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Education Faculty Publications Isabelle Farrington College Of Education
2-2013
Game Design and Homemade Powerpoint Games: An Game Design and Homemade Powerpoint Games: An
Examination of the Justi<cations and a Review of the Research Examination of the Justi<cations and a Review of the Research
Jason Paul Siko
Grand Valley State University
Michael Barbour
Sacred Heart University
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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation
Siko, J. P., & Barbour, M. (2013). Game design and homemade Powerpoint games: An examination of the
justi<cations and a review of the research.
Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 22
(1),
81-108.
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at DigitalCommons@SHU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Education Faculty Publications by an authorized
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Jl. of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia (2013), 22 (1), 81-108.
Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An
Examination of the Justifications and
a Review of the Research
JASON PAUL SIKO
Grand Valley State University, USA
MICHAEL KRISTOPHER BARBOUR
Wayne State University
Research on educational games often focuses on the benets
that playing games has on student achievement. However,
there is a growing body of research examining the benets
of having students design games rather than play them. Prob-
lems with game design as an instructional tool include the
additional instruction on the programming language itself as
well as the potential costs associated with new software. One
way to mitigate these problems is to use Microsoft Power-
Point as game design software. While not intended for this
purpose, MS PowerPoint is ubiquitous in schools and requires
little additional instruction before students can design games.
In this literature review, we introduce homemade PowerPoint
games, examine the three pedagogical justications for their
use (i.e., constructionism, narrative writing, and question
writing), and review research studies involving homemade
PowerPoint games. When we compared the recommendations
from the literature for the justications with how the home-
made PowerPoint games were implemented, we found that
the recommendations were not followed. Future research ex-
amining the use of homemade PowerPoint games should look
to better align the implementation of a game design project
with recommendations based on the research examining the
individual justications.
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Siko and Barbour
Aldrich (2005) dened an educational game as a simulation that has el-
ements of entertainment. While their purpose is to educate, games them-
selves, “…do not support learning objectives directly” (p. 85). Games have
built-in inefciencies. For example, Aldrich stated that there are numerous
ways of putting a ball in a hole that are better than using a golf club that
make obtaining the objective more time consuming yet more enjoyable at
the same time. At a deeper level, games provide learners with opportunities
to collaborate, problem-solve, and to develop a sense of place in a simulated
world through self-discovery (Kafai, 2006). Games can help contribute rich
experiences that are often not found in a traditional classroom setting, and
those experiences can provide skills that students need in the twenty-rst
century (Kebritchi & Hirumi, 2008).
Research has shown that games been found to increase motivation, teach
complex understanding, provide opportunities for reective learning, and
give feedback and points for self-regulation (Betrus & Botturi, 2010). How-
ever, games are not a panacea for all that ails education (Prensky, 2008); for
all of their benets as a tool for maintaining motivation and interest (Gee,
2003), empirical research has not made a convincing case for their use in
classrooms (Hays, 2010). The research has often shown neither an advan-
tage nor disadvantage over traditional instructional methods, and given the
complexity of tying instruction to games, one could question the extra use
of time and other resources for little or no additional benet.
While research has often focused on how students learn by playing
games, a separate line of research has examined the effects of students act-
ing as designers of educational games. The idea of students learning by
building an artifact, such as a game, has been called constructionism (Pap-
ert, 1991). Kafai (2006) contrasted the instructivist method of using games
as a way to sweeten learning, where through game design students construct
knowledge while building technological uency through their design deci-
sions.
One of the problems associated with game design as an instructional
strategy is the time commitment involved; in addition to the content, stu-
dents must learn a programming language as well (Barbour, Thomas,
Rauscher, & Rieber, 2008). The teacher may not have the requisite skill to
program, let alone teach how to program in a computer language. Therefore,
researchers have looked at “low-tech” ways to have students create games
while still using computers, getting the benets believed to be associated
with constructionist teaching without the time and resource allocation. One
way teachers can use game design to teach is by using Microsoft Power-
Point as a game design tool. MS PowerPoint is ubiquitous in schools, and
while it does not have the capabilities of many programming languages such
as Scratch or Alice, it requires little additional instruction before students
can begin designing games.
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Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
Proponents of homemade PowerPoint games have provided three philo-
sophical justications to support their use as an instructional tool (Barbour,
Thomas, Rauscher, & Rieber, 2010). First, the games are consistent with
constructionist pedagogy. Second, the students gain a deeper understand-
ing of the material by writing concise narratives for the games. Third, the
students must write quality questions for the game, which further enhances
their understanding of the material. However, despite these justications,
studies involving the use of MS PowerPoint as a game design tool have,
for the most part, shown no benets to student performance over traditional
methods (Siko, Barbour, & Toker, 2011; Barbour, Clesson, & Adams, 2011;
Barbour, Kinsella, & Rieber, 2011; Parker, 2004). Current research is being
conducted to examine why instruction using homemade PowerPoint games
have not shown additional benets over traditional methods of instruction.
