Computer Games in Education Papers by John W. Rice

John serves as a program/project coordinator for the Texas Center for Educational Technology, and as an adjunct professor in the Dept. of Teacher Education and Administration at the University of North Texas.

John's research interest is educational applications of video games.
This page contains papers accepted for publication and presentation on the topic.

Rice, J.W. (2006, April). New media resistance: Barriers to implementation of computer video games in the classroom. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting 2006, San Francisco, CA.

Computer video games are an emerging instructional medium offering strong degrees of cognitive efficiencies for experiential learning, team building, and greater understanding of abstract concepts. As with other new media adopted for use by instructional technologists for pedagogical purposes, barriers to classroom implementation have manifested in tandem with rising interest in the medium. This presentation draws upon a broad analysis of current research dealing with the educative impact of computer video games in the classroom, with a focus on these barriers to implementation. This research study was a qualitative review of 12 scholarly papers exploring the use of computer video games in the classroom. For each paper, the barriers to implementation were identified and summarized. Such barriers include a lack of pedagogically appropriate and standards-based computer games, a lack of understanding concerning the differences between arcade-style games and more complex role-playing, graphically dense, and cognitively viable modern games, and a traditional disdain for the notion of learning as fun.

Handout

Rice, J.W. (In press). Assessing higher order thinking in video games. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education.

Computer video games have become highly interesting to educators and researchers since their sophistication has improved considerably over the last decade. Studies indicate simple video games touting educational benefits are common in classrooms. However, a need for identifying truly useful games for educational purposes exists. This paper begins with an examination of lower level learning in so-called edutainment products and concludes with an example of an advanced social studies simulation that fosters higher order thinking. The paper identifies characteristics of highly cognitive virtual interactive environments and offers a detailed index and scoring rubric as a tool for teachers and pre-service teachers to use when evaluating the tendencies a video game demonstrates toward encouraging higher order thinking in its participants.