Thesis (M.Sc.)(Computer Science)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-152). Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Bruckman, Amy; Committee Member: Guzdial, Mark; Committee Member: Juul, Jesper; Committee Member: Kolodner, Janet; Committee Member: Mateas, Michael.

As technology becomes more integrated in the classroom, more research is needed to examine its effects on engagement and learning. It is important that we fully explore how students interact with learning technologies and the affordances that these technologies bring to improve engagement and student learning. In this dissertation, I explored the benefits and drawbacks of using dynamic technology in the classroom as an instructional system, support structure, and assessment tool. Iterative design cycles were used to improve the accessibility and user experience of several dynamic technologies in the classroom. Additionally, the incorporation of gamified elements such as points and leaderboards were explored. Preliminary data suggests that gamified elements could lead to higher engagement and elicit behaviors associated with learning. As a result, a series of 4 randomized controlled trials were conducted that explored the intersection of gamification, engagement, and learning. This dissertation is a compilation of those studies with a focus on the development and improvement of learning platforms through an iterative design process and the incorporation of gamified elements. Based on the findings and implications of these studies, several new technologies were designed, developed, and implemented to include these gamification techniques and provide data for both educators and researchers. Recommendations for potential usage and future research are discussed.

In the UK, as many as 20% of children in primary schools are more than two years behind their peers in mathematics. Research-based intervention for such disadvantaged children has been shown to be effective but not always sufficient, such that alternative approaches might sometimes be necessary. One alternative might involve digital games. This study used a design-based research approach to investigate a prototype digital game, that implements principles of an effective numeracy intervention and draws on insights from learning theory and the cognitive sciences, designed for children in primary schools who are low-attaining in mathematics. It comprised three cycles of design, intervention, analysis and reflection. The first research cycle involved the initial design of a prototype digital game, which was researched in one school. The second research cycle involved a second iteration of the game, designed in response to the feedback of teachers and children, which was researched in three schools. The third research cycle involved the design of a final iteration of the game, which to achieve theoretical saturation was researched online with twenty-four schools. The study has shown that a game that implements principles of an effective numeracy intervention and that draws on insights from learning theory and the cognitive sciences can be designed and can be useful in schools for children who are low attaining in mathematics. However, for it to be taken up by schools, the game has to be perceived by teachers to have achieved a quality threshold. In any case, such a game is of limited use in and of itself. Where the prototype game has been shown to be most useful is when it serves as a fulcrum for social interaction and educationally productive discussion between the children and teaching staff: when it becomes an artefact that both supports individual learning and stimulates, scaffolds and mediates dialogue-based collaborative learning.

Esta dissertação investiga os efeitos da imersão física em jogos sérios com propósitos de aprendizado perceptivo. O principal objetivo é identificar um conjunto de orientações de design para ajudar desenvolvedores a escolher o nível apropriado de imersão a ser usado em jogos sérios a fim de assegurar que o jogo seja efetivo e confortável para os usuários. A hipótese principal é que altos níveis de imersão melhoram os resultados dos jogos sérios, mas níveis de imersão moderados também podem ser adequados com a vantagem de que causa menos mal-estar nos usuários. Nós organizamos uma revisão da literatura para melhor entender como a imersão física está sendo usada atualmente em jogos sérios, como a efetividade tem sido avaliada, e como a imersão afeta os resultados do jogo e a usabilidade. Então, nós conduzimos dois estudos de usuário empíricos para investigar os efeitos da fidelidade de display, interação e locomoção na percepção dos usuários e retenção de conhecimento. Para os experimentos, nós adaptamos um jogo sério previamente desenvolvido para análise de percepção de riscos, e desenvolvemos um novo jogo para educar trabalhadores sobre procedimentos de segurança que precisam ser seguidos durante instalações elétricas na linha de manutenção elétrica. Os resultados mostraram que, em geral, a fidelidade de display tem impacto na percepção de riscos quando procurando por riscos que não são óbvios. Alta fidelidade de display tem melhor desempenho na identificação de riscos complexos. A fidelidade de locomoção e interação não apresentou diferenças significantes no aprendizado perceptivo. Alta fidelidade também apresentou maior workload, mas nas mesmas condições a corretividade das tarefas foi maior e os participantes lembraram dos procedimentos tanto no pós-teste quanto no teste de retenção. Portanto, a retenção de conhecimento não foi afetada pelo workload introduzido pela técnica interativa. A partir destes experimentos, nós elaboramos e discutimos um conjunto de orientações de design que podem ser considerados para a escolha do nível apropriado de imersão física para ser usado no desenvolvimento de novos jogos sérios. / Nowadays, several application areas are adopting serious games as an ethical, safe and low-cost alternative to performing dangerous tasks, such as training of firefighters, and for medical surgeries. The employment of Virtual Reality in serious games helps to provide virtual environments much more realistic and better immersive experiences to the user. However, some VR systems can still cause sickness symptoms, such as nausea and headaches, and some of them can be expensive, such as CAVEs. This thesis investigates the effects of physical immersion on serious games with perceptual learning purposes. Its main goal is to identify a set of design guidelines to help developers on choosing the appropriate level of immersion to be used in serious games in order to assure it is effective and comfortable for users. The main hypothesis is that higher levels of immersion improve serious games outcomes, but moderate immersion may be also adequate with the advantage of causing less simulation sickness on users. We organized a survey of the literature to better understand how physical immersion is being currently used on serious games, how its effectiveness has been assessed, and how immersion impacts on the game outcomes and usability. Then, we conducted two empirical user studies looking for investigating the effects of the display, interaction and locomotion fidelity on users’ perception and knowledge retention. For the experiments, we adapted a serious game previously developed for risk assessment and developed a new one to educate workers in electricity-line maintenance on safety procedures that need to be followed during electric installations. Results showed that, in general, display fidelity has an effect on risk perception when searching for non-obvious risks. Higher display fidelity has better performance on complex risks identification. Interaction and locomotion fidelity did not show a significant difference in perceptual learning. Naturalness also presented higher workload, but in the same conditions the correctness of tasks was high and subjects recall the procedures in both post- and retention-test. Therefore, knowledge retention is not impacted by the workload imposed by the interactive technique. From these experiments, we elaborated and discussed a set of design guidelines that can be considered for the choice of the appropriate physical immersion to be used on the development of new serious games.

