Adding Worksheets to Improve Learning From a Computer-Based Narrative Game

• In Event: 33.026 - Learning and Engagement Through Gaming

Abstract

The present study examines adding a low-cost instructional feature intended to promote appropriate cognitive processing of the academic content while playing an educational narrative game. College students played a computer adventure game in which they guided a character through a bunker in search of lost artwork, building electromechanical devices along the way. Students who filled out worksheets about wet-cell batteries before and during the game outperformed students who played the game without worksheets on a written explanation of how wet-cell batteries work (d = 0.92), multiple-choice comprehension questions about wet-cell batteries (d = 0.67), and open-ended transfer problems about wet-cell batteries (d = 0.74). These findings point to the benefits of adding instructional features suggested by cognitive theories of learning.

Authors

• Celeste Pilegard, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Richard E. Mayer, University of California - Santa Barbara