Transformational Play as a Curricular Scaffold: Using Videogames to Support Science Education

Abstract

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 contextualization: (a) expository textbook condition, (b) simplistic framing condition, (c) immersive world condition, and (d) a single-user immersive world condition. Results indicated that the immersive-world dyad and immersive-world single user conditions performed significantly better than the electronic textbook group on standardized items. The immersive-world dyad condition also performed significantly better than either the expository textbook or the descriptive framing condition on a performance-based transfer task, and performed significantly better than the expository textbook condition on standardized test items. Implications for science education, and consistent with the goals of this special issue, are that immersive game-based learning environments provide a powerful new form of curriculum for teaching and learning science.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Proximal Level Example Items

1. Within aquatic ecosystems there is a direct correlation between dissolved oxygen content and the population of various species of fish. Which relationship can correctly be inferred from the data presented in the graphs below?

• a. As sewage waste increases, oxygen content increases.

• b. As the carp population increases, the whitefish population increases.

• c. As oxygen content decreases, carp population decreases.

• d. As oxygen content decreases, trout population decreases.

2. A small, fast-moving river is in a V-shaped valley on the slope of a mountain. If you follow the river to where it passes through a plain, what will the river most likely look like compared with how it looked on the mountain?

• a. Much the same

• b. Deeper and faster

• c. Slower and wider

• d. Straighter

3. Which of the populations in the food-web below is most likely to increase if the number of grasshoppers decreases?

Distal Level Example Items

1. Two open bottles, one filled with vinegar and the other with olive oil, were left on a window sill in the Sun. Several days later it was observed that the bottles were no longer full. What can be concluded from this observation?

• a. Vinegar evaporates faster than olive oil.

• b. Olive oil evaporates faster than vinegar.

• c. Both vinegar and olive oil evaporate.

• d. Only liquids containing water evaporate.

2. Nuclear power plants can produce energy more cheaply and with less pollution than power plants that use fossil fuels. Why are there not more nuclear power plants than plants that burn fossil fuels?

• a. There is an endless supply of fossil fuels available.

• b. Nuclear fuels produce too little heat during the fission reaction.

• c. A pound of fossil fuel produces more energy than a pound of nuclear fuel.

• d. The problem of disposing of large amounts of nuclear waste is not resolved.

3. A community found that the mosquito population had risen considerably. They hired a pest control company to heavily spray the area. Although the insecticide was not harmful to birds, in a couple years many of the species of birds had disappeared. What is the best explanation for this?

• a. The noise from the insecticide company scared the birds away.

• b. The squirrel population increased.

• c. The mosquitoes were a food source for the birds.

• d. The insecticide filtered into the water system for the birds.

Appendix 2

Open-ended Transfer Task