This thesis presents a machine learning approach to the problem of opponent modeling in games of imperfect information. The efficiency of various artificial intelligence techniques are investigated in this domain. A sequential game is called imperfect information game if players do not have all the information about the current state of the game. A very popular example is the Texas Holdem Poker, which is used for realization of the suggested methods in this thesis. Opponent modeling is the system that enables a player to predict the behaviour of its opponent. In this study, opponent modeling problem is approached as a classification problem. An architecture with different classifiers for each phase of the game is suggested. Neural Networks, K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) and Support Vector Machines are used as classifier. For modeling a particular player, KNN is found to be most successful amongst all, with a prediction accuracy of 88%. An ensemble learning system is proposed for modeling different playing styles and unknown ones. Computational complexity and parallelization of some calculations are also provided.

Thesis (M.Sc. (Clinical Psychology))--Mahidol University, 1984.

Thesis (Ph.D.(Computer Assisted Education))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 345-378). Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Esta dissertação investiga os efeitos da imersão física em jogos sérios com propósitos de aprendizado perceptivo. O principal objetivo é identificar um conjunto de orientações de design para ajudar desenvolvedores a escolher o nível apropriado de imersão a ser usado em jogos sérios a fim de assegurar que o jogo seja efetivo e confortável para os usuários. A hipótese principal é que altos níveis de imersão melhoram os resultados dos jogos sérios, mas níveis de imersão moderados também podem ser adequados com a vantagem de que causa menos mal-estar nos usuários. Nós organizamos uma revisão da literatura para melhor entender como a imersão física está sendo usada atualmente em jogos sérios, como a efetividade tem sido avaliada, e como a imersão afeta os resultados do jogo e a usabilidade. Então, nós conduzimos dois estudos de usuário empíricos para investigar os efeitos da fidelidade de display, interação e locomoção na percepção dos usuários e retenção de conhecimento. Para os experimentos, nós adaptamos um jogo sério previamente desenvolvido para análise de percepção de riscos, e desenvolvemos um novo jogo para educar trabalhadores sobre procedimentos de segurança que precisam ser seguidos durante instalações elétricas na linha de manutenção elétrica. Os resultados mostraram que, em geral, a fidelidade de display tem impacto na percepção de riscos quando procurando por riscos que não são óbvios. Alta fidelidade de display tem melhor desempenho na identificação de riscos complexos. A fidelidade de locomoção e interação não apresentou diferenças significantes no aprendizado perceptivo. Alta fidelidade também apresentou maior workload, mas nas mesmas condições a corretividade das tarefas foi maior e os participantes lembraram dos procedimentos tanto no pós-teste quanto no teste de retenção. Portanto, a retenção de conhecimento não foi afetada pelo workload introduzido pela técnica interativa. A partir destes experimentos, nós elaboramos e discutimos um conjunto de orientações de design que podem ser considerados para a escolha do nível apropriado de imersão física para ser usado no desenvolvimento de novos jogos sérios. / Nowadays, several application areas are adopting serious games as an ethical, safe and low-cost alternative to performing dangerous tasks, such as training of firefighters, and for medical surgeries. The employment of Virtual Reality in serious games helps to provide virtual environments much more realistic and better immersive experiences to the user. However, some VR systems can still cause sickness symptoms, such as nausea and headaches, and some of them can be expensive, such as CAVEs. This thesis investigates the effects of physical immersion on serious games with perceptual learning purposes. Its main goal is to identify a set of design guidelines to help developers on choosing the appropriate level of immersion to be used in serious games in order to assure it is effective and comfortable for users. The main hypothesis is that higher levels of immersion improve serious games outcomes, but moderate immersion may be also adequate with the advantage of causing less simulation sickness on users. We organized a survey of the literature to better understand how physical immersion is being currently used on serious games, how its effectiveness has been assessed, and how immersion impacts on the game outcomes and usability. Then, we conducted two empirical user studies looking for investigating the effects of the display, interaction and locomotion fidelity on users’ perception and knowledge retention. For the experiments, we adapted a serious game previously developed for risk assessment and developed a new one to educate workers in electricity-line maintenance on safety procedures that need to be followed during electric installations. Results showed that, in general, display fidelity has an effect on risk perception when searching for non-obvious risks. Higher display fidelity has better performance on complex risks identification. Interaction and locomotion fidelity did not show a significant difference in perceptual learning. Naturalness also presented higher workload, but in the same conditions the correctness of tasks was high and subjects recall the procedures in both post- and retention-test. Therefore, knowledge retention is not impacted by the workload imposed by the interactive technique. From these experiments, we elaborated and discussed a set of design guidelines that can be considered for the choice of the appropriate physical immersion to be used on the development of new serious games.

