Measuring Higher-Order Cognitive Skills in Collective Interactions with Computer Game

Abstract

The present study is focused on testing the computer game system ‘PL-modified’ as a diagnostic tool for measurement of higher-order cognitive skills by middle-school students in individual and collaborative game. The ‘PL-modified’ is a computer system designed as a game which implies a set of concrete parameters specially elaborated for assessment of the cognitive actions of analysis, planning, and reflection — the basic higher-order cognitive functions which determine high achievements in school education according to the Russian theory of developmental education. 189 middle-school students at the age of 11—12 years participated in this study. Two research questions were asked: 1) whether the cognitive actions of analysis, planning, and reflection measured by special markers of the computer game system performance are correlated with each other as a valid indicator for the new constructed diagnostic instrument; 2) which type of the game — individual or collaborative — provides better conditions for manifestation of the above mentioned higher mental actions. Abstract intelligence as an additional anticipated factor for high game performance was also assessed and controlled. It was revealed that participants exhibit the higher level of the cognitive actions of analysis and planning in collaborative game. At the same time the patterns of the interactions between the researched variables as well as distinct parameters of game performance are determined by the concrete level of intelligence which rather varies in different pairs of collaborators. We discuss our results from the position of the further prospects for the application of the ‘Pl-modified’ computer system as a potential instrument of measurement and development of higher-order thinking actions. In terms of the modern educational programs teachers need simple diagnostic tools for measurement of school-children’s thinking development. Traditional ‘pen-and-paper’ techniques become quickly outdated as much as they may not be sufficiently motivationally attractive for children and focus only on the result of the thinking process. In this regard, such diagnostic instrument formed in the format of a computer game and centered on the whole gaming process allows fixing children’s actions and provides important information on the dynamic characteristics of their mental process.