Negotiating Students’ Conceptions of ‘Cheating’ in Video Games and in School

Technology use, and video game play in particular, occupies a large amount of time in a typical teenager’s life. Methods of learning and playing video games differ from that of traditional learning settings in that it is common to collaborate and use alternative methods known as “cheats” in the gaming world, strategies that might be considered unethical in the traditional classroom setting. This study took a phenomenological approach to developing an understanding of student views of cheating in these two different settings, and investigating their motivations for engaging in cheating behaviors. Researchers explore the narratives of three teenage males as they described their experiences in gaming and in school, and their views of ethics, honesty, and acceptable forms of information gathering in the two contexts. Analyses reveal three themes relating to students’ conceptions of cheating. Implications are discussed, particularly as they relate to setting and maintaining ethical standards in the school setting.

Investigating Youth’s Life Online Phenomena

This paper examines the dialectics between living in offline and digitally-mediated worlds and how youth construct their identity and sense of self, negotiate meaning, and make sense of their social experiences. Situating the study within the context of the popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft (WoW), the authors investigate the interplay between the everyday, situated lives of five digital youth gamers, aged 18 to 25, and their activities and ‘lived practices’ in WoW. Findings suggest a recurrent theme that challenges ascribed dichotomies between youth’s presence in the offline and online world in terms of their identities in play, sense of embodiment, and orientation toward work, play, and the spirit of communitas within WoW. Exploration of such a phenomenon indicates a more intimately enmeshed and dialectically coupled experience of youths’ in their contextual traversals, providing a fundamental conceptual understanding of the impact of youths’ exodus to the virtual world and its implications for 21st century teaching and learning. The outcomes address theoretical challenges associated with the interpretation of 21st century literacy performances that may be characterized as a need to move away from static and linear narratives of development to a more divergent becoming of learners through the learning process.

Learning to Become Citizens by Enacting Governorship in the Statecraft Curriculum

Citizenship education is important in developing nations, where establishing a vital sense of statehood, belonging, and common purpose amongst citizens presents political leaders with significant challenges. This paper examines the enactment of an innovative citizenship education learning program based on the Statecraft X curriculum. The authors hold that it is essential for student learning to be engaged in and studied performatively, in the everyday context of students’ situated action and participation in discursive practices. Consequently, the curriculum involves school students using a 24/7 mobile learning game played on Apple iPhones—Statecraft X—to enact governorship in the game world Velar. In addition, students construct their ideal, but fictional, world Bellalonia via the “play of imagination” as part of a Play-between-Worlds curriculum model. Empirical findings show that (a) dispositional shifts on several values and beliefs related to governance and citizenship were significantly “better” for intervention group students compared with control group students, and (b) intervention group students demonstrated significantly improved learning gains, compared with control group students, in respect of a summative essay writing task on governance and citizenship, evaluated on the criteria of relevance, perspective, and voice.

Virtual Tutor Training

In this study, the experiences and beliefs of volunteer tutors using a multi-user virtual environment to teach literacy instruction are examined to get a better understanding of the benefits and challenges of learning within this environment. Literacy tutors who were teaching adults with poor reading skills served as participants. During the study, participants delivered direct instruction reading lessons to researchers in Second Life and adult learners during live face-to-face tutoring sessions. Immediately following each session in Second Life, tutors were provided with corrective feedback on specific teaching behaviors. Data on rate of acquisition and generalization from the virtual environment to the natural environment was collected for each participant. At the conclusion of the study, tutors were asked to describe their experiences of learning to teach in a multi-user virtual environment. Results indicate that effective teaching behaviors trained in a virtual environment generalize to face-to-face instruction. However, tutors tended to disagree with the researchers’ perceptions of what constitutes effective teaching practices.

Levels of Failure and Learning in Games

A qualitative case study is presented that examines learning through video games, focusing on whether player experiences of failure create opportunities for learning. Examples of collaborative play are presented from three video games, including Civilization IV, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, and Making History: The Calm & the Storm. An inductive analysis reveals that some experiences of failure frustrate game players, leading to the abandonment of an in-game task, while others lead to increased motivation to try a different strategy. The activity-theoretic level of activity at which failure occurs is used to account for these differences in outcomes of failure.

