Games Research: Closing the Gap

by Angie

First off, I wanted to say than to everyone for the encouragement, cautionary tales, excitement, networking opportunities, and general interest in my previous post about my education/career/life goals and how it relates to gaming. It’s very exciting to hear from so many enthusiastic folks, and I’ve had the pleasure of sharing some of the literature I’ve been reviewing with others who are looking for academically credible “evidence” that games provide positive benefits.

I read a lot of articles about games research; I’m absolutely fascinated. I want to know what studies have been done, what the findings were, and what possible implications are considered. I am personally and professionally interested in the connections made and applications found for this type of research. I have been scouring databases and amassing a collection of articles on everything game related, and there is some really important work I’ve dug out. Lately I keep running across a lot of cross-references to a specific study that had some pretty amazing results, so I thought I’d share it with you all!

Disclaimer:  This is a blog post providing a quick and simple overview of the article with lots of personal commentary added in and in no way constitutes a scholarly analysis of the content, the study methodology, or the results. For any academic or professional purposes you should read the original article! There’s a handy reference below.

Tell us already!

Ok ok, enough rambling. Let’s get to the good part. A couple years back (2008) an article was published entitled “Playing linear numerical board games promotes low-income children’s numerical development”.  In this journal article, the authors explain that they conducted a two-part experiment involving kids and games then discuss the results.



Chutes and Ladders is a well-known example of a "linear
numerical game", although NOT the one used in this experiement.



The first experiment showed that preschoolers from low-income households were not as proficient at placing numbers in a number line as kids who came from higher income families. This is not particularly surprising, this type of research has been around for a while, and is one of the reasons early intervention programs like Head Start exist. It’s an important issue facing teachers, how do we provide a quality education for all students when some are entering school with far less-developed skills?

 The second experiment is where things get interesting. The researchers hypothesized that playing linear numerical  board games (a game with a board that has numbered spaces in a line) might help the low-income kids “catch up” to their middle-income peers. The way they tested this was to take two groups of low-income kids and have each group play a game for 4 different 15-minute sessions within a period of 2 weeks. It appears as though a specific game (not commercially available) was designed for this experiement which consisted of a track 10 spaces long, and the kids played by moving a token 1 or 2 spaces based upon the result of a spinner. The control group played a color-based version of the game and the test group played a game where they moved pieces along numbered spaces. Not the most creative or engaging game I could think of... but that's what they used.

 Drumroll please...

Here’s where it gets exciting, it worked! The kids playing the number game greatly improved their numerical skills from pre- to post- test, while the kids playing the color-based game did not. After ONLY 1 HOUR of total time playing the game the low-income kids in the test group demonstrated the same level of proficiency as the middle-income kids in the first experiment! They were completely "caught up" to their peers just by playing a game 4 times! The possible implications here are vast; we’re looking at an inexpensive, simple, and highly efficient way to reduce the gap in early numerical understanding in preschoolers. This is a potentially invaluable and very basic intervention that could be widely adopted.

To be fair, this study is somewhat limited in scope. The control was a color-based board game and not some other number learning activity, which makes me wonder if the same results would be seen had the students spent the four 15-minute sessions doing another number related activity? Flash cards? Numbered manipulatives? Is the board game the most effective way to achieve these results?

I can't help but wonder, would simple calendar activities or other
number-based interventions provide the same results?

I personally believe that there is a level of engagement present in gaming that is hard to replicate in other learning activities, and I choose to be excited about this study despite my as-of-yet unanswered questions. I am motivated by this type of research, and can’t wait to see what follows: how these results will be built upon or implemented and what other possibilities games possess for helping people learn while having fun. I’m eager to find out what other ways games can be used to solve some of the problems in our educational system, and how they can be implemented in a way that promotes engagement, enjoyment, and achievement.

So, to sum up... it looks like maybe all we need to do to close the achievement gap is get kids playing more games!

