Assessing twenty‐first century skills through a teacher created video game for high school biology students

Abstract

As twenty‐first century skills become a greater focus in K‐12 education, an infusion of technology that meets the needs of today’s students is paramount. This study looks at the design and creation of a Multiplayer Educational Gaming Application (MEGA) for high school biology students. The quasi‐experimental, qualitative design assessed the twenty‐first century skills of digital age literacy, inventive thinking, high productivity, and effective communication techniques of the students exposed to a MEGA. Three factors, as they pertained to these skills, emerged from classroom observations. Interaction with the teacher, discussion with peers, and engagement/time‐on‐task while playing the MEGA suggested that students playing an educational video game exhibited all of the projected twenty‐first century skills while being engrossed in the embedded science content.

Keywords:

• biology
• genetics
• video games
• twenty‐first century skills

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the work of Ms Maya Schultz for her commitment to this project and her exemplary science teaching.