Christine M. Bachen

Assessing the role of gender in college students’ evaluations of faculty

This study investigates whether students’ assessments of male and female professors are influenced by traditional gender schema. Nearly 500 university students were surveyed about their perceptions of male and female faculty. Analysis of five factors reflecting teaching characteristics consistent with both stereotypically masculine and feminine traits revealed a significant interaction between student gender and professor gender. Female students rated female faculty especially high across five teaching dimensions and male faculty comparatively lower, while male students did not evaluate male and female professors as significantly different. Qualitative analysis reveals, however, that assessments of faculty were further influenced by the strength of students’ gender schema, and that gender schema may also lead to differential preference for particular teaching styles.

Imagining romance: Young people's cultural models of romance and love

This article examines the underlying cognitive structures, specifically visual and event schemata, and the meanings associated with these structures that form childrens cultural models, or what they think of as typical and ideal in romance. The study shows that long before it translates into actual behavior, childrens romantic imagination is shaped by the content and forms that romance assumes in the postmodern nexus of media and the market. Through 183 interviews with children ages 8 to 17, we explore how childrens imagined vision of romance moves from one molded by the media, associating romance with luxury and leisure consumption, to one characterized by a tension between what media have promised them and their growning understanding of the complexities of love.

Games for Civic Learning: A Conceptual Framework and Agenda for Research and Design

Scholars, educators, and media designers are increasingly interested in whether and how digital games might contribute to civic learning. However, there are three main barriers to advancing understanding of games’ potential for civic education: the current practices of formal schooling, a dearth of evidence about what kinds of games best inspire learning about public life, and divergent paradigms of civic engagement. In response, this article develops a conceptual framework for how games might foster civic learning of many kinds. The authors hypothesize that the most effective games for civic learning will be those that best integrate game play and content, that help players make connections between their individual actions and larger social structures, and that link ethical and expedient reasoning. This framework suggests an agenda for game design and research that could illuminate whether and how games can be most fruitfully incorporated into training and education for democratic citizenship and civic leadership.

Simulating REAL LIVES: Promoting Global Empathy and Interest in Learning Through Simulation Games

In response to an increasingly interdependent world, educators are demonstrating a growing interest in educating for global citizenship. Many definitions of the “good global citizen” value empathy as an especially important disposition for understanding others across national borders and cultural divides. Yet it may be difficult for people to achieve empathy with others who are perceived as psychologically and geographically distant. Can computerized simulation games help foster global empathy and interest in global civic learning? This quasiexperimental classroom study of 301 Northern California high school students in three schools examined the effects of playing REAL LIVES, a simulation game that allows players to inhabit the lives of individuals around the world. Compared with a control group, students who played the simulation game as part of their curriculum expressed more global empathy and greater interest in learning about other countries. Identification with REAL LIVES characters was also positively related to global empathy. These findings support claims that computerized simulations can cultivate important dispositions for global learning and citizenship.

Flow and cooperative learning in civic game play

Flow theory offers an individualistic explanation of media enjoyment, while cooperative learning theory posits a social explanation for enhanced learning in groups. This classroom-based experimental study examines whether game players can experience both conditions and the influence of each on several types of civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. We find that high quality cooperative learning contributed to acquiring civic knowledge and skills. In contrast, flow was more influential for developing dispositions to empathy and interest in learning more about the game topics. Thus, we conclude that players can experience flow while engaged in cooperative learning, but that these two conditions may support different kinds of civic learning.

How do presence, flow, and character identification affect players’ empathy and interest in learning from a serious computer game?

This study develops and tests an integrated model of how three psychological variablespresence, flow, and character identificationcontribute to interest in learning and empathy with people from other cultures through a simulation game. U.S. college students played one of two roles (an American journalist or Haitian survivor) in the game that dealt with the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Presence was a powerful predictor of flow, character identification, and empathy felt during the games. Furthermore, empathy experienced by game play significantly predicted interest in learning more about the game topics. Flow and identification made secondary contributions to learning outcomes, with flow mediating the effect of presence on males empathy and identification contributing to females interest in learning. While the proposed model was generally successful at predicting outcomes, it did a better job of accounting for the experience of participants who played a role rooted in their own culture (the journalist) than in a different culture (the survivor), and for female than male players. Our results suggest that serious game designers should prioritize inducing empathy and immersive presence in players, giving secondary attention to designing for flow and character identification. Display Omitted We tested a model of the psychology of computer game play and learning outcomes.Immersive presence predicted flow, character identification, and in-game empathy.In-game empathy predicted interest in learning more about the game topics.Flow and identification made secondary contributions to learning outcomes.Learning games should focus on empathy and presence, then flow and identification.

Portrayals of Information and Communication Technology on World Wide Web Sites for Girls

This study reports a content analysis of 35 World Wide Web sites that included in their mission the goal of engaging girls with information and communication technology (ICT). It finds that sites emphasize cultural and economic uses of ICT, doing little to foster civic applications that could empower girls as citizens of the information age. The study also finds that sites foster a narrow range of ICT proficiencies, focusing mostly on areas such as communication, in which girls have already achieved parity with boys. An examination of the role models portrayed in ICT occupations indicates that the sites show females mainly in elite technology jobs, reversing stereotypical mass media depictions of females in low-status roles in relation to ICT. Employing an original index of ICT knowledge and skills, the study finds that the sites that scored highest both on fostering comprehensive knowledge and skills as well as featuring civic content were general interest Web communities. Ownership (for-profit or not-for-profit) of sites was less important than editorial control: Sites that offered girls a place to contribute their own content were more likely to offer civic material and a broader range of ICT knowledge and skills. We conclude with recommendations for Web site designers to rethink their design strategies and their rationales for closing the gender gap in computing.

Social flow and learning in digital games: A conceptual model and research agenda

Flow theory has had a major influence on game scholars’ and designers’ understanding of the psychology of enjoyment of digital games and how that enjoyment might contribute to learning. However, a fuller understanding of how flow is experienced in social play is needed because digital games are increasingly played in groups, because theories of game-based education increasingly prioritize cooperative learning methods and goals, and because there has been surprisingly little study of whether flow contributes to learning. This chapter synthesizes the relevant literature to conceptualize how games might foster flow and cooperative learning through social play. It also proposes a theoretical model and lays out a research agenda that can help guide future studies of social gameflow and learning, and inform the design of educational games and learning contexts.

Civic Play and Civic Gaps: Can Life Simulation Games Advance Educational Equity?

ABSTRACT Digital games and simulations (DG&S) could help mitigate inequities in civic education and participation, which are found in many contemporary democracies. Yet incorporating DG&S into the curriculum may reinforce or introduce inequities for students who are less engaged by game-based learning. A quasi-experimental study of 301 U.S. high school students in social studies classes examined whether prior academic performance, civic engagement, civic game play experience and gender affected how (and which) students benefit from playing a life simulation game. Dependent variables included several civic dispositions: justice-oriented citizenship norms and interest in politics, news, and global issues. The simulation game especially enhanced political interest among lower performing students and those with fewer informational resources. Although prior civic activity and civic gaming experience provided advantages for some outcomes, for the most part, gender did not. We conclude that life simulation games have the potential to advance both equity and excellence in civic education, engaging males and females, and advantaged and disadvantaged students, and we theorize about the reasons why.