This research proposal reports on the practice of quest-based/game-based instructional design as well as two years of iterative design-based research (DBR) of the instructional design approach, curriculum, and tool. It also focuses on reportable student data from a semester long project aiming to identify attractive design and satisfying learning experiences in QBL.

Why Game-based Approaches?

Critics of the American education system point to student boredom, lack of personalized and relevant instruction, and a deficit of 21st century skills as challenges to producing productive citizens of a modern, digital society (Eccles & Wingfield, 2002; Ketelhut, 2007; U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology, 2010). Digital learning, including game-based approaches, offers opportunities to bring about meaningful, engaging, individualized learning (Barab & Dede, 2007; Gee, 2005; Squire, 2003).

Quest-based learning (QBL) is an instructional design theory of game-based learning that focuses on student activity choice within the curriculum, which offers promising pedagogical possibilities in the area. This study expands upon current research of video game characteristics and variables of attractiveness in learner choice.

Game-based learning is not just the use of games, educational or serious, for the purpose of formal or informal learning (Dede, 2010). GBL also includes the use of game-inspired organization and feedback in a curricular setting. One of the motivating characteristics of video games is found in the copious amount of feedback generated by the players actions in the course of gameplay (Chatfield, 2010; Gee, 2006). The feedback itself can be highly rewarding.

Game-based Feedback (GBF) applied to education can have a positive effect on student motivation and engagement. “A crucial incentive for engagement with the learning process is affirmation” (Charles, Charles, McNeill, Bustard, & Black, 2010). Affirmation is described as a condition by which the student recognizes that they are making measurable progress. When there is a failure to deliver this feedback, confident student engagement suffers.

Pedagogical Design:

In 2010, faculty at a mid-size university in the western United States began discussing the feasibility of delivering instructional quests within a curriculum similar to popular MMORPG’s like World of Warcraft, Star Trek Online, Everquest, etc. These platforms allow individual players to select from available tiered activities called quests. Applied to the educational setting, the approach allows students to choose from small pools of quests based on their attractiveness, value, interest, etc.

Elements of the pedagogical design include:

• Quests: Quests are individual learning activities. Each has an assigned experience point (XP) value which a player adds to their total when completed. Completing quests fulfills prerequisites which can unlock and make available additional curriculum. Curriculum can be organized in a multiple-branching architecture.

• Assessment: Pedagogically, the decision was made to abandon the letter grading as formative assessment. Quest dispositions were either completed (receiving the full value) or returned with instructions to modify the submission. This allowed for failure, like in games, to be analyzed by the student and incorporated into a resubmission.

• Badges: Badges represent collections of quests that can denote completion of topic areas or competence in focused areas of subject matter. While pursuing the winning condition of a course, students can also specialize in areas of the curriculum using badges. These are a component of the design philosophy of QBL.

• Course Completion: In this design, course completion or winning condition is achieved when a student reaches any predetermined combination of experience points, badges, or culminating quests. Unlike traditional grade book-driven approaches, it is possible to complete a quest-based course without completing all activities, as long as course requirements are met.

Tool:

To begin testing the approach, the faculty developed an alpha version of the tool coded in HTML and JavaScript. It was first employed for a teen gaming and leadership summer camp and later for pre-service teacher education students. A year later, the platform was recoded to improve visual design, user experience, and functionality for larger numbers of students.

This learning management system supports student activity with a singular, credentialed login. Each user views the curriculum from their own perspective. Students can see available, in-progress, and completed quests. Each quest contains a name, icon or image, XP value, average time to complete, average user rating, and category in a list. Clicking on one of these quests will expand it to reveal a short description, list of prerequisites, and tags. All quest menus are also searchable by these keywords.

Students select quests they are interested in completing and ignore those that are less interesting. As such, students choose which activities to interact with. Each quest, when activated, contains a mix of digital learning objects (DLO’s) including text, images, embedded video, interactive media, examples, and instructions to complete. Quests are synonymous with “assignments” with the exception that they are selected by the student.

The tool was also designed to display progress bars in the interface mark student progress both toward ranks, levels, and overall winning condition.

Student Outcomes:

While the system is still in closed beta, there are currently more than 5,000 users, including 400 teachers. Courses are currently being conducted in elementary school, middle school, high school, undergraduate and graduate programs, and professional education.

An additional study was conducted during the two-year DBR cycle that focused on identification of attractive quest characteristics as evidenced by user click data. The methodology for this study will be shared in detail during the session presentation but omitted here for time.

Research conducted on student success in the platform shows that 93% of students engaged in quest-based learning in the platform reached the winning condition of the course (an “A”). This includes fulfilment of both course aims and expectations associated with the standards. (Haskell, 2012)

According to this research, success is attributed to increased and multiple forms of game-based feedback, a broad and diverse curriculum, attractive quest design, removal of arbitrary due dates, and student choice. Students using this approach complete 64% more curriculum than traditional module-based courses. Students also complete the course on average 25% faster than the previous approach.