Shaffer (2004; 2005; 2006) proposes the Epistemic Frame Theory to describe the structure of a particular community of practice. The epistemic frame of a community of practice includes five elements that comprise the "grammar" (Gee, 1993; 1999) of how a particular professional culture uniquely operates in the world:
1) Skills (i.e., domain-specific abilities/competencies); 2) Knowledge (i.e., information, concepts);
3) Identity (i.e., social/cultural roles); 4) Values (i.e., opinions/beliefs); and
5) Epistemology (i.e., how claims are justified);
professional - occurs through making connections among these elements that are emblematic of a particular community (Svarovsky, 2011; Arastoopour & Shaffer, 2013; Chesler et al., 2013; Arastoopour et al., 2014). Using epistemic frame theory and detailed study of real-world practicum, aspects of learning in a discipline are codified to design the structures and activities of an epistemic game: an authentic learning
environment that is a computer simulation of a professional workplace that allows young people the opportunity to develop the ability to think and work like a professional
(Svarovsky, 2011; Shaffer et al., 2009; Shaffer and Resnick, 1999; Shaffer and Gee, 2012). A number of epistemic games (or “virtual internships”) have been designed over the last decade to simulate professional practice in the fields of journalism, urban
planning, engineering, and graphic art (Shaffer, 2005; Nash et al., 2012).
Recently, Boots and Strobel (2014) examined the architecture of three epistemic games designed and implemented by EGG/GAPS (Urban Science, Nephrotex, and Escher’s World) and found them to be emblematic of Leonard Annetta’s (2010) six “I’s” for serious educational game design. Their analysis suggests that these games coherently incorporate and scaffold the elements of Identity, Immersion, Interactivity, Increasing complexity, and Informed teaching to yield a game that is Instructional and educative in nature (i.e., a game that is “serious”). Additionally, epistemic games are designed with the types of “symmetrical” structures that research suggests create effective environments for collaboration (see Dillenbourg, 1999). For instance, students in the simulation have “symmetry of knowledge” in that teams are comprised of students at roughly the same level of knowledge experience in the domain. Further support for knowledge symmetry comes in the form of embedded resources needed to complete the task in the simulated
environment (i.e., all students have access to the same knowledge, information, etc.). A second symmetrical structure reflected in epistemic game design is that of student
“status” - although there are in-game mentors who provide some facilitation, the majority of the collaborative interaction is within the peer group and not defined by the mentor relationship. Lastly, there is symmetry of goals in that there is a common group goal/task that students are working toward, which mediates conflicts that could arise should
students be working to also obtain individual ones.
Most importantly, epistemic games provide an authentic, situated experience for learning wherein the ways in which students develop an epistemological identity can be observed. Epistemic games, therefore, are an example of an environment that “inverts” the traditional model of learning that suggests one must first learn about something before learning to be something. Instead, an epistemic game posits that through learning to be, students begin to learn about (Thomas and Brown, 2009).
Prior research using data from the epistemic games implemented by EGG/GAPS demonstrate the efficacy of their use in a number of ways. For instance, studies have established that “chat” is a viable method for mentoring (Bagley and Shaffer, 2010) and that teams mirror mentor discourse (Nash and Shaffer, 2010). Additionally, Chesler et al. (2013) present evidence that the virtual internship Nephrotex significantly motivated and engaged first year engineering students, and that there were significant increases in the learning of engineering content. The authors conclude that the use of chat-log data in the game can be used to effectively assess the process of learning and the attainment of educational outcomes in relation to ABET criteria. In another study, Arastoopour et al. (2013) report findings that support the proposition that, because Nephrotex is a “realistic
simulation of the epistemology of the community,” it is an effective CSCL environment that can support students’ affiliation with the community of practice through engaging the simulation.
