Do you remember the experiment I was doing with my 3 year old daughter? I was teaching her to read the names of colors via computer game and the names of numbers via chalk and chalkboard.
Last night I did my post test. I compared the results of the color words vs. the number words. The results indicated ....drum roll please...no significant difference! On the color test (which was the computer one), she got 8\10 and on the 
number test (chalk board) she got 7\10. What does this mean? Well, I think it means that she learned equally well using both methods. Prior to my experiment she didn't know any of the words. I used both methods of teaching for equal time intervals, a total of 40 mins each. As I stated in a previous post I think the chalk board method had some advantages, and that was that I could provide feedback such as prompting her to sound the words out. There are computer games that are capable of that as well, but the one I picked was very basic, match the words to the colors they spell.
number test (chalk board) she got 7\10. What does this mean? Well, I think it means that she learned equally well using both methods. Prior to my experiment she didn't know any of the words. I used both methods of teaching for equal time intervals, a total of 40 mins each. As I stated in a previous post I think the chalk board method had some advantages, and that was that I could provide feedback such as prompting her to sound the words out. There are computer games that are capable of that as well, but the one I picked was very basic, match the words to the colors they spell. Although the results sound unsatisfying on the contrary indeed. The result of this experiment proved to me that my daughter did in fact learn something from the computer game she was playing. She didn’t just learn it either, she learned is as well as she learned a very similar thing from me. Now I’m not going to interpret this as she doesn’t need me to teach her things, rather I’m going to interpret this as playing computer games can in fact educate. She enjoys playing them, and now I know they are not a waste of time. Of course I will still limit the amount of time she spends on the computer...yadda yadda yadda.
Unfortunately there does not seem to be a large amount of actual research done in this area. I have encounted only limited articles discussing their success. Of course all the websites promoting their games make an educational claim, but we can't necessarily take that at much more than face value. What seems to be lacking is proven results done in experimental form. Much like the experiment I did with my daughter, but on a much larger scale. Maybe this should be the basis for my thesis or project.
Interesting!! I was curious to see what the results would be as I used a lot of computer games (teaching games) with my students in the past.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about the literature, there is not a whole lot out there...yet :) Hopefully people will do more research on the benefits of gaming. I know I have had great success with my students.
Kim, How cool, and I think you have hit the nail on the head with your analysis. It isn't disappointing that there was NSD; rather, it is quite encouraging and exciting that there was NSD. And what a neat way to add some original content to your blog -- I hope loads of people see this post!
ReplyDeleteAnd then you took the words right out of my mouth -- there's a thesis poking it's gopher-head out of the hole!
Now, I'm going to mention a couple of difficulties in doing larger scale research like this, but don't take this as if I'm discouraging you from doing it. On the contrary, there are wonderful things to learn by designing this kind of research, and I hope you'll take it on.
There's a reason why more of this kind of media comparison -- pre-test, treatment, post-test research isn't done more often (probably a few reasons, actually). First of all, you will find out that it is really hard to design and carry out reliable experimental studies that are comparative. The learning is quite contextual, and setting up the necessary controls, constructing significant enough treatments of sufficient size, defining a population and sampling carefully, and also creating validated instrumentation to measure effects is quite challenging and complex.
Also, media comparison studies fell out of favour due to research design issues and the consistent NSD effect. Richard Clark famously argued that we have come to the conclusion that it is the instructional design and approaches we should be measuring -- not the technologies themselves -- as that is where the important differences exist for learning. When researchers concentrated on the mediums of delivery, they found -- as did you -- that learners could find a way to learn stuff no matter what medium they used, if the learning materials were well designed.
So it's complex, and it would be important to keep your focus on the designs of the learning materials, and then there would be a great deal of fun to be had in doing research along these lines.