EDUCATION
Introduction
There is a strong interest in video games from the discipline of education. Although education is often thought of solely as primary or secondary, formal, or school-based learning, education in this context refers to any situation in which knowledge is being acquired or shared across a person’s lifespan. Video games in education could refer to high school students learning chemistry as a part of the curriculum, it could mean police officers learning advanced tactical skills, or it could refer to the affective or cognitive impact of multiplayer games on users who play at home for their own enjoyment.
Given this broad definition of learning and/or teaching, it is not surprising that those interested in education and video games study them from a variety of fields and a bring a multitude of perspectives. It is not uncommon for a conversation on the educational aspects of video games to have participants from computer science, psychology, teacher education, communication, sociology, anthropology, engineering, business, and health. Much like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, each perspective attempts to understand the various educational aspects of video games.
Growth of Interest in Games
There has been a tremendous, recent growth in the number of conferences, journals, grants, and even government agencies interested in the topic of educational video games (Ferdig, 2007). There are least four reasons for this rapid growth. First, researchers have provided theoretical and empirical evidence of the value and impact of video games on learning (Gee, 2003; Ferdig and de Freitas, 2012). That impact can be positive (learning content matter more efficiently) or negative (learning violent behaviors), but data are demonstrating that learning is happening. A second reason is the growth of free and open-source tools that are available for educators and students to create video game and video game environments. Alice (www.alice.org), Microsoft XNA (www.microsoft.com/xna), and Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu) are just a few of the game generation tools used by students of all ages in class and at home.
A third reason is the increase in both availability and use of video game systems and delivery mechanisms. Users of all ages have a multitude of gaming options ranging from PC to Mac-based games, from PS3 to Xbox 360 to Wii, and from playing inside a web browser to playing ubiquitously on their iPhone or Android mobile device. One study reported that gameplay was almost universal among teens, with half of the teens studied saying they play games every day (Lenhart et al., 2008). A similar report suggested more than 50 percent of adults play video games, with one in five adults playing every day or almost every day (Lenhart, Jones, and Macgill, 2008). One sample massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004) had amassed over 10,000,000 subscriptions by 2012 (www.mmodata.net/). The argument here is that if people are playing games, then researchers ought to figure out if they are learning from them and what they are learning from them.
A final reason for the recent increase in learning about education and games is the often-negative media reports about the impact of gaming. These reports frequently refer to addiction, where players have died from playing too long without a break, have committed suicide after losing their on-screen persona, or have neglected and thus harmed others because of their lack of focus. More recently, these reports have centered on random acts of violence and the role of video games in the perpetrator’s life. For instance, after the Columbine High School shootings in the United States, reporters asked whether video games could have been at least partially responsible for the mass killings (Pooley, 1999). With the 2012 deadly US shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the interest in understanding the connection between gun violence and violent video games has been renewed. In the end, there is evidence on both sides of the debate. Some have provided research evidence that “exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior” (Anderson et al., 2010, p. 151); others have suggested that “media violence may provide an outlet or release for aggressive drives. As such, people who consume violent media would be expected to become less aggressive” (Ferguson, 2009, p. 43). A Washington Post blog analyzed data from ten countries to suggest “there’s little or no link between video games and gun murders” (Fisher, 2012). Regardless of the outcome, the debate has re-energized interest in what can be positively or negatively learned during game play.
Game Consumption and Creation
Much of the educational interest in video games has focused on consumption and the pedagogic value of play. For instance, popular theoretical approaches to cognition have highlighted play as a safe, motivational environment for learners to apply knowledge and practice skills (Vygotsky, 1967; Bettelheim, 1987):
Video game play (consumption) provides a point of interaction between learning and doing; it can enable the practical application of concepts, skills, and knowledge. Electronic games also offer added features of automation and complexity. Since play within electronic games includes interaction mediated through electronic hardware such as a computer or gaming console, the application of games rules are applied automatically through the electronic hardware.
