Congratulations to Curriculum & Instruction's Luc Paquette, PI, who NSF awarded nearly $700K for the project "Collaborative Research: Advancing the Science of STEM Interest Development through Educational Gameplay with Machine Learning and Data-driven Interviews".
Professor of Educational Psychology, Computer Science, and Curriculum & Instruction H. Chad Lane is serving as Co-PI on the project, which starts on July 15, 2023. A short description of the work from the project abstract:
The integration of digital games into STEM education has been an active area of research for quite some time, but details about how students' interactions with educational games may or may not reflect their interest is more difficult to obtain. This project will use a Minecraft-based simulation environment to advance understanding of how educational digital games can support the development of enduring STEM interest.
Middle school students in summer and afterschool camps will experiment with a variety of scientific topics in the What-If Hypothetical Implementations in Minecraft (WHIMC) learning system while researchers interview them at key points in their gameplay to better understand how their interest is developing. In this way, the project will contextualize how decisions made by students while engaging with the educational game are related to their prior STEM interest and how they may, in turn, influence the development of enduring STEM interest. This work will contribute advanced tools and methodological resources for studying STEM learning and interest that will help broaden participation in STEM.
Learn more about this research, here.
