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- All Subjects: Learning
- Creators: Gee, Elisabeth R
- Creators: Brewer, Gene
- Resource Type: Text
- Status: Published
After answering a test question, feedback of the correct answer provided after a brief delay can be more beneficial to learning than feedback provided immediately (Brackbill & Kappy, 1962; Kulhavy & Anderson, 1972). Several theoretical models have been proposed to explain this delay-of-feedback benefit, with the most well supported being that delaying feedback promotes anticipation of the correct answer, which has been examined using curiosity as a measure of answer anticipation (Mullaney et al. 2014). The present study tested this model across two task designs, one designed to elicit epistemic curiosity, and one designed to elicit perceptual curiosity, to determine if the relationship between curiosity and feedback delay is type-dependent. In Task 1, participants answered trivia questions, reported their subjective level of curiosity to know the answer, and then received correct answer feedback after a variable delay (0s, 4s, or 8s). Task 2 was identical to Task 1, except that participants learned and were tested on the identities of blurred pictures, rather than trivia question answers. A subsequent learning retention test demonstrated a significant effect of curiosity, but not feedback delay, on performance in the trivia task, and no significant effect of curiosity, but a negative effect of feedback delay, on performance in the blurred pictures task. Neither task found a significant interaction effect between curiosity and delay group, which fails to support the answer anticipation model of the delay-of-feedback benefit.
While DTALS can be used to examine any number of phenomena, this dissertation focuses on the community around Pokémon Go. The game, with its emphasis on geography and community, presents unique opportunities for research. This research draws on existing video game research which focuses on not only games but their communities, and in particular the learning and literacy activities which occur in these communities (Gee & Hayes, 2012; Hayes & Duncan, 2012; Squire, 2006; Steinkuehler, 2006).
The results here are presented as three separate manuscripts. Chapter Two takes a broad view of a local community of players, and discusses different player types and how they teach and learn around the game. Chapter Three focuses on families who play the game together, and in particular three focal parents who share their perceptions of the game's merits, especially its potential to promote family bonding and learning. Chapter Four discusses teaching, in particular guides written about the game and the ways in which they are situated in particular Discourses (Gee, 2014). Finally, Chapter Five offers implications from these three chapters, including implications for designers and researchers as well as calls for future research.
Using a case study methodology and studying interactions and transactions between children, materials, tools, and designs this study involves children learning while tinkering over a week-long workshop as well as over the summer in the Southwest. The three hallmarks of this study are, first, an emphasis on sociocultural nature of the development of tinkering projects; second, an emphasis on meaning making while tinkering with materials, tools, and design, and problem-solving; and third, an examination of the continuation of tinkering using newly acquired tools and skills beyond the duration of the workshop. In doing so, this dissertation contributes to the ongoing discussion of children’s playful tinkering, how and why it counts as learning, and STEM learning associated with tinkering. Implications for future learning and the ways in which tinkering connects to children’s everyday fabric of activities are considered.