Epistemological Beliefs in Games Versus School

• In Event: Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Teenage Guys, and Learning: Experiments in an After-School Game-Based Casual Learning Lab

Abstract

Objectives
Epistemological beliefs play a foundational role in the reception and outcomes of instructional interventions. Students’ beliefs about how the nature and durability of knowledge, how individuals learn, and the nature of ability have dramatic impact on what and how students learn (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Perry, 1968; Schommer, 1990, 1998). Students who hold naïve beliefs such as “success is unrelated to hard work” or “if you don’t learn it the first time, you never will” are more likely to give up easily on challenging tasks, for example, that students with more sophisticated understandings. Yet, we know little about the domain specific nature of such beliefs, how they vary across different context such as home, school, peer groups, and even play (cf. Schommer-Aikins, Duell, & Barker, 2003). The goal of this investigation was to examine whether or not there are differences in the epistemological beliefs that struggling students (but avid gamers) hold in the context of school versus games.
Methods
In this study, we gave 17 adolescents two survey measures of epistemological beliefs and compared their responses to examine what, if any, difference we might find based on the contexts of the questions. The first instrument, a survey designed and validated by Schommer (1990, 1998), was specific to the context of school. The second instrument was developed specifically for this study to be isomorphic to the first (item by item) but specific to the context of online games. Each survey was 63 items long and ordering was counterbalanced to mitigate any ordering effects. The second, games-based instrument was validated among 12 expert online gamers. Qualitative data consisting of chatlog files documenting in-game conversation among the same 17 participants across a period of eight months were used to conjunction with quantitative survey data. Chatlogs were coded for any statements made related to beliefs about the nature of knowledge or the nature of learning, naïve or sophisticated.
Findings
Paired sample t-tests comparison of survey responses across the two contexts revealed significant differences between participants beliefs in the context of school versus the context of games along two variables (both stated in the naïve view: “you cannot learn how to learn” (p= 0.001) and “success is unrelated to hard work” (p = 0.043). Our qualitative findings corroborate the quantitative measures. In sum, students who are disengaged in school but avid gamers hold more naïve views about knowledge and learning in the context of school than games, believing that you cannot learn how to learn and that success is not related to hard work in school settings but not in game settings. Implications of these findings will be discussed in our final presentation.

Authors

• V. Elizabeth Owen, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Shannon Linehan Harris, University of Wisconsin - Madison