Close the Gap Obstacles and solutions for the missing educational games in graduate education Thomas Bröker, Heinrich Söbke, Oliver Kornadt Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Faculty of Civil Engineering, InnoProfile: Intelligent Learning, Weimar, Germany
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Keywords Sustainability of educational games, simulation games, engineering education, situated learning, development, obstacles
Abstract The problem of human beings to handle complex situations and understand the underlying system has already been researched several decades ago. Simulation games had been a proposed as an appropriate solution to train and practice the necessary skills. These results are complemented by recent research in game-based learning showing the successful implementation of good learning principles and the ability of providing situated learning scenarios. In spite of the obvious advantages of video games to provide a context for training systemic thinking, contemporary development projects concentrate on basic education and the corresponding skills at school and university. In graduate education, and especially in graduate engineering education, there is a gap of development. Although right there the handling of complex, interdisciplinary situations is imperatively demanded. This gap cannot be closed with the contemporary development paradigms of video games. From that point of view the development efforts increase with the level of education while the target group and development resources decrease. This dilemma can only be solved by changing the paradigms of development, as they rely on a commercial perspective. They have to be adapted to the actual conditions of development in academic projects. The existing resources have to be recognized, activated and grouped, together with the target groups. With this approach it is not only possible to provide a basis for the development of advanced educational games, but the sustainability of educational games can be improved as a whole.
Introduction Research already shows the suitability of video games for learning and that simulation games enable to understand complex situations and solve the resulting problems. Skills that are demanded from today's engineers. Although commercial games show the implementation of these methods, an adaption to advanced educational contexts is missing. In this paper we create a new perspective for developing advanced educational games •
By analysing the general conditions that support development of video games we have determined the possible backgrounds for successful development. These general conditions we compared to the conditions of academic development and identified the obstacles for development of games for graduate education.
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We show that these obstacles rely on paradigms of commercial development and propose to overcome this by changing this perspective and adjust it to the circumstances of academic development projects.
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To achieve this shift technical prerequisites have to be created, as well as a change of thinking of involved institutions and personnel. We provide a rough outline of these changes.
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We indicate the practicability by successful examples that have already implemented or
applied partial aspects of these prerequisites.
Educational Games — The gap in graduate education With the proceeding development of computer games technology and the co-occurrence of easy-touse development tools, like game and physics engines, game-based learning leaped forward as well. Game-based learning has become a mainstreaming subject of research and development. Today there is already a large pool of computer games and prototypes with an educational background. Multiple attempts have been launched to embed the motivational aspects of games into learning environments. And more projects with still increasing complexity are in progress while research covers the subject from different points of view and with increasing depth (Egenfeldt-Nielsen 2006; Squire 2005). Concerning the focus of educational game development there is a clear emphasis on projects regarding education at schools. Here and in basic academic education exists a wide variety of different projects (M. Pivec & P. Pivec 2009). They are all geared towards conveying basic knowledge and skills. But the amount of research projects and implemented educational computer games decreases with the increasing level of education. That is, after the entry level at university there are hardly any computer games. Especially in graduate engineering education there is a gap in research and development. Engineers are supposed to conceive, implement and maintain complex, technical systems and solve the emerging problems. Hence they need to bring along the necessary fundamental knowledge but also the skills to oversee the whole system. As such systems are usually embedded into an interdisciplinary context, these skills have to be extended by an extensive range of soft skills (Reuber & Klocke 2001; Redish & Smith 2008; Rugarcia et al. 2000). But a holistic training is still neglected in engineering disciplines. In other critical domains the training of complex situations and the cognition of the underlying mechanics and relationships is achieved by simulations or business games (Aldrich 2004). In engineering it still happens as a training on the job. The basic concepts are taught during academic education, but mostly in abstract and isolated concepts that are missing a corresponding context (Froitzheim 2010; Rugarcia et al. 2000). Simulation programmes as common tools in engineering disciplines are on one side suitable to work on realistic problems and its interrelations. Then again, as highly specialized tools, they require too much preparation and supervision to use them with even small learning groups. And depending on their specialisation they offer a too detailed insight into a certain part of a discipline, often overwhelming beginners with their complexity. Research already shows the suitability of video games for learning. Gee (2008) indicated the presence and smart implementation of good learning principles in video games and Steinkuehler & Duncan (2004) scientific habits in massively multiplayer online games (MMOG). Today's video games show the possibilities of creating complex and authentic scenarios that demand high learning efforts to reach a certain level of competency. And especially in MMOGs one can discover the training of skills that are demanded in professional life, like communication and management skills, selfassessment, interdisciplinary collaboration and problem-solving — all skills that are imperatively demanded from today's engineers. Research results in psychology support the suitability of video games to understand complex situations and solve the resulting problems. They show the difficulties of people to handle such situations. As an essential insight Dörner (1992) states that the mastery of such situations can only be achieved by practice. And that simulation games are an adequate solution for the training of authentic complex situations. In contrast to simulations they bring along a context with authentic problems and adapt to the skills of the user. In fact with video games the computerbased implementation of situated learning seems to be tangible (Squire 2005; Magee 2006). But right here, and despite of the obvious advantages to train the skills demanded from today's engineers, there is a gap in development. At first sight one could argue that computer games are not suitable for graduate education; That on the one hand game-based concepts cannot convey the scientific depth of engineering or the complex and interdisciplinary interrelations. Or that on the other hand today's game concepts or technologies are not yet mature enough to implement advanced educational game scenarios. Both arguments can be disproved with a look at the complexity and technical stage of commercial video games that show extremely complex game scenarios. Scenarios that just miss the subject-specific orientation to
applicate them in educational scenarios. So what is the reason for this gap of development in graduate education? What are the backgrounds for the lack of video games for conveying advanced skills?
Identifying the obstacles In contrast to the focal areas of educational games' development there seem to be obstacles in advanced, graduate education. By analysing the general conditions that support development of video games we have determined the possible backgrounds for successful development. These conditions we used as a base to compare them to the conditions of academic development.
General conditions of commercial development To gather and analyse these general conditions we distinguish commercial development from development within funded research projects. Though many commercially motivated projects cannot survive without public funding, they use a different approach of development. Commercial video games, and so commercial educational games as well, are developed from a market economy perspective: They have to persist in a market situation of supply and demand. In competition with competitors for a sufficient share of the market, to cover the expenses of development. Through this direct link between developers and users, developers are rewarded for their ideas and products. This competition for a fair market share creates a consistent progression of the products while the extent of this share determines the leaps of development. In 2008 the world-wide market volume for video games was as high as 61 billion US$ (Lee 2009). The game Grand Theft Auto IV that was published in that year yielded alone 500 million US$ within the first sales week (Richtel 2008). But despite of this high volume of sales most development studios rely on sequels of video games. Not for nothing Grand Theft Auto IV was the fourth part of a sequel. The concentration on an already successful product reduces the investment risk because of an existing fan community. At US$ 100 million were the development costs of Grand Theft Auto IV (Bowditch 2008), as well as the very successful massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) World of Warcraft (Gallagher 2010). Even though these are still exceptions the average development cost of a multiplatform video game ranges between 18 and 28 million US$ with a development time of several years (Fehrenbach 2010; Merkel 2010). Commercial, educational games supposedly do not reach these amounts. Though these figures cannot be transferred easily, they still show the enormous investments in game development in general. But for these educational games market-based principles pertain as well: The focus of commercial development concentrates on the potentially highest target group. And because everybody has to pass school education, this focus is on schools.
General conditions of academic development Development in academic projects is different: Here video games are developed under the planned economy of funded research programmes; Smaller projects or prototypes in student projects. Because of the underlying funding programme the budget and the time frame are fixed completely from the beginning. Even the transfer from one cost centre to another is usually limited or impossible. This planned economy also means that a direct relationship of developers and users is missing: A further development does not depend on a success at the market, which is the users' satisfaction, but on the existence of appropriate funding programmes and the quality and assessment of the grant application. The funding programme determines the time frame and the budget of the project. Concerning the EU framework programmes a funding of up to five years is possible, while the average duration is in between three and four years; A situation that is similar to commercial game projects. But in contrast to those projects the available budget is much lower: For Example the average funding in projects of the EU framework ranges between one and 7,5 million € (Grimpe et al. 2009). Known projects like
80Days or the ELEKTRA Project, developed or under development in the 7th and 6th framework programme, have or had a budget of 4,2 million € over 30 months and 2,4 million € over 24 months respectively. Though the general conditions for game development within research programmes are worse than in commercial projects, the question remains why those circumstances only lead to educational games covering basic levels of education.
