Thanks for the video.  What evidence are you collecting on student impact?

I am curious about the theoretical framing of your research — What makes you think that avatars can make a substantial contribution to students' interest and substantive engagement? 

Are students able to create a video game around any issue they choose? Is there a framework to model types of issues such as the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals?

What type of background information do students have coming into this workshop? 

What happens with the game once a student has created and identifies that it is complete?

Hi Angie,

Are students able to create a video game around any issue they choose? Is there a framework to model types of issues such as the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals?

Yes, students were led in a design thinking exercise in which they were asked to independently / silently write ideas on sticky notes about topics / themes / issues of their choosing. Once all notes were collected, the themes and ideas were clustered into similar topics and students chose to form teams around these ideas. The sustainable development goals were not explicitly noted in the exercise, but many related topics (from education equity to improving police-public relations) of consequence were ideated by students.

 

What type of background information do students have coming into this workshop? 

Students were assigned 4 readings / videos with accompanying written responses as homework related to the 4 topics addressed in discussion during the workshops: Stereotypes in CS/Engineering, Social Media and Social Connections, Online Privacy and Surveillance, and Monetization and Advertising. These reading ranged from academic papers, to pop science and tech policy articles, and the videos were YouTube clips of various representations of computer scientists (from everyday to extraordinary).

What happens with the game once a student has created and identifies that it is complete?

The students participated in an iterative design process. First they did paper prototypes of the games, then digitally implemented them, then had their peers give feedback on their games, then they finalized these creations by end of workshop. Once these were complete, we held a student presentation session in which the student teams presented to their peers and also reflected on their learnings and thematic ideas from their creations.

I can see why use of avatars can create a personal engagement for the learner. But in terms of best practices was not able to distill the principles for doing so. Could you shed some light into this part as to why avatar use can trigger excitement? Is this true of all personality types? Also some comments of going beyond was made such as HCI - but no other examples were provided. Any more? And Why only restrict to make what exists? (comment at towards the later part).

Hi Karthik,

The following fundamental concepts from the Exploring Computer Science (ECS) curriculum were incorporated into the workshop:

• (1) Human-Computer Interaction (especially connections among social, economic, and cultural contexts),
• (2) Problem Solving,
• (3) Web Design (including social responsibility), and
• (4) Programming.

Beyond these CS concepts, students engaged in homework/readings/writings and discussions to critically reflect on these topics of technology and society:

• 1. social connections, self expression, social media
  2. Stereotypes about computer scientists
  3. Privacy and surveillance online
  4. Advertising and monetization

Regarding your question on principles for using avatars in immersive learning: please find the below academic papers published by our research team which validate how avatars specifically trigger learning outcomes and engagements for students:

 

A few places where principles can be found are: Abstract vs. Likeness Avatars: Toward Evaluating the Impacts of Virtual Identities on STEM Learning [ paper], Dominic Kao, D. Fox Harrell, Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2015), Pacific Grove, CA, June 22 – 25, 2015.   Role Model Avatars: Exploring the Use of Role Model Avatars in Educational Games [ paper], Dominic Kao, D. Fox Harrell, Experimental AI in Games (EXAG 2015), Santa Cruz, CA, November 14 – 15, 2015   Exploring the Impact of Role Model Avatars on Game Experience in Educational Games [ paper], Dominic Kao, D. Fox Harrell, Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY 2015), London, England, Oct 5 – 7, 2015.   Toward Avatar Models to Enhance Performance and Engagement in Educational Games [ paper], Dominic Kao, D. Fox Harrell, Computational Intelligence in Games (CIG 2015), Tainan, Taiwan, August 31 – 2, 2015.   A good summary of principles is in: Researching and Developing the Impacts of Virtual Identity on Computational Learning Environments, Dominic Kao, Ph.D. Dissertation, 2018.   An excerpt (http://people.csail.mit.edu/dkao/pdf/dominic-thesis-excerpt.pdf):

"1. Using avatars that resemble users when they are doing well, and appear more

minimally or abstractly otherwise, is encouraged whenever possible. The research

in this dissertation, which defines these as successful likeness avatars, has shown

that they result in improved user performance and engagement [13]. For example,

applied to a mail client or a social network like Facebook, your icon would change

between a likeness of yourself or abstract depending on the positivity of your news

feed, or a message you received. The essence of this principle is selectively promoting

detachment and identification at key moments of the digital experience.

 

2. Using avatars that resemble role models is encouraged whenever possible. The

research in this dissertation has shown that role model avatars increase both the engagement

and performance of users [10–12, 17]. For example, playing as an admired

and positively influential scientist, politician, business person, artist, or doctor depending

on context. The criteria for an effective role model is perceived competence,

similarity, and success, therefore role models should represent successful figures with

demographic overlaps with users.

 

3. Use embellishment with trade-offs in mind. The research in this dissertation has

shown that embellishment increases engagement, but decreases performance and

self-efficacy [16]. For example, in an educational context, embellishment can be

reduced to promote performance and self-efficacy, while in an entertainment context

embellishment can be used more liberally.

 

4. Using positive or neutral encouragement is encouraged whenever possible. The

research in this dissertation has shown that positive (e.g., “Keep it up!”, “Don’t give

up!”, “You’re almost there”) and neutral (e.g., “You are doing standard work”, “You’re

doing average”, “You’re doing typically”) encouragement text increases engagement

[15]. For example, encouragement text can be spoken by a game character, or simply

appear at the bottom of the screen periodically.

 

5. Promoting avatar identification is encouraged whenever possible. The research in

this dissertation has shown that avatar identification promotes higher engagement,

self-efficacy, time spent, and even quality of created artifacts [17]. For example,

giving users the ability to customize their avatars is one simple way of increasing

 

identification."

 

Dissertation References:

[10] D. Kao and D. F. Harrell. Exploring the Impact of Role Model Avatars on Game

Experience in Educational Games. The ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-

Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY), 2015.

 

[11] D. Kao and D. F. Harrell. Exploring the Use of Role Model Avatars in Educational

Games. In Proceedings of the AIIDE Workshop on Experimental AI in Games, colocated

with Artificial Intelligence in Interactive Digital Entertainment, 2015.

 

[12] D. Kao and D. F. Harrell. Toward Understanding the Impacts of Role Model Avatars

on Engagement in Computer Science Learning. In The annual meeting of the American

Educational Research Association (AERA), 2016.

 

[13] D. Kao and D. F. Harrell. Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatars on Performance

and Engagement in Educational Games. In Games+Learning+Society (GLS 2016),

 

2016.

 

[14] D. Kao and D. F. Harrell. Exploring the Impact of Avatar Color on Game Experience

in Educational Games. Proceedings of the 34th Annual ACM Conference Extended

Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016), 2016.

 

[15] D. Kao and D. F. Harrell. Exploring the Effects of Encouragement in Educational

Games. Proceedings of the 34th Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on

Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016), 2016.

 

[16] D. Kao and D. F. Harrell. Toward Understanding the Impact of Visual Themes and

Embellishment on Performance, Engagement, and Self-Efficacy in Educational Games.

The annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), 2017.

 

[17] D. Kao and D. F. Harrell. The Effects of Badges and Avatar Identification on Play and Making in Educational Games. In CHI, 2018.

 

Thanks,

Danielle