Learning to Deflect: Conceptual Change in Physics During Digital Game Play

Abstract

How does deep conceptual change occur when students play well-designed educational games? To answer this question, we present a case study in the form of a microgenetic analysis of a student’s processes of knowledge construction as he played a conceptually-integrated digital game (SURGE Next) designed to support learning about Newtonian mechanics. Grounded in the Knowledge In Pieces framework of conceptual change (A. diSessa, 1993), we analyze the processes through which the student, Jamal, developed an expert-like understanding of deflections, a phenomenon that has been previously identified as challenging to understand for novice physics learners. We also explore the key characteristics of SURGE Next supporting these conceptual change processes. Our analysis shows that Jamal’s learning involved iterative refinement of his conceptual understanding through distributed encoding (A. diSessa, 1993). That is, as Jamal advanced through the game levels in SURGE Next, he developed a progressively more distributed sense of mechanism (A. diSessa, 1993) and was able to identify and operationalize the roles of the direction and magnitude of an object’s initial (or previous) velocity in determining the velocity resulting from the application of a new impulse. We also discuss the methodological and design implications of our findings for future research on digital games for learning.

Notes

¹ Although the version of SURGE Next in the current study was a prototype, current versions of SURGE Next, other SURGE games, and information about the research projects are available at http://www.surgeuniverse.com.

² All game levels in this prototype progression focused on impulses with durations of 0.1 s.

³ A reviewer pointed out that one could also argue here that Jamal was simply attempting to win the level without reasoning explicitly about the outcome of placement of the rightward impulse. That is, Jamal’s actions here could also indicate that he was trying to get Surge to travel along the most direct path, hoping that Surge would somehow make it through the narrow pathway. Note, however, that Jamal’s explanation in Excerpt 4 provides evidence that his placement of the up impulse was in fact based on his prediction about the expected direction of Surge’s movement as a result of the impulse.

⁴ The laptop that recorded Jamal’s game play sequence for Level 3 unexpectedly lost power, and we were unable to save the recorded screen-captured video data. However, Jamal reenacted his game-play strategies during his interview and described in detail his previous failed attempts to solve the level. Based on his explanations as well as video recordings of his reconstructed game play during the interview, we have recreated screenshots of both of his attempts at solving this level.