(Ferdig, 2012a, p. 179)
The type of game consumed often depends on the perspective of the person who is interested in what is being learned. For instance, a psychologist or sociologist might be interested in the impact of games that are chosen by and played by teenagers. In this sense, the game is not an intervention with a prescriptive value but rather an object that is being observed or evaluated. Conversely, a high school classroom teacher might have a specific end goal or objective and would pick a title that was most relevant to the lesson. In these latter cases, educators will often choose between educational games (sometimes referred to as edutainment games) and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) games. Education games are ones that have been developed with particular learning or teaching goals in mind. For instance, Math Blaster (Knowledge Adventure, 1989) was created with the sole intent of helping students learn math. COTS games are those that were usually not created with a specific educational objective but can be applied as such. For example, a teacher might incorporate Civilization (Microprose, 1991) to teach history or social studies (Squire, 2006). Commercial games typically have a higher production budget and will thus often have better graphics or more features for players (Kickmeier-Rust, Mattheiss, Steiner, and Albert, 2011). Students often choose to play these of their own accord, thus making integration with COTS somewhat easier. A disadvantage of incorporating COTS in traditional educational environments is convincing parents, teachers, and administrators of the value of noneducation-based video games.
An additional term that deserves mention is the notion of the “serious game.” Although there is some debate about when the term first appeared, one early citation comes from Clark Abt in a book he wrote in 1970 called Serious Games. The term then regained popularity when the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars created the Serious Games Initiative in 2002. There is not one clear definition of the term; it is often defined in the context in which it is used (Ferdig, 2012b). For instance, people have described it as advergaming (advertisement), edutainment (education), and exergaming (health and wellness). They have also used the terms gamification (where developers apply game mechanics to non-game settings in order to improve outcomes), smart gaming (using higher order thinking and strategies to achieve game objectives), and social impact gaming (using games to achieve a desired social change). Perhaps at its most basic level, a serious game is one that has been designed for a reason other than to just entertain, regardless of the field, motivation, or context for which it was created.
The educational use of games is not limited to consumption. Research and training has also focused on the development of games, particularly through some of the aforementioned free development tools such as Scratch (MIT Media Lab, 2006) or Alice (Carnegie Mellon & University of Virginia, 1997). Developers, whether they are teachers or students, end up having to learn the content and skills being taught in order to prepare and create a meaningful and engaging game environment for others (Kafai, 1998). Through development, learners have the authentic opportunity to create artifacts that demonstrate their learning and provide opportunities for others to learn (Ferdig, 2006). Applications of game development could include teaching teachers to create games for their students, the use of game development for therapeutic counseling, or the use of student development for skill or content acquisition.
Tied to this notion of development is the concept of modding. To mod, short for modification, is to take an existing game and to change the content or to build a new game based on the existing game engine. Instead of developing from scratch, modders are given a scaffolded framework by which to build, rebuild, and edit. Steinkuehler and Johnson (2009) argue that modding is an example of redefining “computer literacy as computational literacy, authorship as collaborative and negotiated rather than individually achieved, and digital media literacy practice as one involving design and production, not merely passive or critical consumption” (p. 53).
Research on Educational Gaming
Given diverse perspectives, interests, and motivations for its study, it becomes increasingly difficult to ascertain what the research tells us about educational gaming. Researchers in almost all fields seem to agree that more studies need to be conducted. However, to understand the impact of education games, one has to examine the discipline, context, and purpose in which the game is used or the study conducted. For instance, researchers interested in educational game design have demonstrated the importance of aligning content, learner characteristics, and pedagogy (Ke, 2009). Psychologists have argued that children, particularly males, need outlets to explore dark topics in a healthy manner (Olson, 2010). And, medical researchers claimed that a lack of “appropriate supervision of video games use during adolescence, a crucial stage of development, may lead to serious behavioral consequences in some adolescents” (Colón-de Martí et al., 2012).
Within the field of education, meta-analyses of existing literature have been completed in order to both point out prominent features of educational games and to set the stage for understanding where the field is at and where it needs to go. Two meta-analyses examined the concept of serious games; the first appeared in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. In that article, Giarard, Ecalle, and Magnan (2012) analyzed research on serious games (SG) vs. traditional video games (VG). In the study, the authors stated: “the only difference between a SG and a VG lies in their intended purpose: usefulness for the former, entertainment for the latter” (p. 4). Through a data collection and analyses procedure, the authors found nine studies and eleven games (6 SG and 5 VG) that fit the randomized control trial methodology they were seeking. At the conclusion of the study, the authors stated that SGs might be useful for learning, but more studies were necessary, particularly longitudinal ones that assessed long-term outcomes. Perhaps more importantly, the authors reiterated what they learned in the reviewed studies:
[T]oday’s young adults, adolescents and children are very used to and motivated by VGs and educational applications … playing this type of game could constitute a support for learning when traditional teaching methods are too boring … It also allows learners to explore environments that are inaccessible to most people (such as the ocean floor or outer space) and gives concrete form to certain abstract problems such as mathematical equations, thus opening up new learning possibilities for students. These potentials illustrate why it is important to continue to study the effectiveness of SGs on engagement and the associated learning effects.
