I spend some of my time during semester breaks catching up on the literature relevant to courses I teach. This is necessary especially in preparation for graduate courses so I can include a few primary source documents in addition to any textbook I might use.
I do not write frequently about such sources in any of my blogs. Hence, I am making an exception with this post. I follow quite a few blogs relevant to education and educational technology and I must admit that none offer much from a research perspective. Even though I know better, I violate one of the basics of information literacy. I fail to carefully consider the perspective from which sources offer their arguments. Every now and then, it is important to remember that few researchers blog and most of what I am consuming on a daily basis is speculation without connection to good science. If you follow writers who offer no connection to a research base, you are subjecting yourself to the same limiting accounts.
I have devided every few months or so I should recommend a solid study relevant to the topics I frequently address. This is a challenge of a sort. If you blog as an advocate, from time to time you should also make the effort to offer aa account of a quality primary source.
My first contribution is a brief summary of a study evaluating the benefits of narrative games. I suggest you read the primary sourcce yourself. The statistics and methodology are straight forward and the analysis easy to follow.
Adams, D., et al. (2012). Narrative Games for learning: Testing the discovery and narrative hypothees. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104, 235-249.
This study tests the claims made by advocates of educational games that students learn better when engaged in computer-based games that involve discovery and make use of a narrative context. The researchers contrasted conditions in which college students spent time with two well established educational games – Crystal Island and Cache 17. The researchers contrasted the game content with slide show content (the dreaded PowerPoint) consisting of text and images from the games. In other words, the key content was the same in both cases. What was different was the context within which this content was embedded. Learners performed better on retention annd transfer tasks when working with the slide show format and found this format easier to use.
It is not that this research failed to find a benefit to games. Rather, the study indicated that direct instruction was found to be of greater benefit to learners.
I don’t want you to think i am anti-game. I write elsewhere describing the type of game described in this research. I do encourage a more balanced understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of direct instruction.
