STRUCTURE MAPPING THEORY AS A FORMALISM FOR INSTRUCTIONAL GAME DESIGN AND ASSESSMENT

CyGaMEs, which stands for Cyberlearning through Game-based, Metaphor Enhanced Learning Objects, is a formal approach to the design of instructional learning environments through applied structure mapping theory. This paper summarizes the CyGaMEs research program: its origin; the CyGaMEs approach to design, development, and assessment; the experimental paradigm; and findings using CyGaMEs’ online, single-player research environment, Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME. A STRUCTURE MAPPING APPROACH TO LEARNING ENVIRONMENT DESIGN A quarter of a century of cognitive science research has built consensus supporting major tenets of structure mapping theory: people conduct analogical reasoning through a mapping of structure from source to target domain, mapping is constrained by the analogizer’s immediate goal (Holyoak, Gentner, & Kokinov, 2001), and mapping is more probable and profound when two domains share relational structure (i.e., systematicity, Gentner, 1983). Analogical reasoning is ubiquitous in higher order thinking and learning (Hummel & Holyoak, 1997), and it leads to inferences about a to-be-learned domain. Viable inferences make learning more intuitive. Unfortunately, superficial mappings based upon mere structural similarities can lead to misconceptions or alternative conceptions that interfere with learning (Gentner & Markman, 1997). For example, day-to-day lived experience in the physical world can lead to extremely robust “commonsense beliefs about motion and force incompatible with Newtonian concepts” (Hestenes, Wells, & Swackhamer, 1992, p. 141). Today, advances in computer-based technologies enable us to build worlds, albeit virtual worlds, through which lived experience can make complex concepts intuitive. This is because structure mapping theory can be applied as a formalism for designing virtual physical worlds that are analogs of targeted conceptual domains. Furthermore, game-based technologies, which are goal oriented, provide the means to design the pragmatic constraints necessary to guide learners toward viable inferences. CyGaMEs, which stands for Cyberlearning through Game-based, Metaphor Enhanced Learning Objects, is an approach to the design of instructional learning environments through applied structure mapping. A CyGaME translates an abstract concept into procedural, goal-driven, embodied interactions. Because a CyGaME is the analog of the to-be-learned, it prepares learners to make viable inferences about the targeted domain. When learners can infer relational structure of a to-be-learned domain, knowledge acquisition is more intuitive. As with methods proposed by Schwartz, Martin and their colleagues (2004), CyGaMEs is an approach for producing learning environments designed as “preparation for future learning. ” This paper summarizes the CyGaMEs research program: its origin; the approach to design, development, and assessment; the experimental paradigm; and findings using CyGaMEs’ online, single-player research environment Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME. Structure Mapping Theory as Formalism for Instructional Game Design & Assessment