Cellvival! The Design and Evaluation of a Game to Teach Biology

Science labs and educational digital games can be very useful tools for dealing with the inherent challenges of science education. Among these, one key challenge is lack of engagement or motivation (Cordova & Lepper, 1996; Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000; Kuh, 2001; Krapp, 2002; Carini, Kuh, and Klein, 2006) and another is dealing with naïve theories students have formed prior to instruction that affect how they interpret new information (Carey, 1989; Carey & Wiser, 1989; Gopnik, Meltzoff, Kuhl, 1995). There is also the general difficulty of getting one to change their current theory in more than a superficial way (Kuhn, 1962; Wiser and Carey, 1983; Carey, 1985; Vosniadou & Brewer, 1987; Ozdemir & Clark, 2007). Finally, there is the finding that students will have better outcomes with certain epistemologies (Songer & Linn, 2001), which means an educator must be mindful of tacit epistemology of their curricula and behavior to pursue optimal educational outcomes. While daunting, these challenges are not insurmountable.