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

A correlation analysis was used to determine whether there was a relationship between prior use of either console or
computer games and responses to whether students experienced presence in the assessment modules. This analysis
used all 10 items specific to presence in the online survey correlated with responses to use of computer games and
console games. There were no significant correlations between prior use of console games and students responses to
being present in the SAVE Science modules. There were several significant relationships between prior use of
computer games and responses to a sense of ‘being there’ inside Scientopolis (r= .172, p = .001), interacted with
others in Scientopolis (r = .164, p = .002), made eye contact with others in Scientopolis (r = .172, p = .001), and
smiled in response to someone in Scientopolis (r=.206, p =- .000). Students who used computer games prior to a
SAVE Science module were more likely to indicate they acted as if they were present in the game environment.
Findings from the post-module discussion
The post discussion session was intended to assist the teachers’ attempts to connect the VE module back to
classroom activities and discussions for the students. In this post module discussion, the teacher asked a number of
questions about the students’ experience in the game module (see 3.0 above). Analysis of this discussion used the
schema presented by Slater and Usoh (1993), where the ‘student talk’ was analyzed for iterations of first (I, we),
second (you), or third (he, she, it, they) person references to experiences in the VE. The more first or second person
references made, the more likely the students identified with the VE, hence more likely ‘presence’ had been
achieved.
While several of the students discussed issues of logistics in moving around in the VE, especially the second class of
sixth graders who seemed to fixate on the logistics and game design features, overall students participating in the
post-module discussion indicated their actions were akin to “being there” in the VE with Farmer Brown and other
characters in both modules. Specifically, in response to the questions about what was the question/problem, and how
did they try to solve the problem, students used the words “I,” “you” and “we” often to describe their actions in the
module, along with phrases such as “he said” and “she said.” Two-thirds of the total comments included such
utterances, with the remaining one-third comments merely stating facts to answer direct questions by the teacher.
Students’ using these terms suggest they had identified with the VE enough to self identify with their avatar so they
were “talking” or “interacting” with the characters in the VE. Table 5 summarizes the types of “talk” from the
students.
Table 5. Summary of student talk by category
Category of statements made by students Number of instances
Factual (statements of facts relative to the module) 29
“I” statements 35
“We” statements 3
“You” statements 13
Total number of statements 80
Examples of students “being there” include:
Children who worked with module 1, Sheep Trouble, said things like (seventh graders, ages 12-13):
“I talked with the farmer and the townspeople.”
“I went to like all the sheep and I noticed that all like the new ones were really skinny but then like all the
older ones were like really fat.”
“You can measure it’s weight, height, if it’s a male or female.”
“You’re solving someone’s problem.”
“We used the tools to help us.”
Children who worked with the module 2, Weather Module, said things like (sixth graders, ages 11-12):
“I went to the lady with the newspapers and I talked to each other person…”
“I went to each town and used the sci tools and I recorded like the temperature and wind speed.”
“I like went to the newspaper lady. I wrote down like the information on the newspapers. I would write the
heading and write down the wind speed.”
“You had to figure out why Scientopolis was having a drought and you had to go to each different place and
figure it out.”
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