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TopThe Potential For Scientific Inquiry In Social Games
Youth and adults, both male and female, are spending increasing amounts of time playing computer games (Ito et al., 2008; Lenhart, 2010). These games often use high-end graphical engines, creating realistic and spectacular imagery. MMO environments, where players use avatars to represent themselves in online communities, are becoming a popular new venue for socializing (Castronova, 2007; Gartner, 2008).
A growing body of research is examining innovative ways of learning that may occur in social digital gaming environments (Barab, Arcici, & Jackson, 2005; de Freitas, Rebolledo-Mendez, Liarokapis, Magoulas, & Poulovassilis, 2010; Gee, 2003; Ketelhut, 2007). In many popular role-playing games (e.g., World of Warcraft), practices such as peer-review, collaboration, sharing and analysis of data, and evidence-based reasoning take place among the players (Steinkuehler & Duncan, 2008). These gaming activities appear similar to the habits of practicing scientists in professional communities who share data and observations, challenge and confirm each others’ claims, and work together to build theories through a well-recognized and explicit peer-review system (Dunbar, 2000).
Gamers’ activities are also suggestive of well-established situated learning models such as communities of practice. In a community of practice, people work together on domain-specific knowledge-building using common habits, language, and communally-accepted rules of engagement (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996). Vygotsky (1978) recognized the mediating affects of a community and tools, and the inextricability of environment and community as they mediate the learning process. Vygotsky also described a zone of proximal development (ZPD) that is the difference between what a learner can do individually and what s/he could do with assistance from others. Interestingly, a similar tenet of many game-design models is that tasks must be just outside the current grasp of a player—doable, yet challenging—and often requiring the assistance of other players and/or tools within the game (McGonigal, 2011). A good social game always has a new task to be accomplished and a group of people to help.