supervisor: judith ter vrugte
Topic
Game-based learning (the use of serious games or gamification to achieve educational goals) comprises the use of a complete set or selection of game-elements to promote learning (e.g., Sailer & Homner, 2020; Wouters & van Oostendorp, 2017). The most commonly studied elements are elements that visualize progress and performance (e.g., points badges and leaderboards) (Sailer & Homner, 2020). However, game-based learning comprises more than those elements. For example, many games rely on the application of game-fiction (i.e., storytelling and narrative) to create an immersive experience and propel a player through the game (Naul & Liu, 2019).
Game fiction is the application of storytelling or narrative (Sailer & Homner, 2020). Storytelling and narratives not only have motivational benefits (e.g., Kromka & Goodboy, 2019; Sailer & Homner; 2020, Wouters & van Oostendorp, 2017), but adequate use of storytelling or narrative may have other cognitive benefits as well. For example, it can be reasoned that stories have benefits for learners because the story structure can contribute to the creation of ‘mental schemata’. Schema theory posits that the stronger and more elaborate mental schemas are, the better they facilitate consolidation and retrieval.
For this project, it is hypothesized that content that was learned from lectures that used storytelling or narrative (game-fiction) is more easily remembered and retrieved later on since students are more likely to be more engaged during these lectures and build stronger schema.
Method
For your study you are going to (re)design micro-lectures that focus on fundamental principles of Psychology (think of the Module 1 theory course: Psychology and orientation). The experimental study follows a pretest-intervention-posttest design in which you’ll compare two conditions: micro-lecture with story and microlectures without story.
Participants (>40) are students from the university or students from secondary education. All participants watch two micro lectures (one with and one without story) in a counterbalanced design.
Measurements include prior knowledge and knowledge acquisition. Additionally, you can focus on the measurement of attention (e.g., Bourdon-Vos test and eye tracking) or emotion (e.g., survey and Empatica bracelet or similar).
references
Kromka, S. M., & Goodboy, A. K. (2019). Classroom storytelling: Using instructor narratives to increase student recall, affect, and attention. Communication Education, 68(1), 20-43. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2018.1529330
Naul, E., & Liu, M. (2020). Why story matters: A review of narratives in serious games. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 58(3), 687-707. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735633119859904
Sailer, M., & Homner, L. (2020). The gamification of learning: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 32(1), 77-112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09498-w
Wouters, P., & Van Oostendorp, H. (2017). Overview of instructional techniques to facilitate learning and motivation of serious games. In P. Wouters & H. van Oostendorp (Eds.), Instructional Techniques to Facilitate Learning and Motivation of Serious Games (pp. 1-16). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39298-1_1