Video games, interactivity, and education

Although most research on video games addresses negative effects of usage, game technology may offer a huge potential for education. ASC Games emphasizes the facilitation of developmental processes through entertainment media. Our research includes all age groups (preschoolers, school children, adolescents, and adults), various special need populations (e.g., developmental impairments, cognitive deficits after a stroke, people at health risk), and ethnicities.

Though the benefits of integrating playful elements into instructional techniques are well-known, systematic implementation of entertainment into media-based instruction has been neglected. Growing evidence of multiple positive effects of entertaining educational media, such as increased attention allocation of students, exists. However, the extent to which entertainment qualities facilitate or hinder learning remains unclear. One of our main scientific goals is to further elaborate a compelling theory on media entertainment-education, while conducting a series of empirical, mostly experimental studies on educational media effects. Currently, we study the role of enjoyable content and form elements in interactive learning environments to improve curriculum-based as well as informal learning in STEM fields, with a special emphasis on incidental learning. In one of our long term efforts we develop and assess games suitable for early language learners in normal and special needs populations. Although we emphasize experimental methods in our work, we also apply non-experimental social science methods ranging from diaries to content analysis.

Readings

  1. Lee, K. M., & Peng, W. (in press). A brief biography of computer game studies. In P. Vorderer, & J. Bryant (Eds.), Playing computer games – Motives, responses, and consequences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

  2. Miller, L. C., & Read, S. J. (2005). Virtual sex: Creating environments for reducing risky sex. In S. Cohen, K. Portnoy, D. Rehberger, & C. Thorsen (Eds.), Virtual decisions: Digital simulations for teaching reasoning in the social sciences and humanities. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

  3. Ritterfeld, U., & Weber, R. (in press). Video games for entertainment and education. In P. Vorderer, & J. Bryant (Eds.), Playing computer games - Motives, responses, and consequences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

  4. Ritterfeld, U., Weber, R., Fernandes, S., & Vorderer, P. (2004). Think science! Entertainment education in interactive theaters. Computers in Entertainment: Educating Children through Entertainment, 2/1, http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/973801.973819.