How Sustained Engagement

in Game Design and Social Media Use

Among Diverse Students Can

Mitigate Effects of the Digital Divide

ASIST, November 5, 2013Rebecca Reynolds, Assistant Professor

School of Communication & Information, Dept. of Library and Information Science, Rutgers University

Digital Participation in a Democracy

• Important social, political, cultural, economic activity is occurring in online environments and participation in digital culture is becoming necessary to democracy (Mossberger, Tolbert, and McNeal; Jenkins, 2009, Hobbs, 2010; Horrigan, 2011).

• Inequalities in technology access may result in knowledge gaps, educational opportunity barriers and disparities in groups’ socio-economic potential, all of which run counter to fulfillment of democratic goals and ideals (Bonfadelli, 2002).

• Pew Internet and American Life Project (2007): Content creation, participatory engagement and digital knowledge are associated with higher socio-economic status and level of education.

• Hargittai & Walejko (2008): Creative activity and content sharing online correlated with SES

• Hargittai & Hinnant (2008): Women more likely to report lower levels of self-reported digital skills; education level correlated w digital skills; skills correlated w visits to cultural capital-enhancing Web sites

• Hargittai (2010): Those from more privileged backgrounds use web-based technologies in more informed ways for a larger number of activities => social mobility

Digital Divide Research

Research Questions

How to design an intervention to bring about deep enough digital literacy gains in young people, to attenuate digital inequality? Broadly: • To what extent does middle school and high school students’ participation

and engagement in a guided discovery-based program of game design learning mitigate the effects of some of the known socio-economic predictors of the digital divide?

• To what extent are known predictors of digital literacy in cross-sectional research maintained, reduced, or erased as predictors after students engage in program?

Intervention

Globaloria: • Introduces students to online tools, resources, information, communities both

inside and outside of the e-learning environment• Designed to cultivate students’ digital fluency, perhaps meeting Papacharissi &

Easton’s interesting definition• Affords opportunity, tools, and environment to explore, discover, play with

ideas, possibilities• Also allows students to practice what it means to influence the design of

games, rules, systems, mechanisms • Conscious conceptualization of field, and influence over its rules, as

powerful actors

INTERVENTION: Guided discovery-based game design program and curriculum offered by the World Wide

Workshop. MS, HS teachers and students gain experience and expertise in a range of agentive digital

practices.

Globaloria is currently active in 4 U.S. states: CA, TX, NY, WV, >2000

students

E-Learning Environment as Information System

Flash software, Wiki Environment, Curriculum, Tutorials

“Hands On” Training Sessions (virtual, local) • Globaloria Academy – In-person, intensive trainings (3)

• Online Mini Webinars - Web-based workshops (7)

Globaloria Mentors ProgramExperienced educators take on a leadership role by supporting other educators

“24/7” Virtual Support • Expert Support via wikis, blogs, email, WebEx

• Educator Community Development – private educators community wiki, peer-to-peer mentoring, weekly educators newsletter, sharing teaching & learning reports

Rewards and Recognition•Teachers: Stipends and Graduate credits are earned•Students: Nationally-Recognized Game Design Competitions

Learning Supports for Students and Educators:

Domains of Learning and Expertise

• Game Example

• Constructionist digital literacy (skills needed in knowledge economy => 6-CLAs)

• Computational thinking through game design in Flash and programming in Actionscript

• Core curricular subject matter:o When game subjects are linked to core curriculum and students deepen

knowledge about topic through online research and design

• STEM career interests: Technology & Engineering; Computer Science

• Motivation, Affect, Attitudes, Life Choices, New Possibilities and Horizons

Globaloria Game Design Program Learning Objectives:

Cultivate the Six Contemporary Learning Abilities (6CLAs)

Developing games in a social e-learning system cultivates participatory practices that simulate productive engagement in today’s digital cultures

and knowledge-based economy

Reynolds (2012), AERA: • Especially for practices representing the more

Constructionist engagement categories, survey analysis (t-test) indicates increases in student motivation towards, and self reported understanding of these practices as a result of participation.

• For three other less-Constructionist but active technology-use categories (e.g., information seeking), the results were more varied with regard to statistically significant increases. Ceiling effects may have played a role in this.

• Indicates a measure of success in the program at meeting the stated learning objectives.

