Bradley J. Morris

Gaming science: the “Gamification” of scientific thinking

Science is critically important for advancing economics, health, and social well-being in the twenty-first century. A scientifically literate workforce is one that is well-suited to meet the challenges of an information economy. However, scientific thinking skills do not routinely develop and must be scaffolded via educational and cultural tools. In this paper we outline a rationale for why we believe that video games have the potential to be exploited for gain in science education. The premise we entertain is that several classes of video games can be viewed as a type of cultural tool that is capable of supporting three key elements of scientific literacy: content knowledge, process skills, and understanding the nature of science. We argue that there are three classes of mechanisms through which video games can support scientific thinking. First, there are a number of motivational scaffolds, such as feedback, rewards, and flow states that engage students relative to traditional cultural learning tools. Second, there are a number of cognitive scaffolds, such as simulations and embedded reasoning skills that compensate for the limitations of the individual cognitive system. Third, fully developed scientific thinking requires metacognition, and video games provide metacognitive scaffolding in the form of constrained learning and identity adoption. We conclude by outlining a series of recommendations for integrating games and game elements in science education and provide suggestions for evaluating their effectiveness.

Investigating the Development of Data Evaluation: The Role of Data Characteristics

A crucial skill in scientific and everyday reasoning is the ability to interpret data. The present study examined how data features influence data interpretation. In Experiment 1, one hundred and thirty-three 9-year-olds, 12-year-olds, and college students (mean age = 20 years) were shown a series of data sets that varied in the number of observations and the amount of variance between and within observations. Only limited context for the data was provided. In Experiment 2, similar data sets were presented to 101 participants from the same age groups incrementally rather than simultaneously. The results demonstrated that data characteristics affect how children interpret observations, with significant age-related increases in detecting multiple data characteristics, in using them in combination, and in explicit verbal descriptions of data interpretations.

The Emergence of Scientific Reasoning

Scientific reasoning encompasses the reasoning and problem-solving skills involved in generating, testing and revising hypotheses or theories, and in the case of fully developed skills, reflecting on the process of knowledge acquisition and knowledge change that results from such inquiry activities. Science, as a cultural institution, represents a “hallmark intellectual achievement of the human species” and these achievements are driven by both individual reasoning and collaborative cognition (Feist, 2006, p. ix).

Logically Speaking: Evidence for Item-Based Acquisition of the Connectives AND & OR

Why is it that young children use connectives correctly in conversation, yet frequently err when asked to use the same connectives in formal reasoning? One possibility is that connective acquisition is item-based in which usage rules are induced from natural language input. This possibility was evaluated by examining the correspondence between the structure of childrens natural language environment and their own productions. AND and OR use was coded within 100,626 turns between parents and children between 2.0 and 5.0 for (a) frequency, (b) meanings, (c) syntactic frames, and (d) formal or informal use. The results are consistent with item-based learning in that childrens initial productions were very similar to those of adults on each dimension investigated. AND was produced significantly more frequently than OR, meaning and syntactic frame use were highly consistent across ages and producers, and use was nearly always informal.

A critical eye: praise directed toward traits increases children's eye fixations on errors and decreases motivation.

Although there is evidence that praise of different types (i.e., generic vs. nongeneric) influences motivation, it is unclear how this occurs. Generic praise (e.g., “You are smart”) conveys that a child possesses a trait responsible for their performance, whereas nongeneric praise (e.g., “You worked hard”) conveys that performance is effort-based. Because praise conveys the basis for success, praise may change the interpretation and salience of errors. Specifically, generic praise may highlight the threatening nature of error (i.e., the child does not possess this trait). Because attention is drawn to threats in the environment, we expected generic praise to increase attention to error. We used eyetracking to measure implicit responses to errors (i.e., visual attention: fixation counts and durations) in order to determine the relation between visual attention and verbal reports of motivation (persistence and self-evaluations) in 30 four- to seven-year-old children. Children first saw pictures attributed to them, for which they received either generic or nongeneric praise. The children then saw pictures attributed to them that contained errors—that is, missing features. As a pretest and posttest, the children saw pictures that were “drawn by other children,” half of which contained errors. The results indicated that children who received generic praise (“you are a good drawer”) produced more and longer fixations on errors, both their “own” and on “other children’s,” than did children who received nongeneric praise (“you did a good job drawing”). More fixations on errors were related to lower persistence and lower self-evaluations. These results suggest that generic praise increases attention to errors because error threatens the possession of a positive trait.