Reference:

Siegler, R. S., & Ramani, G. B. (2008). Playing linear numerical board games promotes low-income children's numerical development. Developmental Science, 11(5), 655-661. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00714.x

The Healing Blade

by Randy

Hey, everyone! The kids are all tucked in and I wanted to hop on and share some feedback on a game I was able to try out. Are you interested in hearing about it? Good! The game in question is The Healing Blade from Nerdcore Learning, who were kind enough to provide a review copy when requested. I think you'll find the game fascinating; I do. Want to know why? Read on!

The Healing Blade is a game about battling infectious diseases. Yes, you read that right. It is a two player game where one side plays the Lord of Pestilence (the diseases) and another plays the Apothecary Healers (the medicinal agents for countering the diseases). It was developed by two medical doctors who also happen to be gamers, Francis Kong and Arun Mathews. From what I've read, it is growing in popularity with medical students.

When I first heard about this, the first thing I thought of was an academic paper my wife had ran across and told me about by Richard Steinman and Mary Blastos called "A trading-card game teaching about host defence" from 2002. The paper concluded concluded that the game was super-effective for teaching the concepts. The two are unrelated, to my knowledge, but share the same conceptual space. Both the game in the paper and The Healing Blade are games... that teach. But on to this game.

It's a beautiful game. It has high-quality components, and great art. There are 20 green glass beads included to track the energy resource used, ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Each player has a full-color playmat. And most of the 90 cards have unique art. The art is definitely worth mentioning here... it would definitely hold its own against Magic: The Gathering art. Gorgeous illustratiuons. Altogether, a very impressive set of components.

And then... the cards. Okay, here is where the diseases come in. Each Lord of Pestilence card has the full scientific name of the disease (Streptococcus pneumoniae or Helicobacter pylori, as examples), its abbreviated common name (S. pneumoniae, H. pylori) and a fantasy-style piece of art that represents it, plus flavortext that puts a magical spin on its real-world effect. Each Apothecary Healer card has the name of a medicine (ie, Doxycyclene) and its own art and flavortext. Aside from a small font, they are very well put together.

As for gameplay... let's say that this was the funnest study session I've ever had on infectious diseases. Which is to say that as a game, the mechanics do leave a little to be desired. The rules are pretty concise and simple, but in playing we found a couple situations not covered in the rules. For instance, as the Lord of Pestilence, I found my hand of cards clogged with high-cost diseases that I was unable to play. The result was that my Apothecary Healer opponent was able to build up and have a healer combatant that could counter most diseases I could play. It could have just been a bad run, and I noticed on their site a rules revision is in progress. So... the current gameplay isn't tight, mechanics-wise... but as I see it, that's not an issue. Because mechanics are not the point.

What this game represents is a great step in the right direction for games that teach. If I were a medical student, I would absolutely love this game. This beats the heck out of a dry textbook. Granted, it doesn't replace the textbook, but it is a great supplement that presents the material in a way that activates different parts of the brain. This would be a great supplement to a class on pathogens. It slaps a fun theme on the subject of infectious diseases and how to fight them, and runs with it. I hands-down recommend this for any med student out there. For gamers? Not so much. But keep your eye out: the next rules revision may very well put this mechanically closer to the games we play just for fun. I suspect we may start seeing more hobby-quality games whose primary purpose is to help us learn. And I like that!

Teaching Games to Kids

How did they do that?

My 5 year old daughter loves to play board games and card games. She has a goal to play 100 different games this year, and I’m so excited to try that with her. She likes writing her own reviews of games and talking about her thoughts on them, and she CAN’T WAIT until she can read all the cards in the “toughest” grown up games like Magic: The Gathering. Part of that is her personality for sure, but I’ve had a few people ask me how to get into playing games with their kids or how I’ve been so successful at playing complex games with her when she is so young. I thought I’d try writing down my ideas on the subject, hopefully there’s some piece of advice in there somewhere that someone can use. I’m writing in an authoritarian voice, but I’m absolutely no expert. My opinions are based on my parental experiences with my two kids and 10 or so years working with kids in various settings. These are just some ideas and strategies we’ve used or thought about, and they are mostly focused on young children (pre-readers) because that’s what we’ve got.

