Cognitive science implications for enhancing training effectiveness in a serious gaming context

ABSTRACT

Serious games use entertainment principles, creativity, and technology to meet government or corporate training objectives, but these principles alone will not guarantee that the intended learning will occur. To be effective, serious games must incorporate sound cognitive, learning, and pedagogical principles into their design and structure. In this paper, we review cognitive principles that can be applied to improve the training effectiveness in serious games and we describe a process we used to design improvements for an existing game-based training application in the domain of cyber security education.

REFERENCES

• 1: Allen, M. 2002. Discovery learning: Repurposing an old paradigm. e-Learning, 2(3), 19-20.
• 2: Thor Alexander, Massively Multiplayer Game Developemnt, Charles River Media, Inc., Rockland, MA, 2003
• 3: Anderson, J.R., and Bower, G.H. 1973. Human Associative Memory. V.H. Winston and Sons, New York, NY.
• 4: Atkinson, R.C., and Shiffrin, R.M. 1968. Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Volume 2. K.W. Spence and J.T. Spence, Eds. Academic Press, New York, NY.
• 5: Amy Bruckman, Community Support for Constructionist Learning, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, v.7 n.1-2, p.47-86, Jan.1, 1998
• 6: Bruner, J. S. 1966. Some elements of discovery. In Learning by Discovery: A Critical Appraisal, L.S. Shulman and E.R. Keislar, Eds. Rand McNally, Chicago, IL, 101-113.
• 7: Michael Capps , Perry McDowell , Michael Zyda, A Future for Entertainment-Defense Research Collaboration, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, v.21 n.1, p.37-43, January 2001 [doi>10.1109/38.895129 ]
• 8: J. M. Carroll, Minimalist design for active users, Human-computer interaction: a multidisciplinary approach, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1987
• 9: John M. Carroll, The Nurnberg funnel: designing minimalist instruction for practical computer skill, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990
• 10: Clark, R. 1998. Building Expertise: Cognitive Methods for Training and Performance Development. International Society for Performance Improvement, Washington D.C.
• 11: Felder, R. M., and Brent, R. 1996. Navigating the bumpy road to student-centered instruction. College Teaching, 44, 43-47.
• 12: Green, C.S., and Bavelier, D. 2003. Action Video Game Modifies Visual Selective Attention. Letters to Nature. Nature, 423, 534-537.
• 13: Greitzer, F.L. 2002. A Cognitive Approach to Student-centered e-Learning. In Proceedings of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 46th Annual Meeting, 2064-2068.
• 14: Greitzer, F.L. 2005. Ingredients of effective and engaging online learning (or, Musings of a cognitive/e-Learning evangelist). Keynote address, InterLab 2005. Richland, WA. December 13-16, 2005. http://www.pnl.gov/cogInformatics/media/pdf/InterLab-Greitzer-distribution.pdf
• 15: Greitzer, F.L. 2006. Discovery-based online cyber security training. U.S. Department of Energy 2006 Cyber Security Training Conference, Dayton, OH, April 25, 2006.
• 16: Greitzer, F.L., Rice, D.M., Eaton, S., Perkins, M.C., Scott, R.T., Burnette, J.R., and Robertson, S.R. 2003. A cognitive approach to e-Learning. In Proceeding of Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), December 2003.
• 17: Greitzer, F.L., Rice, D.M., Eaton, S.L., and Perkins, M.C. 2005. Learning to pull the thread: Application of guided-discovery principles to the inquiry process. In Proceedings of Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference (I/ITSEC).
• 18: Hancock, P.A., PEPE, A.A., and Murphy, L. 2005. Hedonomics: the power of positive and pleasurable ergonomics. Ergonomics in Design, 13, 8-14.
• 19: Hermann, G. 1969. Learning by discovery: a critical review of studies. Journal of Experimental Education, 38(1), 58-72.
• 20: Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R.T., and Smith, K.A. 1991. Active learning: Cooperation in the college classroom. Interaction Book Company, Edina, MN.
