The present investigation was designed to increase the moral judgment and simultaneous role-taking skills of institutionalized male juvenile delinquents and investigated possible effects of affect on the subjects' responses to treatment.

In this study we wanted to compare how history teachers working in various stages in the compulsory school and high school bring history to life through artifacts and narrations and how it differed based on the students’ cognitive maturity. We also studied how the combination of artifacts, role-playing games and stories can affect students’ learning of history. Semi-structured interviews with five teachers ranging from middle school up to high school were implemented and we coded the results through materialistic and narrative theories. Our findings conclude that authentic artifacts are rarely used because teachers do not have the resources to administer them. Instead photographs and generated artifacts are most used. Narrations in the form of stories and role-playing games are used to help students understand how history is used today and to help the students understand past actors in their own contexts. Our research also shows that popular history is present in history education because teachers believe it is engaging for the students. Popular themes such as the Viking-age and the World Wars are easier for the students to engage with. Therefore, narratives from popular historical themes are easier to bring to life in history education. The higher the education, the more abstract use of history brought to life. In our findings we concluded that when history was brought to life in middle school education it was to make learning more entertaining. In the higher stages it was used to bring actual artifacts as tools to work with abstract didactical themes such as uses of history and critical analysis of sources. This correlates with the cognitive maturity of the students’ ages. Combined, artifacts and narrations give a more holistic view of the past since it provided multimodal teaching opportunities for the students regarding their historical empathy and historical understanding.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Clinical simulation is an innovative teaching/learning strategy that supports the efforts of educators to prepare students for practice. Despite the positive implications of clinical simulations in nursing education, no empirical evidence exists to inform effective teaching in simulated learning environments. The purpose of this research is to create an instrument to measure effective teaching strategies in clinical simulation contexts. The conceptual framework for this study is the Nursing Education Simulation Framework. The Student Perception of Effective Teaching in Clinical Simulation (SPETCS) is a survey instrument scored on a 5-point Likert scale with two response scales: Extent and Importance. The Extent response scale measures participants’ perception of the extent to which the instructor used a particular teaching strategy during the simulation, and the Importance response scale measures perception of the degree of importance of the teaching strategy toward meeting simulation learning outcomes. A descriptive, quantitative, cross-sectional design was used. Evidence to support content validity was obtained via a panel of simulation experts (n = 7) which yielded a content validity index of .91. A convenience sample of undergraduate nursing students (n = 121) was used for psychometric analysis. Internal consistency reliability met hypothesized expectations for the Extent (α = .95) and Importance (α = .96) response scales. Temporal stability reliability results were mixed; correlations between administration times met expectations on the Importance scale (ICC = .67), but were lower than expected on the Extent scale (ICC = .52). Both response scales correlated within hypothesized parameters with two criterion instruments (p < .01). The Importance scale was selected for exploratory factor analysis (EFA). EFA revealed 2 factors: Learner Support and Real-World Application. The result of careful item and factor analysis was an easy to administer 33 item scale with 2 response scales. The SPETCS has evidence of reliability and validity and can serve as a tool for the assessment, evaluation, and feedback in the ongoing professional development of nurse educators who use clinical simulations in the teaching/learning process. In addition, results of this study can support the identification of best practices and teaching competencies in the clinical simulation environment.

Video game researchers have recently begun to explore qualitative techniques to understand video games and their audiences. Yet many questions remain concerning the significance of gaming media and how video game research should be conducted. This research addresses the changing focus of video game researchers from the "producers," or sender of the video game, to the "audience" or receiver. This is accomplished in the following ways: by exploring meanings created by individuals while "role-playing" in an electronic world as an on-screen video game avatar; by using the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET), to gather a deeper understanding of how players are interpreting the video game creators intended message, and focusing on the relationships formed between a player and their onscreen character. Using the ZMET method the author conducts ten in-depth interviews looking at the interviewees' relation with the Super Mario Bros avatar to gain an understanding of player-avatar relationships. Interviews are then discussed to describe how these individuals understand the video game message and avatar relationship.

This project responds to a problem in scholarship describing the relationship between virtual avatars and their physical users. In Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle identifies points of slippage wherein the persona of the avatar becomes conflated with the user‘s sense of self to create an authentic self predicated on both real and virtual experiences (Turkle 184-5). Although the conflation of the authentic self with the virtual has provided various affordances for serious games or other pedagogical projects such as classrooms hosted through the game Second Life, the processes enabling identification with an avatar have been largely overlooked. This project examines several layers of influence that affect how users play with identity to create successful social performances within an online community connected to a work of fiction. In doing so, the user must consider his or her own motivations for creating a persona, how these motivations will allow the avatar to achieve social acceptance, and how these social performances connect to the scene created by the work of fiction. Using an online role-playing forum based on a work of fiction as a site of analysis, this project will borrow from game studies, dramatism, and identity theory to create a framework for discussing processes through which users identify with their virtual avatars.

To increase student engagement in their classroom, the author created an art curriculum using gamification methods that incorporates elements of tabletop role-playing games. The Role-playing Art Curriculum is a key element of this thesis. Possible research approaches involving game-based learning and gamification were examined to point toward future research and reflection regarding games and game-like content into an art curriculum. Action research methods were used to create and run the Role-playing Art Curriculum. The author concludes that the gamified curriculum took extra preparation and required more management to run then other traditional art curriculums.

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Deivisceris is a four-player role-playing tabletop game that focuses on themes of horror. It looks into ideas from the horror genre as a whole while combining aspects from the body horror and cosmic horror subgenres to create a discomforting horror experience. The game features illustrations and written events with a choice-based narrative that can have multiple outcomes depending on a player's decisions, stats, and items. Deivisceris utilizes randomness in order to create a new experience each time it is played through randomized characters and a randomized game board that is built up as it is played. The game reveals its narrative through clues within the gameplay, illustrations, and written text as characters enter the game's world blindly. Deivisceris is an immersive tabletop horror experience that can be further expanded on in the future with the possibility of a larger production. / Master of Fine Arts / Deivisceris is a four-player tabletop game that looks into the ways horror can be created in a board game format. It examines various ideas from the horror genre as a whole while taking inspiration more directly from two subgenres of horror: body horror and cosmic horror, each of which has very different ways of evoking horror. The game includes a variety of full-color illustrations and written situations that give players a chance to make their own decisions. Deivisceris utilizes randomness in order to create a new experience every time it is played. The game board is built up differently every time it is played and characters' stats, such as strength, intelligence, and endurance, may be different in each game. The game's story is revealed through clues within the gameplay, illustrations, and text. Deivisceris is a tabletop role-playing horror experience that can be further expanded on in the future with the possibility of a larger production.