(2012, pp. 10–11)
A second example meta-analysis was published in the Review of Educational Research. Young, Slota, Cutter, Jalette, Mullin, Lai, Simeoni, Tran, and Yukhymenko (2012) explored whether video games were tied to academic achievement when they were used in the K-12 curriculum. The authors had to contend with important issues facing those who study educational games. For instance, what is fun and what is a game? They then divided the articles that met their criteria into specific content areas. One of their important findings was that each video game had affordances and constraints based on the content area in which it was implemented. A second was that video games were useful in the classroom when they accompanied good teaching. There were some content areas that were lacking in high quality educational game research while other content areas provided sound, comprehensive research. For instance, they suggested “more time must be devoted to the topic of science-based video gaming before larger trends regarding their impact are revealed” (p. 73); however, they added that “video games to teach language in varying forms may be the most effective use of educational computer gaming to date” (p. 74). “Much as with language learning, video games in physical education have been found to have a net positive effect on students’ motivations toward PE and exercise” (p. 77). Perhaps the most telling evidence from this meta-analysis on educational games was something that Ke (2009) had also pointed out earlier about alignment:
[T]here appears to be a disconnect between the possible instructional affordances of games and how they are integrated into classrooms. Games are often multiplayer and cooperative and competitive; they engage players in several hours of extended play, allow rich “hint and cheat” websites to develop around player affinity groups, and are played from weeks to years. However, most schools trade off extended immersion for curriculum coverage, individual play, and short exposures, goals that are not well aligned with engaging video game play.
(Young et al., 2012, p. 80)
The pedagogy of the classroom does not often match well with the theories of engagement, learning, and action prevalent in COTS. As such, educational game developers might often find themselves creating a game with a pedagogical approach to fit the classroom; that pedagogical approach may or may not find aspects of quality game design.
The Future of Educational Gaming
The future of educational gaming could be significantly positive. Although the research field is still lacking the requisite number of quality publications to support its case, there is promise in the publications that do exist. The fact that there are journals aimed at game-based learning (such as the International Journal of Games and Computer-Mediated Simulations) is evidence the field is ready for researchers who can rigorously examine video game implementation. In order for this promise to become reality, there are at least three key themes that must be considered.
First, it is worth discussing Shulman’s (1986) concept of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). PCK is an understanding that knowing how to teach (pedagogical knowledge) is different than knowing a content area (content knowledge); both are different than knowing how to teach that content (pedagogical content knowledge). The same is true with educational gaming. A game type (such as shooter or strategy or puzzle) might have varying affordances or constraints that make it more or less useful for certain aspects of learning (such as skill, attitude, or fact) in different contexts (single player vs. multiplayer, console vs. handheld, haptic control vs. PC keyboard) for given content acquisition (math vs. science, police training vs. business simulation).
Tied to that is the second theme, that there is no silver bullet. Media agencies often request press releases or on-record statements that clarify once and for all that video games do or do not lead to violence, do or do not impact a content area (such as one’s health or one’s knowledge of science), or positively or negatively impact learning. Such a statement can never be made. Games are designed differently, with different purposes, goals, objectives, and audiences. They are implemented differently by various people in distinctive contexts and circumstances to meet unique goals and outcomes. As such, it is very likely that one educational game will be used successfully by one person and not another, in one context and not another, and with negative outcomes in one case and positive consequences in another.
The point of understanding both of these themes is to realize that the question for educational gamers is not “Does this game work?”, but rather “Under what conditions does this game work?” (Ferdig, 2011). Attempting to understand the broader field of educational gaming would then begin with questions such as:
• Under what conditions do violent video games lead people to aggressive behaviors (vs. do video games cause violent behaviors)?
• Under what conditions do COTS games support physical education (exergaming) in urban elementary schools?
• Under what conditions does gamification of online graduate courses lead to improved motivation in nursing students?
A final theme that will impact the future of educational gaming is the relationship between commercial and educational entities. As noted earlier, educational groups do not necessarily have the skill-sets or the financial backing to create educational opportunities to compete with commercial successes. Arguably this may be changing with the onset of small or mini game/application development and deployment (such as an iTunes application). However, much could be learned from both educators and commercial companies that would positively impact both groups. Educators would have the opportunity to produce games that meet their learning goals; commercial groups would enjoy the benefit of potential improved success drawing on what educators from all fields know about how, what, when, where, and why gamers learn from games.
References
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