As always, take what you like and leave the rest.

10 Easy Steps... Haha… Nothing Is Easy With Kids!

1.       Cardinal rule: Don’t worry about the rules. The point is to have fun with your kids. There is honestly lots and lots of time to learn “the right” way to play the games, but first the kids have to learn to love playing them and get excited to try new games. Play games in front of your kids, and let them sit in your lap, hold your cards, move your pieces, pick a color, roll the dice, whatever, even if it’s only  for 2 minutes as their marching band parades through the room. Show them that playing games together is a fun and valuable use of time.

2.       One way to build focus and attention for gaming is to let kids play with you with games in whatever way is most appropriate and interesting to them. Start by getting out all the pieces and taking some time to look them over. The point is to sit with your kids and explore them together, so don’t worry about losing pieces… you’ll be right there with them, right? If your kid destroys the pieces or puts things in their mouth, wait a while or invest in some of the high quality wooden games out there that have pieces that are too big to eat and too sturdy to destroy. We’ve got a destroyer in the house, so we’re careful about which card games we play with the little Jack. As you play, try saying things like “Wow, dice, what should we do with these?” or ask questions like “Which side of the card should we use?” or “How do we get these guys to stand up?” Let the kids be the problem solvers, even if their solutions aren’t what you would normally come up with. It’s ok if they use dice to build towers or are more interested in the backs of the cards than the front.  Just remember, if all you do is get a game box out, look at all the pieces with your kid, and put if back in the box, you haven’t failed! You’ve succeeded at starting them down a path of learning to love games. 

"Chicken! Egg!"



 3.       Appreciate the art, the novelty, and the fun of the game. Get excited about the characters and feel free to play with the game like a toy. Watch what your kid likes to do with the pieces and use that insight to find good fits for future games. For example, if you get out Candy Land and your child just wants to match colors, then have fun matching colors with them, and store away that knowledge so that next time you can pull out a matching game like Memory instead. For example, my daughter uses this beautiful deck of Animal Rummy cards to play a game she created that seems to resemble Magic the Gathering (not too surprising, since we play it all the time). The animals line up in a row, you use cards of the same color to activate them, and then they tap to attack each other. I try to appreciate her ingenuity, creativity, and love for gaming and introduce her to other cards games she might like instead of getting bummed that we won’t be playing Animal Rummy anytime soon. 

4.       Try taking turns. Whatever you are doing, try staggering it into your turn/my turn patterns. Make sure they aren’t having to wait very long to do something, because that’s not even fun for us grown-up patient gamers.



"...and we could use these as stop signs..."



5.       As you play and enjoy the game pieces, gradually introduce new concepts that will form the basis for the game rules. You can roll a die and say “oh look, I got 4 spots on this die roll, what if I move this guy 4 spaces on this path. One-two-three-four.”  Or,  “Oh look, I have 4 of these stone cards, and no wheat. Do you want to trade one of your wheat cards for one of my stone cards?” Don’t push your kids to do the same, just model the ideas. Start introducing the actions and parameters that define the game in a fun way. Try not to put emphasis on “right” and “wrong“  ways to play. It’s pretty natural to get excited when your child starts coming up with their own ways to play that are very similar to the “real rules”, but try not to get disappointed if all they want to do is play their own way.

