Resources from Training 2013 Conference and Expo #trg13

Posted by Karl Kapp on February 18, 2013

The presentation was a great deal of fun. We played “Fact or Fishy”. Had a great audience and we had a great deal of interaction. Team A got beaten handidly so Team B gets accolades throughout the land! Hope everyone got a good idea of how to use simple game mechanics in their learning design from both the information and the “Fact or Fishy” game that we played in the webinar. Based on the feedback, plenty of folks really enjoyed the “texting” game we played. Thanks for the wonderful feedback and thanks to those who took the time to attend the session. I really appreciate all the positive feedback and am looking forward to the attendees implementing the ideas within your own organizations.

For even more articles on games and gamification check out my pinterst page “Gamification Happenings.“

Here is a copy of my slides from the presentation.

Games, Interactivity, Gamification for Learning: Creating Engaged Learners from Karl Kapp

Here is a link to the Poll Everywhere software I used to play the Fact or Fishy Game.

Companies Mentioned

Game Development Software

ThinkingWorlds (3D Software)
Unity 3D (3D Software, fairly Complex)
Raptivity(Games Pack)
Raptivity (Simulation Pack)
Articulate Storyline
GameMaker (simple basic game design, but requires some programming and creativity)

Here is some content and references from the presentation.

1. An experience as an avatar can change a person’s real life perceptions. In a study conducted by Yee and Bailenson (2007), it was found that negative stereotyping of the elderly was significantly reduced when participants were placed in avatars of old people compared with those participants placed in avatars of young people

Reference: Yee, N., & Bailenson, J.N. (2006). Walk a mile in digital shoes: The impact of embodied perspective-taking on the reduction of negative stereotyping in immersive virtual environments. Proceedings of PRESENCE 2006: The 9th Annual International Workshop on Presence. August 24- 26, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. See more research at the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab.

2. It is better to have one “expert” avatar and another “motivational” avatar in a learning environment rather than having one combined “mentor” avatar. Baylor and Kim (2005) report that in multiple studies with avatars of different gender and race, evidence indicates that students learned significantly more and had significantly greater motivation when working with one motivator and a different expert avatar as compared to working with the just the one mentor avatar. This can be explained by the fact that it is easier for students to figuratively ‘compartmentalize’ the information from the avatar when it was delivered by two distinct sources.

Reference: Baylor, A. L. & Kim, Y. (2005). Simulating instructional roles through pedagogical agents. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 15(1), 95-115.

Simulating Instructional Roles through Pedagogical Agents

Pedagogical Agents as Learning Companions: The Role of Agent Competency and Type
of Interaction.

3. Watching an avatar that looks like you performing an activity influences you to perform a similar or same activity in the future. Creating avatars and having a learner perform a task as an avatar can influence a person’s actual behavior outside of being an avatar. In one study, users watched an avatar that looked like them exercising and losing weight in a virtual environment, the result was that those that watched the avatar of themselves subsequently exercised more and ate healthier in the real world as compared to a control group. This as reported by Fox and Bailenson (2009). In similar study conducted by Yee, Bailenson & Ducheneaut, (2009), had three control group. One where participants were exposed to an avatar representing themselves running on a treadmill, the second with avatar running that did not represent the participant and the third group with avatar representing themselves loitering. Within 24 hours, after the experiment, participants who were exposed to the avatar running that represented themselves exercised significantly more than those in the other conditions. A study by Ersner-Hershfield et al. (2008) found that when college-aged students observed their avatar ageing in a virtual mirror, they formed a psychological connection to their “future self” and decided to invest more money in a retirement account as opposed to a control group.

Reference: Fox, J. & Bailenson, J. N. (2009).Virtual self-modeling: the effects of vicarious reinforcement and identification on exercise behaviors. Media Psychology. 12, 1–25. Ersner-Hershfield, H., Bailenson, J. & Carstensen, L. L. (2008). A vivid future self: immersive virtual reality enhances retirement saving. Chicago, IL: Association for Psychological Science. Yee, N., Bailenson, J.N., & Ducheneaut, N. (2009). The Proteus Effect: Implications of transformed digital self-representation on online and offline behavior. Communication Research, 36 (2), 285-312.

4. Trainees’ gain higher confidence in applying learning from a training session to their job when the training is simulation game based. The research evidence suggests the use of simulations to enhance the confidence trainees have in their ability to apply the skills learned in the training to their job. In a meta-analysis of more than 60 studies with 6,476 participants, it was found that trainees receiving instruction via a simulation game had 20% higher confidence they had learned the information taught in training and could perform the training-related tasks (self-efficacy) than trainees in a comparison group of more traditional methods.