Development obstacles Certain aspects are obviously missing when it comes to game development for graduate education. Commercial developers concentrate on large (e.g. schools) or solvent (e.g. Virtual Leader addressing a broadly demanded skill) target groups. So the main reason for a lack of commercial development is easy to identify: The level of graduate education is not attractive (Freitas 2006) because of the increasing specialisation and the associated reduction and fragmentation of the target group. In addition the acceptance of video games as a learning method is declining with the rising level of education and age of the target group. Especially for working adults games do not appear to offer an approach as effective and target-oriented as common teaching methods and learning materials. Also a direct relation between developers and users is missing. Depending on the educational conditions the user, i.e. learner, does not pay anything or pays for an overall package: For the content and supervision to an educational goal. And because the target group is too small, the development of an educational game cannot be funded by a share of this income — let alone further development and maintenance. That means without additional sponsoring the development of educational games is only possible by public funding. Concerning the development budget, academic projects do not have to take account of market situations. But the limited target group and resources are a relevant obstacle. Sufficient resources are necessary to reach a certain development target. But because of the typical characteristics of public funding programmes these are limited a priori, while development efforts increase. They increase as the necessary expert knowledge increases as well and have to be adjusted to didactic and technical demands. And the scientific progress causes an additional strain because the more advanced the level knowledge, the more versatile it is (Marx & Gramm 2002). On the other hand the amount of subject-specific experts, with sufficient knowledge and interest in didactical and technical aspects, decreases with the corresponding target group. Because of the inflexible and limited funding policies and time-frames of public funding programmes the continuation of a project is uncertain. This depends on a subsequent funding that is neither conceivable at the beginning of a project nor directly success-related. Even successful projects are not necessarily funded subsequently because appropriate funding programmes might be missing at that time. So the available budget is too low to engage into sophisticated educational games for graduate education. And the uncertainty of continuation does not allow a step by step development. As a result only manageable projects are developed. Projects that have a more or less certain chance of success within the given time-frame, leaving alone the problem of later maintenance and further development after a project's completion. As a result a problem similar to the missing sustainability of the first funding wave of e-learning projects (Haug & Wedekind 2009) happens to educational game projects (M. Pivec & P. Pivec 2009). From these general development conditions arises a development dilemma for advanced, subjectspecific educational games: Development efforts increase because of the growing complexity and the permanent change and development of knowledge. And on the other side the size of the target group and development resources are decreasing or limited.
Approach to a solution: Changing perspectives From the perspective of effort and resources the development of educational games for graduate education seems to be impossible. But this view is based on development paradigms for a marketoriented approach, that is:
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Video games have to be competitive. For a lot of game genres this means that a certain graphical and technical level plays a prominent role.
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Development is user- and market-oriented to meet the previous expenses.
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The first product cycle needs to deliver a competitive product. And the necessary resources have to be available to achieve that.
But these paradigms do not apply for educational development scenarios. To achieve a successful result, appropriate solutions have to be found to react on the special conditions of funded research projects: Advantages have to be identified and taken and adapted solutions have to be applied. A first step to solve the development dilemma is to change perspectives, concerning the development of educational games: •
Concerning development requirements, an educational game does not have to compete with the graphical standards of commercial games. Primarily it has to deliver a successful game concept aiming at its specialized target group. Priority is a subject-specific relevance and not imperatively high-end graphics. Nowadays social and independent games already show that video games can be successful without costly graphics.
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Developers and resources of one or adjacent disciplines do not compete within their subject area with each other. From a global viewpoint every subject area offers a large pool of both experts and users. Joint efforts in education can move the whole discipline forward. And within this area it can be assumed that a continuous funding is possible. Additionally, development in academic areas offers a resource that is scarcely used as a resource for continuous further development: In academic works, like master or dissertation theses the further development can be organized in stages. Prensky (2008) already proposed an approach to engage students in building educational games.
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As the funding budget is completely determined at a project's beginning, the development is not bound to a later commercial success. No return on investment has to be considered. The results have to be answered to the funding institution but the project's success does not depend on the satisfaction of a large target group. That means, a game does not have to be completed in the first run, but it's development can be spread over time.