The purpose of this literature review is to examine whether prior research
and implementation of homemade PowerPoint game projects were congru-
ent with the justications for their use. In other words, was there evidence
of the three justications in each of the previous studies involving home-
made PowerPoint games?
In this literature review, we will rst describe homemade PowerPoint
games in detail. We will then review the research on homemade PowerPoint
games to date. We will then examine research on the three philosophical
justications for using homemade PowerPoint games in the classroom: 1)
constructionism (as it relates to games and game design), 2) the use of nar-
ratives as an instructional tool, and 3) student generated questions. In the
results section, we will discuss how the studies examining homemade Pow-
erPoint games demonstrate the three justications. Finally, we will identify
future directions for research involving homemade PowerPoint games.
METHODOLOGY
In order to conduct the literature review, the authors researched the liter-
ature using two methods. With respect to studies on homemade PowerPoint
games, the literature was collected based on the authors’ personal knowl-
edge and participation in previous studies. Additional searches using Google
Scholar yielded no additional results.
For the literature review on the justications for the use of homemade
PowerPoint games, we began by reviewing the supporting literature in the
aforementioned studies using homemade PowerPoint games. Further, we
utilized the Education Resources Information Center, ProQuest, and Aca-
demic Onele databases, along with Google Scholar. First, we used the
“cited by” feature on Google Scholar to nd more recent articles which
cited the seminal works noted in the original research for the games. Sec-
ond, we conducted our own searches for literature on the three justications.
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Siko and Barbour
We used a variety of search terms, including constructionism, game design,
narratives, microtheme, writing across the curriculum, student generated
questions, and student questioning. Our search was limited by the electronic
databases available at Wayne State University, the Michigan e-Library and
Catalog Resource System, and open access services.
WHAT IS A HOMEMADE POWERPOINT GAME?
A homemade PowerPoint game is one of several low-tech games built
from the MS Ofce suite (for another example of games using MS Ofce, see
the game project at http://www.excelgames.org). Homemade PowerPoint
games can be created from scratch or by using an existing template (n.b.,
for the research discussed in this literature review, games were created from
a template which can be found at http://it.coe.uga.edu/wwild/pptgames). A
screenshot of a title screen created from a template is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. An introductory screen from a typical homemade PowerPoint
game.
The game can be contained completely within the MS PowerPoint le
or the game can require additional materials (e.g., a game board or dice). In
the case of the former, digital photographs or scans can be taken of a hand-
drawn game board and inserted into the le, or the materials can be created
in MS PowerPoint. An example of an external game board can be seen in
Figure 2.
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Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
Figure 2. An example of a slide containing a game board that must be
printed before playing.
In the directions the players were instructed to print off said slides in or-
der to play the game. Students create a game narrative, which is presented at
the beginning of the game and should be limited to one slide. An example of
a narrative is presented in Figure 3.
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Siko and Barbour
Figure 3. A narrative from a homemade PowerPoint game.
Players are given directions on how to play and win the game on a single
slide separate from the narrative. An example of a direction slide is shown
in Figure 4.
Figure 4. A slide containing the directions for a homemade PowerPoint
game.
Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
87
In this particular game, which was created by elementary students for
a unit on weather, the players are presented with the scenario of needing
to answer questions about weather in order to safely make their way to the
school bus to attend a eld trip.
Players navigate through the game by answering multiple choice ques-
tions correctly to eventually achieve the goal stated in the narrative (see Fig-
ure 5).
Figure 5. A screenshot of a typical multiple choice question.
For this game, students answered questions on various weather phenom-
ena. For this question, a waterspout is a weak tornado that forms over water.
Clicking on that button will take a student to a slide acknowledging that the
answer was correct, and the player would continue.
Homemade PowerPoint games can be “won” in a variety of ways. Games
with external game boards and dice would have a goal of making it to the
end of the board. Games with no external parts would include penalties for
incorrect answers. Some game would send a player back to the beginning
of the game. Other games would incorporate “checkpoints” where players
would return if they answered a question incorrectly after reaching a check-
point. Some games included a scorecard where two players kept track of
correct answers or points earned for answering questions correctly. Finally,
some games have clues distributed throughout the game and a nal chal-
lenge in order to reach the end.
