The purpose of this study was to determine if an educational tool such as NEWSGAME affects students' learning about current events. To determine the effectiveness of this game, an end-of-year post-test was given to the following groups: (1) students that played NEWSGAME regularly; (2) students that played NEWSGAME occasionally; (3) students that never played NEWSGAME. In addition, demographic data such as age and sex was analyzed to determine if differences in knowledge of various current event categories existed among these groups. A survey measuring students' opinion of NEWSGAME was also collected. This study involved the participation of 350 students in 11 social studies classrooms. Of the total sample, there were 183 males and 157 females. Ten cases were not identified. The students ranged in age from 11 to 19 with the majority being 12-15 year-olds. Instrumentation consisted of a Current Events Questionnaire composed of 81 questions covering 14 areas of international, national and state issues. These consisted of multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank statements. The data analysis indicated that students who played NEWSGAME regularly scored higher than those who played occasionally. Those who played NEWSGAME occasionally scored higher than those who never played NEWSGAME. Males were found to score higher than females whether NEWSGAME was played regularly or in the occasional/none category. Students over the age of 14 who played regularly scored higher than students under the age of 14. An unusual finding was that students under the age of 14 who played occasionally or not at all scored better than students over age 14 who played occasionally or not at all. Overall, it can be concluded that the NEWSGAME experience was most beneficial for males who were older than 14 who played the game regularly. In response to the question whether students liked or disliked NEWSGAME, 91% indicated they liked this educational tool.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S.C.I.T.)--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2006. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on May 25, 2006). Includes bibliographical references.

Mobile virtual reality has the potential to improve learning experiences by making them more immersive and engaging for students. This type of virtual reality also aims to be more cost effective by using a smartphone to drive the virtual reality experience. One issue with mobile virtual reality is that the screen (i.e. main interface) of the smartphone is occluded by the virtual reality headset. To investigate solutions to this issue, this project details the development and testing of a computer vision based controller that aims to have a cheaper per unit cost when compared to a conventional electronic controller by making use of 3D printing and the built-in camera of a smartphone. Reducing the cost per unit is useful for educational contexts as solutions would need to scale to classrooms sizes. The research question for this project is thus, “can a computer vision based virtual reality controller provide comparable immersion to a conventional electronic controller”. It was found that a computer vision based controller can provide comparable immersion, though it is more challenging to use. This challenge was found to contribute more towards engagement as it did not diminish the performance of users in terms of question scores.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Central Florida, 2008. / Adviser: Barbara A. Fritzsche. Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-150).

Much work has done on teaching Computer Science by having students program games, but little has been done on teaching Computer Science by having the students learn from playing educational games. The current work in this field does not seem to be particularly cohesive, so there is no clear idea of what has already been done, and what works. The focus of this thesis is to provide a clearer picture of the range of games available for teaching Computer Science, and to provide guidelines for designing and evaluating them. The first and primary part of the thesis was to find and provide detailed information on as many of the existing educational games that teach Computer Science as possible. An extensive search was performed, and 41 games were found. From these it can be seen that while a few topics, mainly binary and introductory programming concepts, have sufficient coverage, most topics in Computer Science have barely been touched. Of the games for teaching Computer Science that were found, most were available online, at no cost, and only required a short time investment to play. The second part of the thesis focuses on growing the number of games that could be used for teaching Computer Science. This is achieved by providing guidelines on producing new work, and an example game is produced to test the guidelines.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of New South Wales, 2000. / Also available online.