ASTD DC Metro 2013 Presentation Resources:Gamification of Learning

Posted by Karl Kapp on March 22, 2013

Had a great time last night with the wonder folks from the ASTD DC Metro chapter, a full house with lots of great questions and interactions. Met a number of new friends, saw an old college classmate, Dara Nicholls, and ran into Richard Blunt, author of Do Serious Games Work? Results from Three Studies which is an interesting look at some game-based research, we caught up before the event and had a great time comparing notes.

I was even able to catch up with Bloomsburg University alum Erik Lord who graduated a little before I got to the university and became a professor in 1997. Here I am with Erik.

I had a great time and congratulations to Team B, the “winner” of Fact or Fishy. A well played game by both teams.

I want to thank all the people for a wonderful event, it was one of the warmest and friendliest groups I’ve presented to and I’ve presented to some awesome groups!

Here are the slides from the presentation.

Gamification of Learning 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.