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Gaming and Interactive Visualization for Education – Year 1 Progress

1 Abstract

In engineering disciplines, visualization can provide an essential mode to facilitate student understanding of important and abstract concepts. Learning through a medium that combines course materials with game characteristics can be a powerful tool for education. This approach is expected to improve student willingness to learn, which will in turn increase the interests of high school and undergraduate students towards engineering as a future career.

In this paper, three teaching modules based on the Gaming and Interactive Visualization for Education (GIVE) in three universities will be described in detail with enhanced game characteristics. Also, using the newly developed assessment tools, the evaluation data from the students who have experienced the GIVE system will be analyzed. More specifically, the three modules are designed and illustrated in this paper for the Flight Mechanics, Introduction to Electrical Engineering, and Design and Manufacturing.

The following game characteristics have been considered and implemented in the modules: progressively balanced goal, feedback, time sensitive scoring, adaptive scoring, meaningful visual presentation, emotional involvement, avoiding guess, constitutive rule, operational rule, background, challenges, and rewards.

Along with the course module development and implementation, the outcomes have been assessed using our evaluation system. The results have been analyzed and suggestions have been given for future work.

2 Introduction Student enrollment and graduation rates in U.S. engineering schools have been decreasing over the recent years. Freshman retention rates are also decreasing due to students not being adequately prepared in high school to study engineering. More specifically these retention rates are decreasing because students find difficulty in fundamental engineering concepts. Retention problems are higher with engineering students and the root cause could be a mismatch in learning and teaching style [1]. The results from this mismatch are causing students to be bored, to be inattentive, to have poor test grades, and discouragement with their courses [1]. All of these factors are causing the students to change to different majors within the engineering school or to entirely drop out of the engineering school.

The previous study about student’s learning styles in engineering majors concluded that engineering students are active, sequential, visual and sensing learners (Felder & Spurlin, 2005). A student’s learning style influences learning effectiveness and outcomes in a technology- assisted learning setting [2]. Possible game genres for activists, who prefer working as a team, being a group leader, and brainstorming to solve the problem, are multiplayer, interactive, action, and role-playing games [3]. The game approach in education has the potential to capture student interest and improve learning and teaching methods [4]. Also the number of educators using

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Remeikas, C., & Chowdhury, S., & Saengsuri, P., & Geng, X., & Xu, Y., & Ling, C., & Siddique, Z. (2010, June), Gaming And Interactive Visualization For Education – Year 1 Progress Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16634