Self-Regulation of Science Learning in the Context of Educational Game Creation: A Study of Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities

这个扩大参与的研究项目将有助于学习障碍的中学生如何更好地学习科学的基础知识，因为他们学会创建教育电脑游戏。这项研究将有助于确定如何更好地教育这些学生在我国学习科学的需要。 我国学校中约有250万有学习障碍的学龄儿童。 有迫切需要确保这些学生高中毕业的科学素养的个人谁可以为社会做出贡献，追求大学教育，并在干（科学，技术，工程和数学）事业的进步。 更好地了解学习障碍学生如何在创建教育游戏的同时学习科学，有可能导致进一步的基础和应用研究，最终改善这些学生学习科学的方式，以及教师如何改善他们的教学实践，以帮助学生更好地学习科学内容和技能。乔治梅森大学的项目负责人将调查努力归因，初中学习困难学生在科学学习和教育游戏创作领域的自我效能感和自我调节过程。 有学习障碍的学生通常将他们学习的失败和成功归因于外部因素，而不是他们自己的努力。 使用社会认知理论作为他们工作的基础，研究人员将进行一项探索性研究，以检查两个主要的研究问题：1）学生学习的努力归因如何与他们对严肃教育游戏创作和掌握科学内容的自我效能感的看法有关？ 2)干预是否会导致增加的努力归因与增加的自我效能感，无论是严肃的教育游戏创作和科学学习？ 在该项目的第一阶段，学生将参加科学学习和教育游戏创作活动。 在第二阶段，第一个研究问题将与一组学生进行探讨，以获得初步数据。 在最后阶段，将研究第二个研究问题，以收集有关影响科学学习的干预措施的未来研究潜力的信息。 在探索性研究完成后，预计结果将告知未来的基础和应用教育研究的学生学习自我调节的教育游戏生成的背景下，他们的科学学习。 这项工作的成果预计将在专业出版物上与教育研究人员和公众分享。

This broadening participation research project will contribute to foundational knowledge about how middle school students with learning disabilities can better learn science as they learn to create educational computer games. This research will contribute to the need to determine how to better educate these students studying science in our country. There are approximately 2.5 million school-age children with learning disabilities in our nation's schools. There is a pressing need to ensure that these students graduate high school as science literate individuals who can contribute to society, pursue college education, and advance in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers. Gaining a better understanding of how students with learning disabilities learn science while creating educational games has the potential to lead to further basic and applied research which may ultimately improve how these students learn science and how teachers can improve their instructional practices to help students better learn science content and skills.Project leaders at George Mason University will investigate the effort attributions, self-efficacy and self-regulation processes of middle school students with learning disabilities in the areas of science learning and educational game creation. Students with learning disabilities typically attribute their failures and successes in learning to factors that are external to them, rather than to their own efforts. Using social cognitive theory as the grounding for their work, the researchers will conduct an exploratory study to examine two primary research questions: 1) How do student effort attributions for learning relate to their perceptions of self-efficacy for serious educational game creation and mastery of science content? 2) Does intervention result in increased effort attributions that correspond with increased self-efficacy for both serious educational game creation and science learning? During the first phase of this project students will participate in science learning and educational game creation activities. During the second phase the first research question will be explored with a group of students to gain preliminary data. During the final phase the second research question will be studied to gather information about the potential for future research about interventions affecting science learning. At the completion of the exploratory study, it is anticipated that results will inform future basic and applied educational research about students learning to self-regulate their science learning in the context of educational game generation. The results of this work are expected to be shared with education researchers and the public in professional publications.