Figure 1. Activity Theory Model of Serious Games diagram for the MolWorlds game.
MolWorlds: Activity theory model of serious games
Details
Role: Illustrator, Principle investigator
Other team members: Jodie Jenkinson (research and supervision)
Audience: HCI designers, Academics
Description: Figure 1 above applies the Activity Theory Model of Serious Games (ATMSG) (Carvalho et al., 2015), to visualise the game flow of the MolWorlds game, as well as to demonstrate of gaming mechanics, learning mechanics, and intrinsic instructional mechanics are intertwined in the game to achieve the learning objectives. Specifically, the gaming mechanics were integrated to promote productive negativity — that is, experiences of failure or frustration that prompts players to modify their misconceptions in order to be successful in the game. It can be compared and contrasted to Figure 2 below displaying the ATMSG for a similar interactive simulation (MolSandbox) that lacks game mechanics. Figure 3 then demonstrates how these changes in HCI design fundamentally alter players’ experiences of productive negativity in these environments and Figure 4 quantifies how players reacted in response to negative events. This work and its implications for educational technology design was published in the journal of Computers & Education.
Medium: Adobe Illustrator
MolSandbox: ATMSG
Figure 2. Activity Theory Model of Serious Games for the interactive simulation, MolSandbox.
Figure 3. Comparison of productively negative experiences enabled by MolWorlds and MolSandbox.
Figure 4. Interactions leading to positive progression in the interventions immediately following a negative event.