2011 PracticalAppropriateEmpirically

(Linehan et al., 2011) ⇒ Conor Linehan, Ben Kirman, Shaun Lawson, and Gail Chan. (2011). “Practical, Appropriate, Empirically-validated Guidelines for Designing Educational Games.” In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ISBN:978-1-4503-0228-9 doi:10.1145/1978942.1979229

Subject Headings: Educational Game, Reinforcement, Educational Tool.

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Abstract

There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the [[process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists and point out how they are uniquely suited to take advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing educational games, based on the techniques of Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both focus educational games designers on the features of games that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet be familiar with.

Introduction

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Positive Reinforcement describes a situation where the presentation of a stimulus as a consequence of an instance of behaviour makes that behaviour more likely to occur in that context in future. For example, gaining experience points and gold pieces for killing a goblin may make goblin-slaughter the more likely response to future goblin encounters.

Negative Reinforcement describes a situation where the removal or termination of an existing stimulus (or existing aversive condition) as a consequence of an instance of behaviour makes that behaviour more likely to occur in that context in future. Negative reinforcement is manifest in games where players are forced to re-start from the beginning of a level or stage when they die - not wanting to waste time replaying the easy parts of the same level over-and-over is a powerful motivator.

Positive Punishment describes a situation where the presentation or addition of a stimulus as a consequence of an instance of behaviour makes that behaviour less likely to occur in that context in future. For example, in modern First-person Shooter Games, running aggressively into battle with machine guns firing and little regard to tactics is typically punished by the player’s rapid death.

Negative Punishment describes a situation where the removal or termination of a stimulus as a consequence of an instance of behaviour makes that behaviour less likely to occur. For example, in role-playing games, upon the player’s death they are deducted an amount of previously collected experience points.

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References

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	Author	volume	Date Value	title	type	journal	titleUrl	doi	note	year
2011 PracticalAppropriateEmpirically	Conor Linehan Ben Kirman Shaun Lawson Gail Chan			Practical, Appropriate, Empirically-validated Guidelines for Designing Educational Games				10.1145/1978942.1979229		2011