Applying Game Design Principles for Supporting Computational Literacy Experiences in Museum Exhibits

掌握计算知识对日常生活和扩大劳动力能力越来越重要。研究表明，可以通过玩数字游戏来支持计算能力-知道什么、何时、如何以及为什么要使用计算机科学的思想，并结合通过计算结构和程序的透镜来看待问题和潜在解决方案的能力。该项目旨在开发一个社交和创意展览游戏，突出计算机科学的各个方面，特别是人工智能（AI）和计算机编程，使年轻人能够探索，构建和共享计算复杂系统内容。为了玩这个游戏，成对的年轻游客将使用代码卡来编程虚拟森林中AI动物的行为。当他们这样做时，年轻人将参与计算扫盲实践，例如基本的计算机编程，描述他们的计算想法，并与他们的朋友一起解决计算问题。他们的活动将被投射到大屏幕上，作为一种策略，使年轻人能够测试，排练和交流他们的计算想法，并吸引其他游客参与计算问题的解决。使用多视角和迭代的基于设计的研究，大学学习科学家，博物馆从业者，游戏开发者将围绕科学博物馆如何更好地吸引传统上在计算机科学领域代表性不足的年轻人进行研究，复杂的计算实践。数据来源将包括互动日志数据、游客与游戏互动的观察、游客访谈和游客调查。一个多模态和混合方法的方法，搜索之间的收敛定性分析，定量分析和学习分析将被用来生成研究结果。计算素养的变化将通过评估访问者选择用编程解决什么问题，他们如何构建这些问题，以及他们从可能的解决方案中选择，他们编程什么，他们如何编程，以及他们如何描述编程思想来评估。该项目的成果将包括：1）支持计算素养发展的社交互动游戏体验; 2）促进计算素养发展的基于游戏的展览设计原则; 3）不同游戏用户（包括计算机科学中代表性不足的群体）的设计和游戏变化的新知识。预计将有1 000名博物馆青年参观者直接参与这项研究。 该项目由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括提供多种途径，以扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验，推进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及发展参与者对深入学习的理解。

Becoming computationally literate is increasingly crucial to everyday life and to expanding workforce capacity. Research suggests that computational literacy--knowing what, when, how, and why to use the ideas of computer science, in combination with the capacity to view problems and potential solutions through the lens of computational structures and procedures--can be supported through digital game play. This project aims to develop a social and creative exhibit game that foregrounds aspects of computer science, specifically artificial intelligence (AI) and computer programming, in ways that enable youth to explore, construct, and share computational complex systems content with one another and other museum visitors. To play the game, pairs of youth visitors will use code cards to program the behavior of AI animals in a virtual forest. As they do so, youth will engage with computational literacy practices, such as basic computer programming, describing their computational ideas, and doing computational problem solving with their friends. Their activity will be projected on a large screen as a strategy for enabling youth to test, rehearse, and communicate their computational ideas and to also interest other visitors into computational problem solving.Using multi-perspective and iterative design-based research, university learning scientists, museum practitioners, and game developers will pursue research questions around how science museums can better engage youth who are traditionally underrepresented in computer science in complex computational practices. Data sources will include interactive-log data, observations of visitor interactions with the game, visitor interviews, and visitor surveys. A multimodal and mixed methods approach that searches for convergences between qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, and learning analytics will be used to generate research findings. Changes in computational literacy will be assessed by evaluating what problems visitors choose to solve with programming, how they frame those problems, and their selections from among possible solutions, what they program, how they program, and how they describe programming ideas. The results of this project will include: 1) a social, interactive gameplay experience that supports the development of computational literacy; 2) design principles for game-based exhibits that facilitate development of computational literacy; and 3) new knowledge of variations in design and gameplay across diverse gameplay users, including those from underrepresented groups in computer science. It is anticipated that 1,000 museum youth visitors will directly participate in the study. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.