Publications

This study examines the patterns of use and potential impact of individualized, reflective guidance in an educational Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE). A guidance system embedded within a MUVE-based scientific inquiry curriculum was implemented with a sample of middle school students in an exploratory study investigating (a) whether access to the guidance system was associated with improved learning, (b) whether students viewing more guidance messages saw greater improvement on content tests than those viewing less, and (c) whether there were any differences in guidance use among boys and girls. Initial experimental findings showed that basic access to individualized guidance used with a MUVE had no measurable impact on learning. However, post-hoc exploratory analyses indicated that increased use of the system among those with access to it was positively associated with content test score gains. In addition, differences were found in overall learning outcomes by gender and in patterns of guidance use by boys and girls, with girls outperforming boys across a spectrum of guidance system use. Based on these exploratory findings, the paper suggests design guidelines for the development of guidance systems embedded in MUVEs and outlines directions for further research.

This exploratory study investigated data-gathering behaviors exhibited by 100 seventh-grade students as they participated in a scientific inquiry-based curriculum project delivered by a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE). This research examined the relationship between students’ self-efficacy on entry into the authentic scientific activity and the longitudinal data-gathering behaviors they employed while engaged in that process. Three waves of student behavior data were gathered from a server-side database that recorded all student activity in the MUVE; these data were analyzed using individual growth modeling. The study found that self-efficacy correlated with the number of data-gathering behaviors in which students initially engaged, with high self-efficacy students engaging in more data gathering than students with low self-efficacy. Also, the impact of student self-efficacy on rate of change in data gathering behavior differed by gender. However, by the end of their time in the MUVE, initial student self-efficacy no longer correlated with data gathering behaviors. In addition, students’ level of self-efficacy did not affect how many different sources from which they chose to gather data. These results suggest that embedding science inquiry curricula in novel platforms like a MUVE might act as a catalyst for change in students’ self-efficacy and learning processes.

Although MUVEs are commonplace to gamers, the affordances of this interface are rarely utilized for substantive teaching and learning. In this article we discuss how MUVEs can be used to support the situated and distributed nature of cognition within an immersive, psychosocial context, using River City as an informative case study.

In this paper, we provide an overview of the design of an inquiry-based curriculum project, and then offer a comparative analysis of the outcomes of two methods for assessing student understanding of the inquiry process. Our findings indicate that the complex nature of scientific inquiry is better captured using an alternative method of assessment in addition to a more traditional multiple-choice test.

The purpose of this study was to develop a specific measure of self-efficacy in science inquiry and technology for middle school students. The initial survey of 61 items was piloted online first with a sample of 100 students. Revisions were made based on reliability and validity evidence, using Cronbach's alpha, Principal Component Analysis and correlational evidence. Two subscales of the survey were then implemented with over 2000 students participating in a technology in science research project. The final version of the survey consists of six independent sections on self-efficacy in science inquiry and technology (science inquiry, using the Internet to find information, general computer usage, synchronous chat use, videogaming and computer gaming).

This article offers insights into how the design of innovations can enhance their “scalability”: the ability to adapt an innovation to effective usage in a wide variety of contexts, including settings where major conditions for success are absent or attenuated. We are implementing the River City MUVE curriculum, a technology-based innovation designed to enhance engagement and learning in middle school science, in a range of educational contexts. Based on our studies of these scaling up activities, we offer examples of design strategies for scalability and describe our plan to develop a “scalability index.”

In this paper, we provide an overview of the design of an NSF-funded Multi-User Virtual Environment science curriculum project focusing on the creation of virtual experimentation methods and tools that go beyond a ‘canned lab' approach to concentrate on inquiry, using novel pedagogies to help low-performing students master complex skills. We present findings from students and teachers on the effectiveness of these methods, tools, and virtual contexts in creating an experimental learning environment authentic to what scientists experience in their work.

This National Science Foundation funded study is investigating novel pedagogies for helping teachers infuse inquiry into a standards-based science curriculum. Using a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) as a pedagogical vehicle, teams of middle school students are asked to collaboratively solve a simulated 19th century city's problems with illness, through interaction with each others' “avatars”, digital artifacts, tacit clues, and computer-based “agents” acting as mentors and colleagues in a virtual community of practice. This paper describes the results from the three implementations in 2004 with approximately 2000 students from geographical diverse urban areas. Results indicate that students do conduct inquiry and are motivated by that process. However, results from assessments vary depending on assessment strategy employed.

One-size-fits-all educational innovations do not work because they ignore contextual factors that determine an intervention’s efficacy in a particular local situation. Identifying variables within the intervention’s setting that represent important conditions for success and summarizing the extent to which the impact of the intervention is attenuated by variation in them can provide prospective adopters of the innovation a better sense of what level of effectiveness they are likely to enjoy in their own particular circumstances. This study presents a research framework on how to conduct such an analysis and how to design educational innovations for scalability through enhancing their adaptability for effective usage in a wide variety of settings. The River City MUVE, a technology-based curriculum designed to enhance engagement and learning in middle school science, is presented as a case study.

River City is an educational application of multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs). It uses simulation to immerse students in a participatory virtual reality involving interactive museum exhibits in a historical setting. More than 3,000 grade 5-12 students have experienced River City so far, and preliminary findings reveal that students using the application engaged in scientific inquiry and developed 21st-century skills in virtual communication and expression. The use of River City by sixth-grade students in 2004 at Seeds University Elementary School, Los Angeles (the laboratory school for the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies) is provided.