Results so far in the Globaloria context:

o Reynolds & Harel Caperton (ETR&D, 2011): Qualitative, student self-reports of experience => Student affect and attitudes vary towards the autonomy-supportive, semi- and ill-structured activities in Globaloria

• Some +, some -• Why the variation?

Results so far in the Globaloria context:

o Reynolds (ICA, 2011): intrinsic motivation positively correlated with game quality (measured thru content analysis); extrinsic motivation negatively correlated

o Reynolds & Chiu (ICLS, 2012): Multi-level analysis model at team level of analysis supports 2011 findings for intrinsic motivation positive contribution to team outcome scores

o Results qualify Kirschner et al’s critique:o Intrinsic motivation contributes positively to outcomes

in guided discovery-based learningo Such programs may support those with this orientation

o Reynolds & Chiu, 2013 (submitted): Student participation attenuates digital inequality effects (factors that predict DL in prior research also influence students’ self-reported technology engagement prior to Globaloria participation, but no longer contribute after the fact).

Intrinsic Motivation in Globaloria Students

What are the mechanisms?

Self determination theory: Self-determined, fulfilling intrinsically motivated engagement coincides with perceived competence, autonomy, social relatedness (in individual and as qualities supported by environment) (Deci & Ryan, U-Rochester)

Latest Model findings: Student resource uses including their use of online tutorials (text-based), use of online tutorials (video-based), use of self-sought online resources on the wider internet contributed positively to team outcome scores, AND, to CHANGES IN INTRINSIC MOTIVATION• Inquiry plays a role. . . • But we need to investigate *when* inquiry may also

detract.• Multi-level analyses continue

Rebecca.reynolds@gmail.com

Rutgers University websitehttp://comminfo.rutgers.edu/directory/rbreynol/index.html

Thanks to IMLS!

Thanks to my partners!

Globaloria.orgWorldwideworkshop.org

Thank you!

DV: Engagement• Engagement in information-seeking/communicative computer

activities (termed “basic” in results),

• Engagement in collaborative/constructionist productivity-oriented computer activities (termed “advanced” in results).

Measures:

(a) Self-reported frequency of engagement in home and school computer use as single-item measures,

(b) Self-reported frequency of engagement in Globaloria practices representing the CLA categories as multi-item composite measures

IVs:• Individual student variables aggregated at team level:

Grade level (middle school vs. high school) Race/ethnicity Gender Age Mean parent education Self-reported grade

Analysis• Multi-level modeling

• Explanatory variables were entered in sequential sets to estimate the variance explained by each set (Kennedy 2008). • Time, family, school and student

• We reported how a ten percent increase in each continuous variable above its mean was linked to the outcome variables

Analysis

Results, Home Computer Use• Before the game design activity, students whose

parents had one level of schooling above the mean showed 6% greater home computer use than students whose parents had the mean level of schooling.

• After the game activity however, there was no significant difference with respect to parent education

Results, School Computer Use• Students averaged 26% greater school computer use

after the game design activity than before it.

• Further, findings indicate that school-level parent education influences outcomes. • Imagine two schools, one whose students’ parents have

more schooling and one whose students’ parents have less schooling. After Globaloria, school computer use increases substantially in both schools, but more so in schools in which students’ parents have less schooling.

• These variables accounted for 18% of the variance in students’ school computer use.

Results, Basic Computer Activities• Students whose self-reported grades were one letter

grade above the mean averaged 2% fewer computer activities after the game design activity than before it.• Self-reported grades accounted for 1% of the variance

in students’ basic computer activities.

Results, Advanced Computer Activities• Students averaged 14% more advanced computer

activities after the game design activity than before it.

• Before the game design activity, student who reported grades one letter grade above the mean averaged 17% more advanced computer activities than students who reported grades at the mean.

• After the game design activity however, the advanced computer activities did not differ significantly among students with different self-reported grades

Discussion• Students from schools with lower levels of parent

education (SES proxy) may stand to gain; programs like this may aid in allowing lower income students to catch up / achieve greater equity among more affluent peers• May also give students who underperform in traditional school

contexts a new activity in which they can flourish in the school environment (geeking out club)

• Longer-term research may indicate that Globaloria affords students with life experiences that influence their habitus, cultural capital, understanding and practice in fields• Vision of life and livelihood possibilities