Other studies have illuminated relationships between what groups talk about (i.e., the sematic aspects of discourse) and different types of outcomes. For example, studies have found significant and positive effects related to civic engagement (Nash et al., 2012), increases in content learning and engagement (Chesler et al., 2013), and positive associations with the focal community of practice (Hatfield, 2011; Bagley and Shaffer, 2011). Still other studies present evidence that there are relationships between the connections made between different epistemic frame elements in discourse and the development of social identity in terms of depersonalization and attraction, as well as changes in women’s views of careers in engineering (Arastoopour et al., 2013; Arastoopour et al., 2012). For instance, in one experimental study, Arastoopour et al. (2012) report that the proportion of women playing Nephrotex reporting a positive change in their views of engineering careers was significantly greater than the control group, and that male and female students who made more connections between the epistemic elements associated with the skills, knowledge and epistemology of
engineering design predicted a positive change in their views of engineering careers. In a subsequent study (see Arastoopour et al., 2014), findings suggested that women showed a statistically significant increase in self-reports of their confidence and commitment to engineering, compared to a control group, and that male and female students who
connections to the epistemology of engineering design and other aspects of engineering practice.
However, two aspects of epistemic games data have not been empirically explored. The first has to do with whether there is a relationship between how groups talk (i.e., the syntactic aspects of social interaction and discourse) and what they talk about (i.e., the types of epistemic connections they make in discourse). The second is whether how groups talk effects a change in students’ attitudes and perceptions with regard to the professional domain they are engaged in through the simulation.
2.6 Summary
In this chapter, I presented a review of scholarship that informed the development of research questions and a research design for this study. In particular, prior research has established that: (1) discourse and social interaction play a central role in how and what people learn in collaborative contexts; and (2) there are a variety of factors that influence the nature and quality of the social interaction, as well as, the process and outcomes of collaboration at the individual and group level (e.g., group composition, participation style, gender balance, interaction patterns, personal perspectives, etc.). This body of scholarship suggests that accounting for these factors in the study of discourse and collaborative interaction is not only important, but is facilitated by using data from a CSCL environment, such as a serious game, because of robust datasets that allow for in- depth analysis of variables in collaborative interaction and discourse.
Prior research has also established that there are relationships between types of conversational contributions in discourse and broadly defined learning outcomes. However, such relationships have not yet been empirically studied in a serious games
context, nor in relation to semantically based, discipline-specific outcomes. In particular, because of the affordances provided by these environments (i.e., the ability to observe complex cognitive, social, and performative processes used in solving complex problems), they are rich settings for the examination of discourse data in considering whether particular types of conversational behaviors (i.e., “how” students talk) are associated with and/or influence what students talk “about.”
Relatedly, my review found that APT is a promising and viable framework for studying collaborative interaction because it codifies conversational behaviors found to foster effective discourse, provide access to improved knowledge structures, and support collaborative learning. As noted, however, little is known about the relationship between APT and the learning of groups through discourse in situated social activity, which is an important consideration from the socio-cognitive perspective of learning. Serious games enable the examination of interaction from this situated-learning perspective because such games replicate complex environments and immerse students in simulations of real- world communities of practice.
Lastly, research on epistemic games in particular reports that participation in “virtual internships” increases motivation, engagement, and content learning for students. Additionally, studies present evidence that there are relationships between the nature and quality of student discourse and important student-level outcomes such as civic
engagement, social identity, and increased confidence and commitment. The extant research using data from epistemic games, however, has not yet considered whether there is a relationship between how groups talk (i.e., the syntactic aspects of social interaction and discourse) and: (1) what they talk about (i.e., the types of epistemic connections they
make in discourse), or (2) a change in students’ attitudes and perceptions with regard to the professional domain explored in the simulation.
Taken together, my review suggests that using the APT framework to codify and study collaborative discourse in an epistemic game is a promising approach to examine these relationships. In accord with findings from the literature reviewed in Chapters 1 and 2 presented above, in the next chapter I present my three research questions, their related hypotheses, and the design of research used to address them.