Online Games and Science: The Role of Gaming Technologies in the Development of Dispositions Towards Learning

Melissa Gresalfi · Anna Arici

This presentation will focus on the development of dispositions towards science and the environment; that is, one’s characteristic ways of engaging with content both in particular moments of interaction and in more enduring patterns over time (Gresalfi & Cobb, 2006). We consider the kinds of dispositions that students develop towards content matter because we are concerned not only with the amount of content that a student is able to “master”. Rather, our work unpacks how students engage information; how they approach new problems, how they evaluate the accuracy or reasonableness of their solutions. In short, we are equally as concerned with students’ ways of engaging information as with the actual content with which they engage. Clearly the two are not separable. Indeed, the focus on dispositions is well aligned with a theory of learning that states that what students know is inseparable from how they engage the information (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Greeno, 1991). Thus, by considering the dispositions towards knowing, we attend to how students’ increasingly knowledgeable participation in a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

The technologies that have been developed through multiplayer online games have created opportunities to embed content in action such that engagement can involve the complexities of contexts-of-use. However, although there is significant evidence that games are interesting and engaging to students, there is less evidence about the utility of games as vehicles for learning and content-specific engagement. This presentation considers the role of online gaming environments by contrasting student engagement with two science curricula: one on water quality taught in a traditional classroom environment, and one that was embedded in a 3D multi-user virtual environment (MUVE).

The two curricula were taught by the same 6th grade teacher to four sciences classes (two per condition). The content, standards, and assessment of the curricula were equivalent, but differed in theoretical approach and context. The Traditional condition was text-based and activities were teacher-led; lessons included lecture, discussion, and highly organized notes. The MUVE condition was virtual-based, and positioned the teacher as a resource, while students uncovered information within the Quest Atlantis virtual world. The 3D lessons involved investigating fish decline in a local river, and finding out who (the loggers, indigenous farmers, or fishermen) might be responsible for the decline. Qualitative and quantitative research measures were used, including traditional written assessments, standardized measures, classroom observation, and interviews with students. Post tests showed significant learning gains in both conditions, and in the delayed post test the 3D condition scored significantly higher, demonstrating significantly less forgetting than the Traditional group over the two month delay. With respect to dispositions, students in the 3D condition demonstrated more active engagement in class and with science more broadly, as seen in their voluntary participatory activities, the ways they talked about the unit outside of class, and their references to the relevance of the unit to other aspects of their lives. The presentation will unpack these differences, and their attributions to different components of the two curricula.