Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p> Although fractions knowledge is essential for future success in mathematics, data show that most U.S. students fail to become proficient in fractions. With the advent of mobile technologies such as iPad tablets, new kinds of interactions with subject matter have become possible that have potential for improving learning. The present study used an experimental repeated measures crossover design to investigate whether the iPad fractions game Motion Math would improve fourth graders’ fractions knowledge and attitudes. In results from 122 participants, students’ fractions test scores improved an average of over 15% after playing Motion Math for 20 min daily over a 5-day period, representing a significant increase compared to a control group. In addition, children’s self-efficacy for fractions, as well as their liking of fractions, each improved an average of 10%, representing a statistically significant increase compared to a control group. Implications for the design and study of interactive games are discussed. </jats:p>

<jats:p> We are interested in how digital games can be designed for learning in the affective domain. Our studies of how emotions are embedded in games and how games sustain affective learning involve observing gameplay and identifying recurring elements that we identify as design patterns. Design patterns help us think about the role of affect in play, what affect in games looks like, and the different ways affective learning might be achieved in educational and serious games. In this article, we describe and discuss several patterns related to understanding emotions, affective representation, and socioemotional interactions, which are essential components of affective learning. These patterns provide a language to conceptualize how affective learning might be designed into future game projects. To conclude, we discuss the development of a taxonomy of affective patterns to sustain socioemotional learning. We thus hope to stimulate the development of more human-oriented educational games in this domain. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Serious games are often assigned to learners and not played voluntarily. A problem for educators is how to motivate learners in these assigned conditions. This study examines the influence of regulatory fit experience on player motivations and time spent on learning aspects of the game. Regulatory fit theory posits that when instructions match the learners’ promotion or prevention motivational systems, learners will experience “regulatory fit,” which will make them “feel right” about the current instructions and tasks. Our findings support the regulatory fit theory. When learners experienced regulatory fit, they played the game for 26% longer time than learners who did not experience regulatory fit. Learners in regulatory fit conditions also displayed more learning-related behaviors such as spending more time on learning feedback both during gameplay and between gameplay sessions. Positive feedback seems to motivate promotion-oriented learners; however, negative feedback did not demotivate prevention-oriented learners as theory predicted. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Our article examines a flexible approach to designing general game components inspired by traditional game components. Our goal is to design digital game systems that offer the players greater choice in dictating the rules, pacing, and sociability of a game session—we describe this as supporting socially negotiated gameplay. We introduce five design principles of flexibility: dispensability, live tweakability, tangibility, mobility, and value. Our work demonstrates this approach with the design of an augmented game system composed of playing cards instrumented with near field communication chips and a mobile device with three digital game components: a Card Viewer, a Score Board, and a Turn Keeper. We report on initial user sessions and articulate two emerging challenges for supporting socially negotiated play: (a) solving interaction costs to enable greater flexibility and (b) managing user expectations for the automatic part of a manual–automatic system. </jats:p>

<jats:p> The greatest threat to the success of serious games is inattention to the quality of the player experience. The gamification fad endorses a canard that games can be strip-mined for “useful” bits that, when tacked onto conventional applications, should be expected to have the same effects as true games. This lie exposes a disdain for play and an incapacity to perceive games themselves as useful and worthwhile endeavors. Creating games that achieve great things in the real world while remaining enjoyable experiences instead requires working with the prodigious strengths inherent to the medium. This presentation explores how the native procedurality of video games makes them a potentially ideal way to persuade people to adopt a particular point of view. It will cover the history and modern theory of persuasive games, offer guidelines for crafting arguments based in gameplay, and present a case study of the design of a persuasive game. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Over the last several decades, video games have become one of America’s most popular pastimes. Sadly, little academic work has studied media coverage of video games during this transformation. Williams’ analysis of news magazines’ coverage from 1970 to 2000 offers the only research into this topic. However, the video game industry has significantly changed since 2000. To remedy this gap, I examine video game coverage in The New York Times over the last three decades. During this period, evaluative articles primarily treat video games as a major threat. However, a small subset of articles rejects this portrayal. During the 1980s and 1990s, this alternative account identifies video games’ functional benefits. This narrative changes in the 2000s to celebrating video games’ artistic merits. My work contributes to the social construction of technology literature in general by documenting how civil society’s cultural understanding of children and entertainment influence the specific narratives The New York Times attaches to video games. </jats:p>

<jats:p> The objective of this article is to highlight the relevance ideological debate plays in the study of popular culture texts and in particular in that of video games. Every text is a reflection of the ideological forces (cultural, economic, social, individual, etc.) generating it. Thus, ideology is essentially an omnipresent entity, which knows no boundaries of class, race, or cultural background. As a matter of fact, games are capable of reflecting ideological stances in a variety of ways. Throughout the first part of this article, we will revisit ideology from a Marxist perspective, that is, as a form of deception, manipulation, and enslavement and subsequently by moving away from such a deterministic/fatalistic approach and discussing it in the light of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. By providing practical examples, this article will attempt to show how both ideological and hegemonic processes operate in the video game medium. </jats:p>

<jats:p> In the realm of documentary, educational, and serious games, it is common to hear the implication that games about real-world (as opposed to fantastic) subjects engage players in real scenarios, environments, or subjectivities. But what does it mean to be a participant, specifically an enactor, within a designed experience such as a video game? Drawing from performance and documentary theory, this research examines the function of enactment in video game experiences, particularly in documentary video games. It presents an analysis of Escape from Woomera, which enables an experience-centered performative inquiry within a recreated environment. I will argue such experiences are best understood as constituting a documentary third space, in which a past experience, read through the body, is vivified. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article presents a critical view of the concept of rules in game studies on the basis of a case study of role-playing across media. Role-playing in its traditional form is a complex activity including a game system and a number of communicative conventions where one player takes the role of the game manager in order to implement the rules and provide a world for the other players. In online role-playing games, a programmed system simulates the rule system as well as part of the game manager’s tasks, while the rest of the activity is up to the players to define. Some aspects may translate more or less unproblematically across media, others are transformed by the introduction of the programmed system. This reveals some important perspectives on the sort of rules that can be simulated in a programmed system and what this means to the concept of rules in game studies. </jats:p>