Gamified approach to teaching introductory astronomy online

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] An increased interest in using video games in educational contexts has led to many innovations in both formal and informal environments. Educational researchers, instructional designers, and educators have sought and developed ways to incorporate video games or gamelike elements into a curriculum. We present a study of a web-based college-level introductory astronomy class in which content is delivered entirely in a digital world setting through nonplayer characters and built-in minigames. Based on prior research on the potential benefits of video games for use in education, we expect that topics covered in the minigames, the most gamified aspects of the course, should be particularly effective. Using data collected through pre- and post-testing of two sections of ASTRO 001V (the designation given in Penn State’s course catalog) with the Test Of Astronomy Standards, we focused our analysis on six questions that pertain directly to minigame topics. We found that two of these questions showed encouraging gains, while the other four demonstrated that students continued to hold on to common alternate conceptions within those topic areas. This finding suggests that more work is required to understand how to improve the games in ways that will further support student astronomy learning.

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Figure 1

Screenshot from ASTRO 001V showing part of the University of Mars underground complex.

Figure 2

Screenshot from the Gravity Platformer minigame showing the player avatar jumping between platforms in Moon gravity.

Figure 3

Screenshot of the Moon Phases minigame taken after a question was answered correctly.

Figure 4

Screenshot from the part of the Spectroscopy minigame where the students see how absorption (shown here) and emission occur on the scale of individual atoms.

Figure 5

Comparison of how students responded to TOAST question 5 on the pre- and post-test. Question adapted from Ref. [29].

Figure 6

Comparison of how students responded to TOAST question 25 on the pre- and post-test. Question adapted from Ref. [29].

Figure 7

Comparison of how students responded to TOAST question #26 on the pre- and post-test. Question adapted from Ref. [29].