The Ten Minute Ph.D.Chocolate, Broccoli and Skeletons

Dr. Jacob HabgoodHead of Serious Games, Sumo-Digital Limited

From Industry

Lead Programmer / Technical Lead Gremlin / Infogrames / Atari

MicroMachines (PS2, Xbox, GC) Hogs of War (PSX, PC) Actua Sports (PSX) Reloaded (PSX)…

Hogs of WarELSPA Silver Sales Award

Electronics Boutique’s Best Multi-Player Game of 2001

To Academia The University of Nottingham

The Learning Sciences Research Institute Psychology Computer Science Education

Chocolate-Covered Broccoli Poor marriage of games and learning

A Little Bit of Psychology Intrinsic Motivation (Deci and Ryan)

Engaging in an activity for its own sake with no obvious external incentive Linked to the concept of flow (Csikszentmihalyi*) Being “in the zone”: total concentration, distorted

sense of time, and extension of self. Video games have it… Education would like it.

More effective learning? Longer time-on-task?

*Chick-sent-me-high

“Edutainment” Failed to harness intrinsic motivation

Shavian Reversal (Papert, 1998) Chocolate-Covered Broccoli “Bargain Bin” Products

We should have a child together. With my body and your brains, what a wonder it would be!

Yes, but what if it had my body and your brains?

Intrinsic Integration(Habgood, Ainsworth and Benford, 2005)

Better Integration Integrate the game mechanics and learning

content.

“mechanism through which players make meaningful choices and arrive at a meaningful play experience” (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004).

Zombie Division A Gaming Episode

Designed to empirically test the value of our definition of intrinsic integration.

Is this integration better or worse for motivation and learning.

Contrasting Versions Two versions that differ only in the

way in which they integrate their learning content.

Intrinsic Zombie Division Extrinsic Zombie Division

Intrinsic Game Core Mechanic

Action-adventure game. Defeating numbered enemies by

attacking them with a weapon that divides their number into whole parts.

Weapons map to different divisors. Supported by a multiplication grid.

Intrinsic Game

Extrinsic Game Core Mechanic

Enemies labelled with symbols which show their vulnerability to weapons.

Weapons map to controls only. Learning Content

Multiple choice questions at end of level.

Supported by a multiplication grid. Identical numbers to those in the

intrinsic version (on the skeletons).

Extrinsic Game

Control Game

Study 1: Motivation Version Switching

Class of 9-11 year olds attending a regular after school club.

Free switching between versions of ZD or their usual club pursuits.

No loss of progress for switching. Recorded time playing ZD over 2½

hours of potential play. Lengthy group interview at end.

Study 1: Results Motivation

Children spent significantly longer playing the intrinsic than extrinsic (61% vs. 8%)

Girls spent statistically longer playing intrinsic than boys! (84% vs. 50%).

Interview Data “more fun because it’s like subliminal

advertising with maths.” (intrinsic) “you think: oh I’ve had the fun part,

now I have to do a test – I’m just going to turn it off and not bother.” (extrinsic)

Study 2: Learning Fixed Time-on-Task

Fifty-nine, 7 and 8 year olds

Day 1

Pre-Test

4-5 20 mins on game6 30 mins reflection + 20 mins

game.7-8 20 mins on game11 Post-test

2 weeks25 35 minutes on game.

Delayed-test

W.E.

W.E.

Study 2: Results Learning Outcomes

Larger overall percentage gains (15%pts). Percentage gains between post and delayed

were significantly higher for the intrinsic (7%pts) than extrinsic (<1%pts) or control (<1%pts)

Intrinsic Integration

You can create more motivating and more effective learning games by creating a closer integration between a game and its learning content.

But…

They may take longer to produce and be more difficult to re-purpose…

Discuss :-)

Take Away Message:

Zombie Division(okay so they’re not actually zombies – but they’re close)