Game Theory and
Our Learning Games Research

Game creation requires low order and high order thinking skills, is inherently constructionist, (Warren, Stein, Dondlinger and Barab, 2009) and has a set of accesible development tools that make sophisticated game making for students possible. "Designing games involves higher cognitive skills and stronger social relationships than playing them. A player can enjoy games without having the experience of designing games; however, a game designer has an opportunity to create a unique world - one that possesses its own game language and grammatical rules. Designing games is a complicated task". (Hsu, 2009, p.1316).

This Gamification Initiative is a project intended to review and catalogue, as well as create and develop, serious games that further the mission and the ethical leadership themes of the School of Business and Technology, and will build on the newly updated Management Ethics course. The initiative's games goals are to teach and explore the pressing issues of our times through new models for digital education, and created around content suggested collaboratively by CSS students, faculty, community leaders, and the Sandbulte Center for Ethical Leadership. All parts of the development process and creative thinking will be shared online with the various Scholastica schools and departments, as a way to inspire collaboration and involve the greater community in the game development process.

Thus, our research addresses the following questions:

• How can students learn significant leadership and ethics concepts and skills from computer games?
  
• What are the characteristics of games, and of game-playing contexts, that support ethics and leadership learning?
  

References:
Hsu, H.Y. & Wang, S. (2009). Using gaming literacies to cultivate new literacies. In T. Bastiaens et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2009 (pp. 1314-1319). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Warren, S. J., Stein, R. A., Dondlinger, M. J., Barab, S. A. (2009). A look inside a muve design process: blending instructional design and game principles to target writing skills. J. Ecuational Computing Research, 40(3), 295-321. doi:10.2190/EC.40.3.c.

If you want to learn more about games and gamification, here are some resources you may find useful.

Hays, R. T. (2005). The effectiveness of instructional games: A literature review and
discussion. Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (No 2005-004).

Ke, F. (2009). A qualitative meta-analysis of computer games as learning tools. In R. E. Ferdig (Ed.),Effective Electronic Gaming in Education (Vol. 1, pp. 1-32). Hershey: Information Science Reference.

Schifter, C. C. (2013). Games in learning, design, and motivation. In M. Murphy, S. Redding, &. Twyman (Eds.), Handbook on innovations in learning (pp. 149–164). Philadelphia, PA: Center on Innovations in Learning, Temple University; Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.centeril.org/

Sitzmann, T. (2011). A meta-analytic examination of the instructional effectiveness of computer-based simulation games. Personnel Psychology, 64(2), 489-528.

Wouters, P., van Nimwegen, C., van Oostendorp, H., & van der Spek, E. D. (2013, February
4). A Meta-Analysis of the Cognitive and Motivational Effects of Serious Games. Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0031311.