January 2012 Volume 15 Number 1 - Educational Technology ...

Teachers underwent eight hours of professional development that covered the science topics underlying the modules,
the motivation for SAVE Science, plus the logistics and details of implementation. Students were asked to complete
a pre-survey that asked them about prior experience with computer and console games, and then completed an
introductory module to help them become familiar with the game interface. Following that, teachers implemented
one of the two assessment modules, Sheep Trouble (seventh grade class) or Weather Trouble (sixth grade class), with
their students. A post-module survey that specifically asked students about their experiences/perceptions of
“presence” while completing the module (items were based on Lombard & Ditton, 1997) completed the
implementation. Students were asked to participate in a post-module discussion with the teacher that was based on
four questions:
What was the problem you were asked to solve?
How did you go about solving the problem?
How was this like being a scientist?
How was this like or different from taking a test?
These questions were important because the first two indicate what the student thought they were doing in the
module, the third indicates what the students believe scientists do, and the fourth indicates how the students
interpreted the module as a test or not. In this paper we concentrate on responses to the first two questions. All
conversations were recorded and transcribed for accuracy. Content analysis of the transcripts was completed looking
for evidence of “being there” language, including the use of the first-person ‘I,’ ‘me,’ or ‘we,’ along with other
language that demonstrated the students were engaged, immersed, and interactive in the VE (e.g., ‘he said’ or ‘she
said’).
Site and Sample
In spring 2010, the SAVE Science project was implemented in seven schools, three in a large urban school district,
and four suburban/rural schools outside the urban school district, all in the United States. Middle school science
teachers were invited to participate, and ultimately, seven teachers implemented at least one module with their
students. Since this was an assessment, teachers implemented each module on unique timeframes depending on when
they taught the topics assessed in the modules. The four teachers in the suburban/rural schools were asked to audio
record their post-module discussion. Among these four, only two completed the assignment on time and are the focus
of this paper.
From these two teachers, a total of 154 students participated (66 male, 88 female). One teacher included five classes
of students in her seventh grade science classroom (46 male, 56 female) after they completed the first module (Sheep
Trouble), and the other teacher included two sixth grade classes (20 males, 32 females) after they completed the
second module (Weather).
Results
Findings from the pre and post module surveys
We asked students about their prior experience with either computer or console games to give a sense of their prior
gaming experience in case this factor impacts their sense of presence in a game as suggested by Lombard and Ditton
(1997). From the questions on gaming habits in the pre-module survey, students reported varying levels of prior
experience with either computer or console games. Table 2 presents the results related to use of computer games.
The results are presented in terms of the numbers and percentage of males or females, by grade level, responding to
the question.
The data in Table 2 were analyzed by a two-way ANOVA (gender by grade). This produced a significant main effect
for grade (F(1,148) = 10.48, p = .001, hp 2 = .020), a non-significant main effect for gender (F(1,148) = 10.48, p = .097),
and a marginally significant interaction (F(1,148) = 4.02, p = .047, hp 2 = .026). As shown in Table 2, the seventh grade
students demonstrate a greater prior use of computer games compared to the sixth graders. Follow-up analyses for
the interaction indicated that female students had a significantly higher mean when compared to the male students at
the sixth grade (t = 2.28, p = .029), but that the two groups did not differ in the seventh grade.
58