Game-Based Learning Speaker: Alex Games – Assessment in Games.

Friday, January 21, Alex games spoke to the Game-Based Learning group. Alex Games Ph.D is an Assistant Professor of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University. He spoke  about current research trends in game-based assessment.

Games defined assessment as a process of deciding what claims we can make about student knowledge explaining that that is dependent upon one’s theoretical approach to learning. Understanding that we can decide what counts as evidence of knowledge and then what tasks or situations will elicit that evidence. He explained how game-like knowing is situated.  On one of his slides he wrote that this was about defining know = verb vs. knowledge = noun.

Using Quest Atlantis (http://atlantis.crlt.indiana.edu/) as an example of socio-scientific inquiry, he listed four ways to assess student understanding in that game:

1. Immediate Level analysis of discourse – what is the student saying or writing?, how is she interacting with the game?
2. Close level examination of artifact use – what is the student making: maps, diagrams, lists?
3. Proximal level assessment in a close but different context – the game is similar to real life, but doesn’t approximate all of the nuances of environmental problems. The process of solving the problem is the same, but it isn’t risky.
4. Distal level test targeting state science standards – how close to the learning context can the player come?

When a student plays a game, their knowledge is performative. It’s about what the student does rather than memorizing and answering questions. In Quest Atlantis, there are other players who are also making decisions and doing things within the world creating a dynamic situation where players are interacting and impacting one another.

Another method, Epistemic Network Analysis: Learning Trajectory Assessments, uses Bayesian Networks and Item Response Theory to estimate the latent values of a framework of competencies over time. This builds upon the work of David Shaffer. His book is How Computer Games Help Children Learn. He suggested watching the video about epistemic games here:
http://epistemicgames.org/eg/epistemic-network-analysis-video/
The image below was part of his slide presentation:

In the Evidence Model, we look at the behavior of the player and the artifacts they create. In the Task Model we look at stduent activities that result from the learning environment. This method requires a massive amount of data to be valid.

He concluded by discussing Dialogic assessment: examining the emergent assessment frameworks of informal game design communities. The social status x contribution x appreciative system = dialogic participant structures. This is about how students can share their work with one another in online communities. For example, Gamestar Mechanic (http://gamestarmechanic.com/) and Sploder (www.sploder.com). In this model, the community assesses what the learner needs to know.

Unfortunately, our recording was hampered by difficulties in connecting with Alex. We did create an audio recording and I will either post it or transcribe it depending upon the quality.

Three Dialogs: a framework for the analysis and assessment of twenty-first-century literacy practices, and its use in the context of game design within Gamestar Mechanic, by IVAN ALEX GAMES in E–Learning; Volume 5 Number 4 2008

see also: Epistemic Network Analysis: A Prototype for 21st Century Assessment of Learning by David Williamson Shaffer, et. al. in ILJM, volume, 1 number 2; 2009, MIT press.

Designing Assessments and Assessing Designs in Virtual Educational Environments by Daniel T. Hickey, Adam A. Ingram-Goble,  and Ellen M. Jameson, in J Sci Educ Technol (2009) 18:187–208