The purpose of this study was to investigate the choice behavior and achievement of male and female high school students who are given an option of taking a 36 week American History course in either a game-based format or a web-based format. It was hypothesized that (a) males would enroll more frequently in the game-based course than females, (b) there would be no significant difference in achievement between males and females in the game-based course or across course formats, and (c) there would be no significant interaction between gender and the selection of course format. The study consisted of a sample of 7,962 11th grade students who enrolled in American History during the 2009/2010 school year at the Florida Virtual School (FLVS). Students planning to take 11th grade American History at FLVS were given the choice of enrolling in a game-based class format or a standard web-based online class format. A chi-square test of independence was used to analyze enrollment rates. An independent t test was used to analyze achievement based on gender in the game-based course. A two-way factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze achievement data based on gender across course formats, enrollment, and the interaction of gender and enrollment. The chi-square results indicated that there is a relationship between gender and enrollment. Males chose to enroll in the game-based format of the course more frequently than females and females chose to enroll in the web-based format of the course more frequently than males. The independent t test results indicated that there is no significant difference in achievement based on gender in the game-based course. The ANOVA results indicated that there are significant differences in achievement based on gender as well as enrollment, but there are no significant differences in achievement based on the interaction of gender and enrollment. Implications for researchers, teachers, administrators, game developers, and funders are provided.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-5477 |
| Date | 01 January 2012 |
| Creators | Regan, Damon A. |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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