Game/Simulation use in education

Scenario-based learning is a technique intended to engage and motivate the learner by immersing them into authentic situational contexts to allow them to practice skills prior to mastery. Follow along as we explore the iterative process of Capella University’s Course Media team through their six years of designing, writing, and developing a handful of gameful, scenario-based products. Through this, at times, messy process, how their approach becomes subsequently honed and redefined is captured, along with a summary of key takeaways to consider for the success of others embarking along similar paths.

The focus of this study is on the students’ levels of self-directed learning when using simulation in a virtual reality environment. This work was performed in the context of examining the effectiveness of simulation as an e-learning tool. Data were collected from three first year engineering courses in a Polytechnic in Singapore, that leverages problem-based learning (PBL). An existing validated method of measuring self-directed learning, Stockdale and Brockett’s (2011) Personal Responsibility Orientation to Self-Direction in Learning Scale (PRO-SDLS), was tried initially, but found to be unsuitable in this context. An adaption of Spada and Fröhlich’s (1995) Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching Observation Scheme (COLT) was more successful for a qualitative research.
This study describes an alternative, non-intrusive tool for the measurement of self-directed learning. This tool gains a high data resolution over time by recording and coding student-student and student-facilitator interactions. It specifically aims to assess the dynamics of self-directed learning within individual learning events, without using student input through surveys or self-assessment.
The findings of this study so far suggest that the use of simulation in PBL engineering education can improve self-directedness of students. It also indicates instances of good facilitation, conducive to high levels of self-directedness of the students when engaged in simulation exercises in a PBL environment.