Perceived Sociability and Social Presence in a Collaborative Serious Game

Collaborative serious games have proven to have the potential to support joint knowledge construction, and there is a growing interest in applying such games to promote high-level learning. However, most of the existing studies have focused on the effects of functional, task-specific support while ignoring the social aspects of collaborative learning. This study is one aim to fill in the knowledge gap in order to understand how learners experience educational games as a means of social interaction and collaboration. The findings indicated that the game environment facilitated and supported players’ socio-emotional processes by eliciting students’ social presence and sociability. This has been further shown to play an important role in the emergence of social interaction and collaborative learning. These results can be applied in the design of collaborative educational games that support social aspects of collaborative learning. DOI: 10.4018/ijgbl.2013010103 International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 3(1), 34-50, January-March 2013 35 Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. contexts, CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) (Dourish & Bellotti, 1992), and in school contexts, CSCL (Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning) (Koschmann,1996), has become increasingly essential when attempting to determine how to meet the challenges and needs of future learners (e.g., Wang, 2009; Whitton, 2010). The advantages of using technology have been considered, such as the possibility of working anytime and anywhere, paying attention to learners’ common knowledge construction processes, and offering added value to learning in the form of more concrete working environments. Multiplayer collaborative serious games are one way to use technology to support collaborative learning. Applying collaborative learning (see Crook, 1998; Minnaert, Boekaerts, De Brabander, & Opdenakker, 2011) in game settings can be seen as one of today’s innovations. Thus, collaborative learning and shared problem solving are overlapping processes, and in practice, game design may apply knowledge produced in CSCL research. Additionally, collaborative learning (Roschelle & Teasley, 1995; Sawyer, 2007) and joint problem solving in games (Burton & Martin, 2010; Hummel, van Houcke, Nadolski, van der Hiele, Kurvers, & Löhr, 2011) takes place by distributing participants’ own thoughts and expertise, by listening to and elaborating on the views of the others, and through the creative and shared knowledge construction of different thoughts and conclusions to reach common goals. Thus, at their best, game tasks encourage creative collaboration that includes elements whereby students need to make choices based on evidence, consider alternative solutions, investigate a variety of clues in different conditions, and explore new and even counterpoint issues before a particular solution can be reached (Reiser, 2004; Ruiz-Primo, Figueroa, & Gluckman, 2011). However, these games are not without certain challenges and should therefore not be seen as a panacea or a guarantee of the emergence of collaborative learning. A GAME AS A SOCIABLE CSCL ENVIRONMENT Multiplayer games have become increasingly popular in recent years (Steinkuehler, 2006; Kallio, Mäyrä, & Kaipainen, 2011; Yee, 2007). Previous studies have shown that collaborative serious games have the potential to support high-level knowledge construction (e.g., Burton & Martin, 2010; Hummel et al., 2010; Hämäläinen & Oksanen, 2012; Bluemink, Hämäläinen, Manninen, & Järvelä, 2010). In addition, it is generally agreed that the development of games permits ever more diverse ways of designing learning for the future. Two such examples are the demonstration of dangerous situations on construction sites (Hämäläinen, Oksanen & Häkkinen, 2008) and the promotion of global empathy and interest in learning (Bachen, Hernández-Ramos & Raphael, 2012). Thus, there is a growing interest in applying collaborative games to support different types of learning goals (e.g., Silseth, 2012; Whitton, 2010). Collaborative serious games can be considered a specific sub-category of CSCL environments (Kreijns, Kirschner, Jochems, & van Buuren, 2007). This is supported by the view that to improve the possibility of high-level collaboration occurring, learners’ actions needs to be guided (Bluemink et al., 2010, Hämäläinen et al., 2008); game design offers many possibilities to do that, for example, in the form of different kinds of task structures and game design strategies (e.g., Dickey, 2005). Kreijns, Kirschner and Jochems (2003) have identified the major pitfalls for social interaction in CSCL environments: the belief in the emergence of social interaction and collaborative activities as long as they are made possible, and the dismissal of the social and psychological dimension of 15 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the product's webpage: www.igi-global.com/article/perceived-sociability-socialpresence-collaborative/77314? camid=4v1 This title is available in InfoSci-Journals, InfoSci-Journal Disciplines Library Science, Information Studies, and Education. Recommend this product to your librarian: www.igi-global.com/e-resources/libraryrecommendation/? id=2