Worked Examples in Physics Games: Challenges in Integrating Proven Cognitive Scaffolds into Game Mechanics

Abstract

The current study is an exploratory study into the potential of integrating research on worked examples and physics games. Students were assigned to either a base version of a physics game, called the Fuzzy Chronicles, or assigned to a version of the Fuzzy Chronicles augmented with worked examples. Students in both conditions demonstrated signiicant gains on the pre-post-test, but students in the base game version demonstrated signiicantly greater gains than the students in the worked example version.The results from the current study reinforce results from other studies by our research group demonstrating how important it is that scafolds based on multimedia research (a) do not over scafold the student or promote passive, automatic behaviors, (b) do not excessively detract from the student's gameplay time, and (c) do not disrupt game cognition and low.