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Siko and Barbour
The typical process for implementing a game design project consisted
of ve consecutive days in the computer lab (Barbour, Rieber, Thomas, &
Rauscher, 2009). On the rst day, students play various styles of homemade
PowerPoint games (i.e., self-contained games and games that required addi-
tional materials). After playing the games, the teacher will lead a discussion
on what makes a game good and interesting. Generally, students work in
groups of two or three for the project. For homework, students begin creat-
ing questions for their games and brainstorm ideas for a game narrative. A
typical game consists of ten questions per group member, so most games
generally have 20-30 questions. On the second day, students usually receive
instructions on how to download the template as well as how to create ac-
tion buttons in MS PowerPoint. While students are often very familiar with
viewing and creating presentations using MS PowerPoint, action buttons are
often a feature students have never used. For the rest of the second day and
continuing into the third and fourth days, students have time during class to
construct their games. When students complete their games, they play their
own games to look for errors. On the last day any students still not nished
complete their games, while the groups that are nished played each other’s
games. Shortly after the game project is completed, an assessment of the
content is taken.
RESEARCH INVOLVING HOMEMADE POWERPOINT GAMES
To date, many studies using homemade PowerPoint games as a review
tool have not shown statistically signicant differences in student perfor-
mance between control and treatment groups. For example, in a study using
homemade PowerPoint games to teach grammar to middle school students,
Parker (2004) did show that students who created games showed increas-
es in their scores between the pre-test and post-test, but the control group
showed greater gains. By simply examining the scores without the context
of previous student performance, one would have considered the games as a
detriment. However, Parker noted that the control group, who normally out-
performed the treatment group, actually scored lower on the pre-test com-
pared to their previous performance in the class. Thus, their gains appeared
greater than the group who created the games. As for the merits of creating
the games, Parker stated the students in the treatment group scored higher
on the post-test than their class average or scores on previous assessments
would have predicted. The average for the treatment group as a whole was a
near failing grade on previous assessments yet achieved a passing grade on
the post-test. Parker concluded that the games improved student motivation
for the students.
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Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
There have been several studies about the use of homemade PowerPoint
games conducted at the secondary level. Barbour, Clesson, and Adams
(2011) conducted a study in a British literature class comparing the perfor-
mance of students who created games as a review exercise versus those who
completed a more traditional review. The study showed no statistically sig-
nicant difference in performance between the groups. However, the authors
noted the small sample size (i.e., 15 students in the control group and 20 in
the treatment group) as a possible reason for those results. Barbour, Kin-
sella, and Rieber (2011) conducted a similar study in a U.S. history course
that was taught in a blended (i.e., instruction occurred in both face-to-face
and through a course management system), where students created a home-
made PowerPoint game to review one chapter, but completed a traditional
review for the other chapters. Again, the researchers found no statistically
signicant difference in student performance on content for which they
created games, although the students who did create the games performed
slightly better than the control group.
Since one of the justications for using homemade PowerPoint games
as an instructional tool is the premise that students will write higher-order
questions, the researchers suggested a lack of higher-order questions as a
possible explanation for the no signicant difference ndings. Barbour et al.
(2009) examined the data from the Barbour, Kinsella, et al. (2011) study to
see if students were indeed writing higher-order questions. They analyzed
over 1,900 student questions, and a large majority of them (i.e., 94%) were
determined to be “Knowledge” level, with an inter-rater reliability of 97%.
Furthermore, none of the questions analyzed were above the “Application”
level on Bloom’s Taxonomy.
The largest study involving homemade PowerPoint games to date in-
volved approximately 150 students enrolled in an environmental chemistry
course (Siko et al., 2011). In the rst iteration of this study, the research-
ers replicated the protocol from the previous studies to obtain baseline data,
since they were examining the effects of the games in a different content
area. Student performance was compared on two separate unit tests. On both
unit tests, there was no statistically signicant difference in performance.
Due to the nature of scheduling at the school where the study occurred, it
was also possible see if those who created games twice performed better
than those who only created games once for the second assessment. While
the group who created games for both units in the study performed better
than those who created games for only the second unit, it was still not statis-
tically signicant.
Similar to the Barbour et al. (2009) study, Siko (in press) analyzed the
student-generated questions from the Siko et al. (2011) study. Two research-
ers independently coded 625 questions for the rst unit test and 661 ques-
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Siko and Barbour
tions for the second unit, with an inter-rater reliability of 86% and 96%,
respectively. The coding revealed that approximately 61% of the questions
from the rst unit and approximately 67% of the questions from the second
unit were “Knowledge” level questions. While these numbers indicate that
students are wrote more higher-order questions than in the Barbour et al.
