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Meaningful Play 2014 at Michigan State University

Session Information

TitleEfficacy: Measuring the Impact of Game-Based Learning
Presenter(s)Peter Stidwill, Scot Osterweil, Marina Bers and Richard Lerner
TimeFriday, October 17, 10:30a-11:30a
LocationLake Superior
FormatPanel
DescriptionAlthough the field of game-based learning continues to grow and gain support from policy-makers, educators and industry, there is still a dearth of compelling evidence about the efficacy of much of what is produced. Measuring the impact of our work is not only essential for gaining users and customers - for instance, by providing the evidence that will enable a teacher to justify the use of a particular game in class - but it also adds to the growing knowledge base of what works and what doesn't. This is invaluable for everyone in the field, whether commissioning, developing or implementing games.

In this panel, we will discuss methods for testing the efficacy of game-based learning, and the results and implications of recent studies. We'll begin by focusing on two games designed and/or researched by the panel members: Xenos and Quandary. And then we'll broaden the discussion to include lessons learnt and implications for the field.

Xenos (www.xenos-isle.com) is a multiplayer English language learning experience for adult Spanish speakers, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and evaluated by international research company, RTi. Xenos was found to be as effective, and in some cases more effective, in raising participant's language skill levels over a 10-12 week implementation period than traditional methods achieve in a year. The study saw positive increases in levels of self-confidence among participants both in workplaces and libraries where the implementation pilots took place, as well as promising gains within traditionally hard-to-reach audiences such as younger males. We'll present and discuss the findings and their implications for language learning methods as a whole.

Quandary (www.quandarygame.org), designed to develop ethical thinking skills and developed by the Learning Games Network and FableVision Studios, is a previous winner of a Meaningful Play award. It was the subject of a recent field study by child development experts at Tufts University that sought to measure how the game impacted children's moral development when used in various classroom settings compared to a control group. The researchers and designers will discuss the design of their experiments, the results, and implications for the field of child development, in a preview of academic papers currently in review.

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