Aarhus Universitets segl

Research: Game-based education

Research Enabling Game-Based Education

The educational team of ScienceAtHome are pioneers of the didactics concept REGBE.

Research Enabling Game-Based Education is a novel way of communicating cutting-edge science directly into the core curriculum of the education system at a much earlier stage than within the present structure.

ScienceAtHome produces games, that can be played on your computer, tablet or phone. All games are designed with a research purpose, and every time a player plays our games a little bit of research is conducted.


News

4 October 2017. ScienceAtHome, in collaboration with Quatomic, is now offering a SRP-Assignment for 3rd-year high school students in Denmark. Investigate how to move one atom with our new visualization quantum simulating tool Composer.

1 September 2017. Preparations for Naturvidenskabsfestival week 39 are well on the way. Both Mads and Louise are super excited to meet more than 1000 young students, spanning from 7 grade to 3 years of high school. Introducing them to our REGBE concept. 

1 August 2017. We will launch our newest flagship within education: Composer. The composer is a node-based simulation tool created to visualize quantum mechanical systems. It can be used both as a research tool and an educational tool. The first test session as an educational tool will take place in September in Brian Juulsgaards course; introduction to quantum mechanics at AU.
1 June 2017. Welcome to Louise Kindt. Louise will take over as head of didactic from Mads K. Pedersen. Thank you to Mads for doing an excellent job and have fun being head of data science! There are many new, fun and interesting project on the didactic front and we are thrilled that Louise is here to bring her expertise as a scientist and educator into our team.


Papers

Published in the Electronic Journal of e-Learning 

This paper presents results from the design and testing of an educational version of Quantum Moves, a Scientific Discovery Game that allows players to help solve authentic scientific challenges in the effort to develop a quantum computer.

The primary aim of developing a game-based platform for student-research collaboration is to investigate if and how this type of game concept can strengthen authentic experimental practice and the creation of new knowledge in science education.

Researchers and game developers tested the game in three separate high school classes (Class 1, 2, and 3). The tests were documented using video observations of students playing the game, qualitative interviews, and qualitative and quantitative questionnaires. The focus of the tests has been to study players' motivation and their experience of learning through participation in authentic scientific inquiry.

In questionnaires conducted in the two first test classes students found that the aspects of doing “real scientific research” and solving physics problems were the more interesting aspects of playing the game. However, designing a game that facilitates professional research collaboration while simultaneously introducing quantum physics to high school students proved to be a challenge. 

A collaborative learning design was implemented in Class 3, where students were given expert roles such as experimental and theoretical physicists. This significantly improved the students’ feeling of learning physics compared to Class 1 and 2. Overall the results presented in this paper indicate that the possibility of participating in authentic scientific experiments, which this class of games opens, is highly motivating for students. The findings also show that the learning design in the class setting must be considered in order to improve the students’ experience of learning and that various design challenges remain to be addressed even further.