Esta dissertação investiga os efeitos da imersão física em jogos sérios com propósitos de aprendizado perceptivo. O principal objetivo é identificar um conjunto de orientações de design para ajudar desenvolvedores a escolher o nível apropriado de imersão a ser usado em jogos sérios a fim de assegurar que o jogo seja efetivo e confortável para os usuários. A hipótese principal é que altos níveis de imersão melhoram os resultados dos jogos sérios, mas níveis de imersão moderados também podem ser adequados com a vantagem de que causa menos mal-estar nos usuários. Nós organizamos uma revisão da literatura para melhor entender como a imersão física está sendo usada atualmente em jogos sérios, como a efetividade tem sido avaliada, e como a imersão afeta os resultados do jogo e a usabilidade. Então, nós conduzimos dois estudos de usuário empíricos para investigar os efeitos da fidelidade de display, interação e locomoção na percepção dos usuários e retenção de conhecimento. Para os experimentos, nós adaptamos um jogo sério previamente desenvolvido para análise de percepção de riscos, e desenvolvemos um novo jogo para educar trabalhadores sobre procedimentos de segurança que precisam ser seguidos durante instalações elétricas na linha de manutenção elétrica. Os resultados mostraram que, em geral, a fidelidade de display tem impacto na percepção de riscos quando procurando por riscos que não são óbvios. Alta fidelidade de display tem melhor desempenho na identificação de riscos complexos. A fidelidade de locomoção e interação não apresentou diferenças significantes no aprendizado perceptivo. Alta fidelidade também apresentou maior workload, mas nas mesmas condições a corretividade das tarefas foi maior e os participantes lembraram dos procedimentos tanto no pós-teste quanto no teste de retenção. Portanto, a retenção de conhecimento não foi afetada pelo workload introduzido pela técnica interativa. A partir destes experimentos, nós elaboramos e discutimos um conjunto de orientações de design que podem ser considerados para a escolha do nível apropriado de imersão física para ser usado no desenvolvimento de novos jogos sérios. / Nowadays, several application areas are adopting serious games as an ethical, safe and low-cost alternative to performing dangerous tasks, such as training of firefighters, and for medical surgeries. The employment of Virtual Reality in serious games helps to provide virtual environments much more realistic and better immersive experiences to the user. However, some VR systems can still cause sickness symptoms, such as nausea and headaches, and some of them can be expensive, such as CAVEs. This thesis investigates the effects of physical immersion on serious games with perceptual learning purposes. Its main goal is to identify a set of design guidelines to help developers on choosing the appropriate level of immersion to be used in serious games in order to assure it is effective and comfortable for users. The main hypothesis is that higher levels of immersion improve serious games outcomes, but moderate immersion may be also adequate with the advantage of causing less simulation sickness on users. We organized a survey of the literature to better understand how physical immersion is being currently used on serious games, how its effectiveness has been assessed, and how immersion impacts on the game outcomes and usability. Then, we conducted two empirical user studies looking for investigating the effects of the display, interaction and locomotion fidelity on users’ perception and knowledge retention. For the experiments, we adapted a serious game previously developed for risk assessment and developed a new one to educate workers in electricity-line maintenance on safety procedures that need to be followed during electric installations. Results showed that, in general, display fidelity has an effect on risk perception when searching for non-obvious risks. Higher display fidelity has better performance on complex risks identification. Interaction and locomotion fidelity did not show a significant difference in perceptual learning. Naturalness also presented higher workload, but in the same conditions the correctness of tasks was high and subjects recall the procedures in both post- and retention-test. Therefore, knowledge retention is not impacted by the workload imposed by the interactive technique. From these experiments, we elaborated and discussed a set of design guidelines that can be considered for the choice of the appropriate physical immersion to be used on the development of new serious games.