(2009) study, student performance in both studies were the same (i.e., no
statistically signicant difference between control and treatment). Siko et al.
(2011) also posited that the inherent nature of a high school science course
versus a social studies course would contain more problem-solving content,
and thus students should write more higher-order questions.
Siko and Barbour (2012), in the second iteration of the Siko et al. (2011)
study, examined the effectiveness of more structure to the game design as-
signment. The implementation of the project was different that previous pro-
tocols, where the questions, narratives, and games were constructed in the
days leading up to the test as a review. Instead, the project was spread out
over the entire unit. Fewer days were spent in the computer lab, and most of
the work was completed prior to going into the computer lab. These changes
were made due to the observations made by Siko et al. (2011) that students
spent time writing questions in the computer lab (i.e., when they were as-
signed as homework), and students showed became more easily distracted
after four consecutive days in the lab. Further, Siko et al. (2011) questioned
whether a review exercise could be considered a constructionist activity. For
the rst unit, students were given guidelines for the number of knowledge,
comprehension, and application questions the game could contain (i.e., for
a group of two writing a total of 20 questions, ten, ve, and ve questions,
respectively). For the rst unit, the control group performed better than the
group that created the games, and it was determined to be statistically sig-
nicant (p < .05).
For the second unit, even more structure was provided. Students were
given the project at the beginning of the unit. Due dates for drafts of both
the narratives and questions were given and, unlike previous iterations,
feedback was given to the students. In the protocols for prior studies (i.e.,
four or ve consecutive days in the computer lab), there was little oppor-
tunity for the teacher to review and provide feedback for the students. The
addition of feedback and revisions was supported by the research of Loth-
erington and Ronda (2010), along with Rickards and DiVesta (1974). For
this unit, the students who created games performed statistically signicant-
ly better than the treatment group (p < .01). This was the rst statistically
signicant difference in student performance in favor of students creating
the homemade PowerPoint games that has been reported. Siko and Barbour
(2012) suggested that future research should continue to examine how the
implementation of the game design project with respect to structure affects
student performance.
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Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
To date, research involving homemade PowerPoint games has shown no
statistical difference in performance when the games were used as a review
tool prior to an assessment. In these instances the games were created at the
end of a unit where students spent four or ve consecutive days in the com-
puter lab learning about the games, receiving instruction on the technical
aspects of the games, and then constructing the games. However, when the
games were part of a longer unit-long project rather than a review, a statisti-
cally signicant difference in student performance was found. Research has
also examined one of the justications for the use of the games: student-
generated questions. In two separate studies, it was found that students pri-
marily wrote “Knowledge”-level questions.
JUSTIFICATIONS FOR HOMEMADE POWERPOINT GAMES
Published research on homemade PowerPoint games (Barbour, Clesson,
et al., 2011; Barbour, Kinsella, et al., 2011; Parker, 2004) have listed three
pedagogical justications for their use in classrooms. The rst justication
was that the creation of the games is consistent with constructionist peda-
gogy, rst championed by Seymour Papert (1980). The second justication
was the games’ reliance on writing a narrative, which encompasses ideas
such as microtheme writing and writing across the curriculum (Ambron,
1987; Garner, 1994). Finally, homemade PowerPoint games involved stu-
dent-generated question writing (Wong, 1985). The following section de-
scribes each of the justications in detail and provides an overview of the
literature.
Constructivism and Constructionism
Constructivism, as a learning theory, stresses learning by building knowl-
edge structures (Papert, 1991). Smith and Ragan (2005) dened three key
tenets for constructivist design. First, knowledge is built on experience.
Second, learning results from personal interpretation of knowledge. Third,
learning is an active process. Good constructivist design principles include
opportunities for students to express their opinions, create their own mean-
ing, and share control of the classroom (Richey, Klein, & Tracey, 2011).
Further, the role of the instructor in a constructivist learning environment
is to act as a guide to help students form connections between previous ex-
periences and new ones. The activities in the environment are relevant and
meaningful to the student, and promoter higher-order thinking.
Constructivist learning environments contain principles of discovery
learning and active learning, the former involving minimal guidance with
no predetermined outcome, and the latter emphasizing higher level interac-
tions with old and new knowledge through higher-order processes (Richey,
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Siko and Barbour
et al., 2011). Constructivist learning environments are often contextualized
in real-life situations to increase student motivation, and often contain ill-
structured problems that students must dene the problem, collaborate with
one another, and reect on their own values in order to solve the problem.