Relations Between Videogame Play and 8th-Graders’ Mathematics Achievement

This study explores whether any relationships exist between math performance scores on the Missouri Assessment Plan (MAP), its subscales and time spent playing the child’s favorite videogame given the game’s spatial content and cognitive complexity. Relationships between gender and math scores were also examined. Findings indicate no main effect of time spent playing, spatial content, or level of complexity of games on math performance. However, several math scores interacted with time spent playing one’s favorite video game, such that higher levels of math performance occurred when participants played games high in spatial content at low amounts of time. A similar interaction occurred when examining complexity of the game and time spent playing. The study provides preliminary evidence that it may be important to consider the spatial or complexity content of videogames in addition to time spent playing when addressing the relationship between videogame play and adolescent math performance.

Behind the MASK

This study begins an interdisciplinary dialogue among game developers, researchers and educators to determine and realize the potential of using Avatars in a three-dimensional (3D) virtual world to support experiential learning, role-playing, and problem-based learning. This research further investigates the pedagogical and instructional implications for transitioning teachers and students through alternative realities. This study discusses the psychological and sociocultural need for play, delineating the pros and cons of utilizing video games, virtual 3D worlds for both online and in the classroom followed by two case studies, which demonstrate the power of becoming an avatar within virtual spaces. This qualitative research investigation uses methods employed by collecting data through voluntary participation, students discussion logs, formal and informal interviews, and observation through video recording. These studies identify the significance of psychological activities and cognitive challenges using avatars to motivate learning holds true even when examined through the lens of constructivist, socioculturalist, behaviorists, psychological, developmental, cognitive, and sociolinguistic theories. Additionally this research analyzes several important studies that have shown the potential for the educational impact of, virtual 3D worlds and video games on learning.

Playful Learning Experiences

Players use digital games as playgrounds for their interests, passions, values, and beliefs. Computer games entertain us, please our needs, challenge our abilities, make us engage with other players, and confront us with novel experiences. Today, video games foster learning, but how players connect their learning through playing games to their biographies is a question yet unanswered. This paper outlines basic theoretical assumptions on playful learning experiences and empirical insights into meaningful learning patterns. On this basis it presents the central results of an innovative qualitative study on playful learning biographies undertaken in 2010, and thereby aims to provide a reflected understanding of how today’s generation experiences deep and meaningful learning in their playful biographies. Furthermore, this paper examines the question on how games foster transformative learning and discusses consequences for educational settings and future research.

Television, Games, and Mathematics

Research has shown that educational media, such as television series or interactive games, can promote significant learning. However, it is quite common for producers to create several interconnected media, such as a television show and an associated web site, under the assumption that multiple platforms elicit greater learning than a single medium would. The research reported in this paper uses Cyberchase media as the setting in which to investigate the effectiveness of multiple media as a tool for mathematical learning for elementary school children. The study includes both a naturalistic phase, which mirrors children’s typical use of the media, and an experimental phase, which allows for causal inference to be drawn about their learning outcomes.

Virtual Learning Environments. The oLTECx

The rapid development in new technologies and media and widespread access to the Internet is changing how people teach and learn. Recognizing the potential of technology, schools and universities are placing more content online from fully deliverable courses to course catalogs, course registration, and college admissions. People are able to gain access to a multitude of information with one click. Online learning environments range from authentic, real-time environments to simulations, as well as 2D and 3D virtual environments. This paper explores the use of a 2-dimensional, narrative-based, virtual learning environment (VLE) created by doctoral students to orient potential students to their university departments’ degree programs, faculty, and course offerings. After exploring the environment, participants were surveyed about their experiences. Findings include validation of the instrument, possible correlations relating to learning through games, engagement, and game design. Emerging themes and suggestions for future research are presented in this paper.