Adventure 5 Grade.................................................................. 84 Physicus...................................................................................................... 90 PLATO Educational Software ................................................................... 96 vi SimCity 3000........................................................................................... 103 Where In The USA is Carmen Sandiego?............................................... 108 Chapter Summary.................................................................................... 114 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS.......................................................... 116 REFERENCES............................................................................................................... 135 APPENDIX ..................................................................................................................... 147 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The universe is made of stories, not atoms. Muriel Rukeyser In instructional design, as in all design, form follows function. It has become commonplace for educational software designers to borrow the forms of stories to embody the functions of interactive learning environments. This strategy assumes that stories and instruction share at least two functions--the need for learner/reader engagement and the structured presentation of information. Relying on stories to fulfill these functions, however, raises questions about how they are being used and whether they are a good match overall for the other necessary functions of an interactive learning experience. Two problems complicate these questions. The first is the degree to which designers make use of contemporary narrative analysis when creating stories for educational software. A lack of critical analysis may produce unsophisticated narrative structures, thus reducing the instructional potential of story. The second is the power of interactivity to undermine traditional story forms when it was their familiarity and predictability that made them attractive scaffolding devices in the first place. This creates an unstable relationship between story and instructional design. As to the first problem, story has perhaps been narrowly conceived as an instructional tool because its ready architecture and pervasive presence have made it so familiar that designers use it without thinking about its properties. Story is so implicated in every aspect of human experience, so fundamental to culture and cognition, that its structural characteristics, for instance, can be invisible. However, critical inquiry into its nature spans millennia, drawing on fields as diverse as philosophy, psychology, mythology, anthropology, and linguistics. In this century, the study of stories as such has 1 been identified as a separate field of its own--narratology (Bal, 1997). The literature of instructional design has ignored this rich discourse despite a growing reliance on the power and familiarity of narrative to bring form and motivational power to educational software. Our understanding of narrative in this context is thereby diminished, and consequently our ability to use it effectively as an instructional tool is also diminished. For the second problem, the dynamic structure of hypermedia challenges both narrative and the design of instruction. Instructional designers using hypermedia must balance its affordances for learner autonomy (Conklin, 1987; Jonassen, 1989) against its potentially disorienting cognitive burden. Authors of stories in hypermedia must contend with the erosion of traditional narrative structure, since hyperfiction blurs the roles of author and reader and recreates story form as a transient, negotiated construct (Landow, 1997). Consequently, the educational designer relying on hypermedia narratives must find a way to bring the benefits of story form to instructional design without sacrificing the structural power of story for the pedagogical benefits of interactivity. Similarly, he or she must not rely so heavily on story form that constructivist interactivity is too constrained. These questions about the use and suitability of narrative within interactive learning environments are