Necessary prerequisites A fundamental requirement to create the conditions for a subject-specific educational game in graduate education is a modular development concept. It has to provide a core system that can be extended, adapted and amended to match the progress of scientific knowledge. The core system has to provide the basis for that and needs to manage the functionality and dependencies of extending packages. Furthermore it has to provide basic game mechanics to embed these extensions into a virtual world that gains momentum even without the interference of human players. And this momentum has to generate player-relevant problems from the interrelations of the worlds simulation elements. Such an extensible virtual world also facilitates its application in basic Education. Although it aims at depicting the overall complex context it contains the individual, single elements of basic educational scenarios because of its modular system. These elements could be made accessible for basic scenarios through focussing them by an extension tree. A tree that depicts the interrelations and the level of detail of the different modules. According to the educational level of the learner, the complexity and the details of the whole system can be narrowed down. Single extensions can be used more or less isolated from the whole system or used in a holistic context (Bröker & Kornadt 2009). Another important point is a change of thinking about education in the competition of universities: Experts of a discipline have to acknowledge that proprietary developments are neither sustainable nor do they contribute to a competitive advantage. The criteria of importance are the application and combination of content with didactic methods; Accompanied by a dedicated, educational supervision that leads to an educational goal. The use and extension of a joint development platform improves the possibilities of all tutors, but still has to be implemented into the local learning curricula. And a joint
platform contributes to a grouping of resources and target groups and a better sustainability of the whole issue.
Successful approaches Several developments and projects show how successful implementations of such concepts can look like. They show how to use the existing conditions skilfully or how to establish the necessary conditions. That even extremely sophisticated projects are possible with heterogenous development communities show projects like Wikipedia or Linux. The swift development of modern game engines indicates how to make sophisticated/complex functions available to even non-professional users/developers; Functions that previously had to be coded manually. They show how to aggregate reusable functions and provide them in a simplifying development framework: Even commercial games rely on specialized engines to make use of complex 3D graphics, illumination, sound and other physics effects. The technical progress in this area provides for a continuously growing range of functions and their level of detail. The structure and functional principles of such engines shows approaches that could be transferred to subject-specific, academic frameworks. In engineering exist successful software solutions for simulation issues that provide a base for constant further development. TRNSYS and ESP-r are both used for thermal simulations of buildings and building services to improve energy efficiency. Originally both projects started more than 35 years and 20 years ago as university projects. And both provide a modular and extensible system that is maintained by a globally distributed community (Clarke 1996; Fiksel & Thornton 1995). This approach provides the further development in delimited work packages that can be executed within scientific works like master or doctoral theses as different results successfully show (Burkholder 2004; Hoffmann 2007). The reduction of research defragmentation is an aim of the EU framework programmes. The merging of similar research areas is fostered actively by the funding prerequisites of the programme (Schenk 2007). An approach to reduce fragmentation in engineering education is the Lernnetz Bauphysik (Learning network building physics) (Wagner & Mehra n.d.). Initially developed within an e-learning funding programme it is now maintained by an association of the formerly developing members. It does not just offer a joint learning platform for members to bundle up learning materials. It also provides a basis for linking calculation modules. Based on a subject-specific data model, calculated data and results of independent calculation programs can be exchanged. This allows interrelations and dependencies between the different fields of the discipline and independent development of calculation modules (Abromeit & Wagner 2009). All modules and learning materials can be used for individual educational requirements by the members. One aim of this approach is to establish a crossuniversity community of a discipline to avoid redundant development efforts.
Conclusions and outlook In the last decade more than 300 million € have been invested within the scope of public funding programmes to establish e-learning in Germany. But the success and sustainability of the majority of the funded projects is questionable (Haug & Wedekind 2009). Despite of their many advantages for educational purposes, educational games development seems to adopt to a similar course (M. Pivec & P. Pivec 2009). With this course and under existing paradigms the development of educational games leads to a pool of unsustainable projects and makes the development for graduate education impossible. To change this and enable a more sustainable and advanced development of video games, educational institutions have to change their way of thinking. Learners and tutors of a specific academic subject have to be joined across universities, disciplines and educational levels to form a sufficient cluster of resources and continuous funding and maintenance. Further research has to be conducted to achieve this goal: To develop the basis for an advanced educational game a subject-specific framework has to be designed and developed to simplify further development. Moreover the elements of the fundamental game mechanics have to be identified and developed. Additionally the possibilities to further extend the development community and aggregate
resources by integrating or cooperating with schools, industry or adjacent disciplines have to be fathomed. Only a joint force is able to implement the possibilities that are outlined in recent research.
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