This week's key reading: A Significant Cognitive Artifact of Contemporary Youth Culture
Authors: Henderson, L. http://www.digra.org/dl/db/06276.11341.pdf
Relevance to field: While not specific to adults (as seems to be the case from almost all research in this are), this article documents profound advantages to the use of video games on children, using their cognitive properties to enhance their learning skills
What is known about the field: It is made known that video games are generally looked down on as useful educational tools early in the paper, and seeks to disprove this by using a real commercially released game, Final Fantasy IX. The author took five students, each of differing "teacher-rated" ability, and observed and interviewed them as they played through the quest. To her surprise, the author found that many of the cognitive learning skills that were known to result from playing video games were put in play by all the students, regardless of academic ability. It makes known that it isn't just specific educational games fostering these abilities, but also those already on the market
What's missing: Admittedly, testing 5 students is a fairly small observation pool to draw many conclusive results from. It is also curious that of these 5, only 1 is female (resulting in skewed data). This seems to ignore the differences between girls and boys in play, as well as not having sufficient female representation to present conclusive results for her female student "Eyore". She also puts forward at the end that similar tests should be run on multiple age groups.
Comments: A lot of research has been carried out on theoretical games or on small demos. The author has instead chosen a commercially available and successful title as the basis for her research. This instantly gives her fair more relevance to study of serious games and the thought processes they evoke.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
This week's reading: Cognitive Science and Serious Games
I knew I'd one day come back to this blog. This blog is now converted into a research blog across the duration of my honour's project.
This week's key reading: Cognitive Science Implications for Enhancing Training Effectiveness in a Serious Gaming Context
Authors: Greitzer, F., Kuchar, O., Huston, K.
Relevance to field: The authors note that current attempts to use electronic means for training are very limited and unfruitful, with many people not remembering key things from these simulations. They put forward that the characteristics of video games, such as well balanced cognitive loading, visceral appeal and ability to "stimulate semantic knowledge". They show this by running a test of a serious network game called CyberCIEGE at a certain firm. The results were that employees were much sooner working through "hard" situations with much less difficulty. However, they expressed frustration due to what is described as a poorly communicated tutorial.
What is known about the field: The paper starts with a detailed explanation of the cognitive advantage presented in serious games, as well as detailing limitations in current training software. The authors and staff seem to be fully aware of the advantages of video games as in instructional tool, and thoroughly believe in its strong psychological effects
What's missing: It is unusual that Greitzer et al begin their discussion of cognitive advantages by making specific reference to the effect of games on children and youth, without explicitly stating that the effects carry over into their much older testing demographic. They also surmise that there were several key tools employed by successful games which would be of use in a serious game context, such as levelling up and shared experience, which would aid the teaching process
Comments: This article is a brilliant example of research in the field done correctly. The fact they could cite a recent example with a well thought-out and detailed execution easily puts it above other papers as an excellent source.
This week's key reading: Cognitive Science Implications for Enhancing Training Effectiveness in a Serious Gaming Context
Authors: Greitzer, F., Kuchar, O., Huston, K.
Relevance to field: The authors note that current attempts to use electronic means for training are very limited and unfruitful, with many people not remembering key things from these simulations. They put forward that the characteristics of video games, such as well balanced cognitive loading, visceral appeal and ability to "stimulate semantic knowledge". They show this by running a test of a serious network game called CyberCIEGE at a certain firm. The results were that employees were much sooner working through "hard" situations with much less difficulty. However, they expressed frustration due to what is described as a poorly communicated tutorial.
What is known about the field: The paper starts with a detailed explanation of the cognitive advantage presented in serious games, as well as detailing limitations in current training software. The authors and staff seem to be fully aware of the advantages of video games as in instructional tool, and thoroughly believe in its strong psychological effects
What's missing: It is unusual that Greitzer et al begin their discussion of cognitive advantages by making specific reference to the effect of games on children and youth, without explicitly stating that the effects carry over into their much older testing demographic. They also surmise that there were several key tools employed by successful games which would be of use in a serious game context, such as levelling up and shared experience, which would aid the teaching process
Comments: This article is a brilliant example of research in the field done correctly. The fact they could cite a recent example with a well thought-out and detailed execution easily puts it above other papers as an excellent source.