• 21: Kotovsky, K., Hayes, J. R., and Simon, H. A. 1985. Why are some problems hard? Evidence from the Tower of Hanoi. Cognitive Psychology, 17, 248-294.
• 22: Kuchar, O.A., Huston, K., and Greitzer, F.L. 2006. Applying Principles of Gaming, Motivation and Learning to Enhance the Effectiveness of CyberCIEGE. Report PNNL-15802. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Richland, WA.
• 23: Lindsay, P. H. and Norman, D. A. 1977. Human Information Processing. Academic Press, New York, NY.
• 24: Maslow, A. H. 1970. Motivation and Personality, 2nd. ed., Harper & Row, New York, NY.
• 25: Miller, G. A. 1956. The magical number, seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97.
• 26: Andrew Mulholland , Teijo Hakala, Developer's Guide to Multiplayer Games with Cdrom, Wordware Publishing Inc., Plano, TX, 2001
• 27: Jakob Nielsen, Heuristic evaluation, Usability inspection methods, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1994
• 28: Papert, S. (1991) "Situating Constructionism." Chapter 1 in Constructionism. I. Harel and S. Papert, Eds. Ablex Publishing, Norwood, NJ.
• 29: Ron Penton, Mud Game Programming, Premier Press, 2003
• 30: Francisco A. C. Pinheiro, Situated Modelling of Scenarios, Proceedings of the 28th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC'04), p.99-107, September 28-30, 2004
• 31: Prensky, M. 2005. Complexity Matters, Educational Technology, 45(4). http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-Complexity_Matters.pdf
• 32: Marc Prensky, Digital game-based learning, Computers in Entertainment (CIE), v.1 n.1, October 2003 [doi>10.1145/950566.950596]
• 33: Clark N. Quinn , Marcia L. Conner, Engaging Learning: Designing e-Learning Simulation Games (Pfeiffer Essential Resources for Training and HR Professionals (Hardcover)), Pfeiffer & Company, 2005
• 34: Roberts, I, McColgin, D.W., Greitzer, F.L., and Huston, K. 2006. Usability and Training Effectiveness Evaluation of CyberCIEGE. Report PNNL-15601. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA.
• 35: Schneider, W. and Shiffrin, R. 1977. Controlled and automatic information processing: I. Detection, search and attention. Psychological Review, 84, 1-66.
• 36: Shiffrin, R. and Schneider, W. 1977. Controlled and automatic information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory. Psychological Review, 84, 127-190.
• 37: Siang, A.C., and Rao, R.K. 2003. Theories of Learning: A Computer Game Perspective, In IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia Software Engineering, 239-244.
• 38: Tulving, E. and Donaldson, W. 1972. Organization of memory. Academic Press, New York, NY.
• 39: Murray Turoff , Michael Chumer , Starr Roxanne Hiltz , Art Hendela , Joe Konopka , Xiang Yao, Gaming Emergency Preparedness, Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, p.38, January 04-07, 2006 [doi>10.1109/HICSS.2006.192]
• 40: Wilson, B.G., Jonassen, D. H., and Cole, P. 1993. Cognitive approaches to instructional design. In The ASTD Handbook of Instructional Technology. G. M. Piskurich, Ed. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 21.1-21.22. http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~bwilson/training.html
• 41: Michael Zyda, From Visual Simulation to Virtual Reality to Games, Computer, v.38 n.9, p.25-32, September 2005 [doi>10.1109/MC.2005.297]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.6 SIMULATION AND MODELING
      I.6.8 Types of Simulation
          Subjects: Gaming

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems
          Subjects: Animations; Evaluation/methodology

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.1 Computer Uses in Education
          Subjects: Computer-assisted instruction (CAI)

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Measurement, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
Serious gaming, cognitive principles, computer-based training, cyber security education, training effectiveness