6.       Break down more complicated games into stuff your child recognizes. Come up with some fun mini-games using the game components that highlight some of the interactions and rules. For example, if your child knows how to play Memory and you want to teach them Settlers of Catan, you can play a memory matching game with the pieces. Place all of the hex tiles face down in the shape of the island and take turns turning them over. Whenever you get a match, you collect a resource card of that type. You can use the resource cards to build roads, settlements, cities, and development cards (using the costs on the reference card from the game) and have a goal of being the first one to build one of each, or whatever else sounds fun. That way they are learning that the hex tiles correlate to resources, and that you get sets of resources to build stuff in the game. Then when you introduce the game, those basic concepts will form the foundation. You can go as far as you want with this, depending on your child’s age/skill/interest level/etc. Breaking the game down to its core mechanics will help your kids form a library of “game rules” that you can use when you are learning new games, and using those mechanics to help teach other games (like in my Memory>Settlers example) gives kids a chance to practice something they already know in a new context, while establishing new skills. Win-win!

"This card matches. 1000 points!"

7.       When you think your child is ready and receptive, ask them if they want to learn a new way to play with the game. You can hype this as much or as little as is appropriate for your child. Some kids can’t wait to learn the “grown-up” rules, while some might not care. Take your time with it, play with lots of different games, and encourage your kids to make up their own rules too. Don’t be surprised if their rules don’t make sense to you, your rules probably don’t make much sense to them either. Try to incorporate as many examples from your “play time” with the game as possible. “Remember when you thought it would be cool to use stone cards to build a castle? Well in this game there are these cool pieces called cities that are kinda like castles, and they cost some stone to make. Pretty cool hunh?” or “I really liked that rule you came up with about matching the colors on the cards to the colors on the board. In this game, you kinda do that too! But instead of putting your cards on the board, you move this little candy guy to the next space of that color, see how I’m doing it?” Kids learn and remember things better when they can connect it to prior experiences, and by activating those memories or ideas, you are helping them to build important connections as well as validating their own creativity.

8.       Take out any complicated or confusing rules that you don’t feel your child is ready for. It’s ok to play games however you want, really. The designers don’t know you or your kids, and if you think it would be more fun some other way, then go ahead! You can always add in the more advanced rules later, or change the way you play altogether. As a personal note, we somehow manage to play almost every game wrong the first few times; we misread the rules, miss an important part, or just forget something all together. Here’s the big secret: It always turns out ok. We relearn the rules the “right way” when we find out later, and your kids can too. It’s really no big deal. My one caveat is try not to write off a game entirely when you aren’t playing it the way it was intended, it might honestly be much more fun if you play it right. Shelf it or whatever, but be willing to give the “real” rules a chance when your family is ready. It might still not be the game for you, but at least you’ll have given it a fair shake.



"Ohh, maybe I can go THAT way..."



9.       Quit while you are still having fun. You don’t have to play to the end. If your child loses interest, pack it up and be sure to thank them for playing with you. If a tantrum or other behaviors make the game unpleasant, then feel free to stop for that too. You can always take a break and leave it out to come back to when the child has calmed down/taken a nap/had a snack/ran three laps around the yard. Putting away a game with a screaming kid will leave a sour taste on the experience for both of you. Try to have a fun transition planned, and keep the experience positive whenever possible.

10.   Praise ideas and creativity and problem solving more than luck and winning. It’s cool and fun when they roll a 6 or draw the card they needed, but it’s way cooler when they figure out how something works, play graciously, or come up with a clever move.





The Long Road…But It’s Worth Taking.

This might seem like a hard or time-consuming path to playing games with your kids. It helps if you are as obsessed with games as we are. Kids often want to do what their parents do more than anything else. If you love playing games and really can’t wait to play them with your kids; don’t think of these experiences as “less cool” because they aren’t  always the full game or whatever, just try to have fun and enjoy your time with your child. During those moments in which you feel like you are torturing yourself, remember the payout: bonding with your little ones, their future fond childhood memories of playing games as a family, increased critical thinking and problem solving skills, social development, and potentially a lifelong gaming buddy. It’s totally worth it.

Sound off

What has worked (or NOT worked) for you in playing games with kids? Agree or disagree with something I’ve said? Questions? Ideas? We’d love to hear from you, so please leave us a comment!