Affiliation:
1. Department of Psychology, School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, European University of Madrid, Spain
2. School of Psychology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain
Abstract
For some years now, the scientific community has been studying how videogames foster acquisition of mental representations of the world around us. Research to date suggests that the efficiency of videogames as learning tools largely depends on the instructional design in which they are included. This article provides empirical evidence related to the use of the videogame Angry Birds and how it can modify students’ conceptions regarding object motion. We selected a sample of 110 16- to 17-year-old students in postcompulsory secondary school. Both quantitative and qualitative data are provided. Our results show that (a) merely playing Angry Birds does not produce significant learning, (b) learning occurs when Angry Birds is guided by epistemic goals. Students who used the videogame in this way were able to recognize more variables, provide better explanations, and understand more fully the relationship between angle and distance, (c) naïf belief regarding the effect of mass on falling objects (“mass-speed belief”) remained unchanged after using Angry Birds guided either pragmatic or epistemic goals, and (d) there was no significant difference between students who worked collaboratively in pairs and those who worked individually. In the light of these results, we discuss potential implications for the future.
Funder
The Spanish Ministry of Innovation, Science and Universities
Subject
Computer Science Applications,Education
Cited by
17 articles.
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