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Matthew Sharritt, Ph.D.
WWW.SITUATEDGAMING.COM
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CIS Ph.D. Program
University of Hawai`i
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Situated Research, LLC
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Research
Dissertation | Other Publications | Additional Resources
"Be the change that you want to see in the world." -- Gandhi
Dissertation
Title
CommitteeDaniel D. Suthers, Chair |
 |
Abstract
Extensive literature has shown that games can provide an engaging, dynamic, and authentic learning context. Many of the studies on the use of games in education indicate that games can support teaching standards and outcomes; however, they do not describe actual uses of video games for learning. Through the analysis of affordances employed by student gamers, an understanding of how learning takes place can inform the design of effective educational games and aid their integration into contemporary classrooms. Informed by ethnomethodology, this study used methods of grounded theory provided a detailed description of the use of video games for learning in educational contexts.
Results demonstrate that learning occurs across multiple levels: the mastery of the computer interface, followed by the mastery of the game interface and upon which students can achieve advanced strategy aimed at goal achievement. Learning also occurs across multiple granularities: occurring either in short episodes, sequences of episodes, or trends. Learning can be triggered by multiple cues, such as failure, game visualizations or specific representations, as well as by peers or teachers in the social environment.
Students used affordances provided by the game interface and learning environment, specifically: the visual representations of games afford particular actions; the persistent display of historical context as well as present and future potentials motivates learning; specific cues can grab attention, helping to focus efforts on new or underutilized game tasks; consistent and well organized visualizations encourage learning; and information presented in a plurality of channels is most effective for learning.
The use of social peers in collaborative learning had several effects on the learning process: peers disclosed information to achieve shared meaning of objects’ purposes, and negotiated to collaboratively choose game strategies. Peer
teams served cooperative roles as information sources and competitively as a performance gauge.
Implications for students, educators, and game designers are offered to better play, implement, and design games for learning. A brief comparison of findings with existing theory discusses similarities among collaborative learning and activity theory, and suggests opportunities for future work. Overall, findings indicate a great potential for the use of games in education for learning.
Full Document
Dissertation-MSharritt.pdf (14.2MB PDF, 1055 pages)
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Other Publications
Sharritt, M. J. (2008). Forms of learning in collaborative video game play. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 3(2), pp. 97-138.
Extensive literature has shown that games provide engaging, dynamic, and authentic learning contexts. An understanding of how learning takes place while gaming can inform the design of effective educational games and aid their integration into contemporary classrooms. This study used inductive methods to provide a detailed description of the use of video games for learning in a school setting. Results demonstrate that learning occurred across multiple levels and multiple granularities, and can be triggered by particular cues in the game or social environment. Characteristics of the most frequently occurring instances of learning are discussed. Results of this study suggest great potential for the use of games in education for learning, and can inform future game design.
RPTEL-2008-3-2(sharritt).pdf (1.2MB PDF, 31 pages)
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Sharritt, M. J. & Suthers, D.D. (2009). Video game representations as cues for collaboration and learning. (Accepted conference paper for Meaningful Play 2008; was selected through peer review as one of the top papers; publication will be in a special issue of the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, to appear Summer 2009).
Literature suggests that games can support learning in schools in several ways: by enabling creative problem solving, allowing dynamic resource allocation, by providing a motivating, immersive activity, and by supporting explorations of identity. However, research is needed to examine how exactly games are utilized for learning. A descriptive, inductive study was carried out to identify how high school students in a school setting make use of the video game interface and its representations. Results demonstrate that specific cues direct attention, helping to focus efforts on new or underutilized game tasks. In addition, consistent and well-organized visualizations encourage learning and collaboration among students by providing shared referential resources and scaffolding coordinated sequences of problem solving acts during gameplay. Conversely, when affordances are inconsistently represented, students' focus can shift from problem solving at the goal level (game strategy, etc.) to problem solving why the game interface is frustrating their goals. In general, the design of game representations and behaviors can help guide or hinder student learning.
GCMS(sharritt_suthers).pdf (1.7MB PDF, 48 pages)
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Sharritt, M. J. (2009). Evaluating Video Game Design and Interactivity. In R. Van Eck (Ed.) Interdisciplinary Models and Tools for Serious Games: Emerging Concepts and Future Directions (book chapter awaiting publication).
An emergent, inductive, bottom-up approach to the study of video game interaction is presented, drawing from influences in ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967), grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), and activity theory (Vygotsky, 1978; Cole & Engestrom, 1993; Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006). Following, a case study is presented that qualitatively studies the use of affordances, or potentials for action, during video game player interaction among peers and the game interface. Relationships among the concept of affordances to levels of activity are presented, which broaden the concept of affordances to include motivation. Additionally, activity theory will guide analysis by introducing the mediational triangle (Cole & Engestrom, 1993), providing a guide with which to analyze game player interactions and motives. The mediational triangle will bring into focus the motivated activity itself, the tools available to complete the activity, and relationships to community (such as role specialization and rules of play) to assist in evaluating game design.
ATchapter.pdf (0.5MB PDF, 34 pages)
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