Comparing Data Sets: Implicit Summaries of the Statistical Properties of Number Sets

Comparing datasets, that is, sets of numbers in context, is a critical skill in higher order cognition. Although much is known about how people compare single numbers, little is known about how number sets are represented and compared. We investigated how subjects compared datasets that varied in their statistical properties, including ratio of means, coefficient of variation, and number of observations, by measuring eye fixations, accuracy, and confidence when assessing differences between number sets. Results indicated that participants implicitly create and compare approximate summary values that include information about mean and variance, with no evidence of explicit calculation. Accuracy and confidence increased, while the number of fixations decreased as sets became more distinct (i.e., as mean ratios increase and variance decreases), demonstrating that the statistical properties of datasets were highly related to comparisons. The discussion includes a model proposing how reasoners summarize and compare datasets within the architecture for approximate number representation.

Eye-Tracking Technology Applications in Educational Research

Little is known about micro-processes by which sensorimotor interaction gives rise to conceptual development. Per embodiment theory, these micro-processes are mediated by dynamical attentional structures. Accordingly this study investigated eye-gaze behaviors during engagement in solving tablet-based bimanual manipulation tasks designed to foster proportional reasoning. Seventy-six elementaryand vocational-school students (9-15 yo) participated in individual task-based clinical interviews. Data gathered included action-logging, eye-tracking, and videography. Analyses revealed the emergence of stable eye-path gaze patterns contemporaneous with first enactments of effective manipulation and prior to verbal articulations of manipulation strategies. Characteristic gaze patterns included consistent or recurring attention to screen locations that bore non-salient stimuli or no stimuli at all yet bore invariant geometric relations to dynamical salient features. Arguably, this research validates empirically hypothetical constructs from constructivism, particularly reflective abstraction. Eye-Tracking the Emergence of Attentional Anchors in a Mathematics Learning Tablet Activity Shakila Shayan Utrecht University, The Netherlands Dor Abrahamson University of California – Berkeley, USA Arthur Bakker Utrecht University, The Netherlands Carolien A. C. G. Duijzer Utrecht University, The Netherlands

High fives motivate: the effects of gestural and ambiguous verbal praise on motivation

The type of praise children receive influences whether children choose to persist after failure. One mechanism through which praise affects motivation is through the causal attributions inferred from language. For example, telling a child “You got an A on the test because you’re smart,” provides an explicit link between possessing a trait and an outcome, specifically that intelligence causes success. Nonetheless, most praise given to children is ambiguous, or lacks explicit attributions (e.g., “yea” or a thumbs up). To investigate the effects of ambiguous praise on motivation, we randomly assigned 95 5–6-year-old children to a praise condition (verbal trait; verbal effort; verbal ambiguous; or gestural) and measured motivation using task persistence, self-evaluations, and eye fixations on errors. Ambiguous praise, similar to verbal effort praise, produced higher persistence and self-evaluations, and fewer fixations on error after failure compared to verbal trait praise. Interestingly, gestures produced the highest self-evaluations. Thus, praise without explicit attributions motivated as well or better than praise explicitly focused on effort, which may suggest that children interpret ambiguous praise in the most beneficial manner.

Blogging mathematics

Explanations with others help students learn yet little is known about how technology can support and augment these benefits. This paper describes an experiment that compared the effects of mathematical discourse (i.e., explaining, justifying, and arguing) with peers either face-to-face or using technology (a blog) on fraction learning. We hypothesized that blogs may provide benefits beyond face-to-face collaborations because a record of explanations is accessible for subsequent reflection, which allows students to revisit and revise their explanations. A quasi-experimental design with 134 fifth grade students (ages 911) was used to investigate the change in conceptual and procedural knowledge of fractions measured as change from pretest to posttest and delayed posttest. The results indicated that students in the blog condition showed the largest gains in conceptual knowledge from pretest to posttest and at delayed posttest. There was no significant difference between groups on procedural knowledge. The results suggest that the use of blogs may provide unique supports for learning because students are provided opportunities to explain, justify, and argue their thinking, as well as critique the reasoning of others through an interactive learning environment that affords the opportunity to clarify understandings and misconceptions that may not otherwise exist in a traditional face-to-face learning environment. Blog-based explanations improved learning more than face-to-face explanations.Explanations improved conceptual but not procedural fraction understanding.The unique affordances of blogs improved collaborative learning with explanations.

Making numbers out of magnitudes

We argue that number principles may be learnable instead of innate, by suggesting that children acquire probabilistically true number concepts rather than algorithms. We also suggest that non-propositional representational formats (e.g., mental models) may implicitly provide information that supports the induction of numerical principles. Given probabilistically true number concepts, the problem of the acquisition of mathematical principles is eliminated.