Constructionism is an extension of constructivist pedagogy. Seymour Pa-
pert, a student of Piaget, coined the term in his work with students using
the Logo programming language. The simplest denition of constructionism
is “learning by making” (Papert, 1991). As Kafai (2001) noted, young chil-
dren are inherently good at making games anywhere they are at play, both
by modifying existing games and inventing their own. Paraphrasing Piaget,
Kafai felt that this construction of games was an effort by children to master
their environment and make sense of the world. At the core of construction-
ism is a student-generated artifact (Rieber, 2004). The artifact is created as a
result of a set of driving questions or activities, and acts as a representation
of student cognition that can be shared and critiqued. Questions are ill-struc-
tured, and the artifact should represent how the student’s thought processes
changed over time.
Papert’s seminal work about constructionism and the programming lan-
guage Logo was Mindstorms. The main purpose of Logo was to control a
small box on the screen (called a “turtle”) through commands in the pro-
gram to create geometric shapes. In Mindstorms, Papert (1980) was weary
of the computer being used to teach the child, which was the dominant use
of computers in education at the time in the form of computer-assisted in-
struction. Papert felt that it should be the other way around, where the child
teaches the computer through programming. In this process, the student was
building their knowledge through debugging the program. Papert equated
this process as being similar to how a child learns their native language with
relative ease, yet struggles through the traditional process of learning ad-
ditional languages later in life. Papert (1987) went on to illustrate how com-
puter programming through Logo helped to teach mathematical problem-
solving and geometry, particularly with students who struggled in a tradi-
tional math classroom.
Constructionism in Game Design
Kafai, Ching, and Marshall (1997) examined student learning by build-
ing astronomy resources for younger children. Fifth and sixth-grade students
created astronomy games for younger students using Logo. The 26 students
worked in groups of three or four to design a game that was to be played by
students in the fourth grade revolving around answering a question about
an astronomy topic (e.g., “What is the Big Bang?”). The students who de-
signed the games showed statistically signicant gains between the pre-test
and post-test in both astronomy and Logo. However, Logo, with its simplis-
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Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
tic layout, is unfortunately no longer ashy enough to compete with today’s
games (Overmars, 2004). Teaching with Logo still persists, and there are an-
nual practitioner conferences around the world, and recent publications on
Logo tend to be more for practitioner-focused.
Efforts in game design research have tried to create programming lan-
guages that are advanced enough to appeal to today’s media consumers but
still at a level that students can understand (Resnick, 2009). One example of
this is the programming platform entitled Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/).
Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Scratch is an open-
source programming language geared toward students age 8-16 that allows
them to create stories, games, and art. It is combined with a community of
learners that teach and borrow from one another (Resnick, 2009). The pur-
pose of Scratch is not to create computer programmers; rather, it is meant
to foster twenty-rst century skills, such as collaboration, problem solving,
and creativity. Resnick noted that students can consume media but are of-
ten not procient at creating media, and thus by teaching students to create
media they can increase their digital uency as well as their computational
thinking skills.
Peppler and Kafai (2007) discussed in detail the effects Scratch had on
students in urban settings with respect to informal learning. They noted that
in their research they had seen students drawn toward games and projects
that had sufcient demands but were still accessible. Further, users of media
were discriminating readers but had trouble verbalizing those characteris-
tics. In other words, young consumers of media know what is good but can-
not put those traits into words. Peppler and Kafai found that creating media
helps learners to better verbalize (i.e., be vocally critical of) their discrimi-
nation of media. With Scratch’s online community, there are opportunities
for informal learning as well. Their research in urban settings provided ex-
amples of art and games that became teachable moments for topics such as
American urban culture and the analysis of media.
In a similar retrospective study, Kafai, Peppler, and Chiu (2007) looked
at how programming became part of the culture of their research site – an
urban community center called the Clubhouse Design Studio – over time.
They noted that while Logo was available to the students and teachers, it
was rarely used. With the addition of Scratch to the Clubhouse Design Stu-
dio, the number of programming projects increased overall and the majority
of them were created using Scratch. The authors listed several reasons for
the shift. First, since the mentors at the community center (i.e., undergradu-
ate students) were novices at Scratch as well, it generated a learning envi-
ronment where the mentors and students learned from one another. Second,
Scratch allowed for media-rich programming where students could manipu-
late high quality digital images as objects in the Scratch environment.
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Siko and Barbour
Another study involving the urban community center analyzed the pro-
gramming acumen of the students over the course of the study (Maloney,
Peppler, Kafai, Resnick, & Rusk, 2008). The researchers collected 536 proj-
ects and analyzed the programming content for use of concepts such as user
interaction, loops, conditional statements, random numbers, variables, com-
munication and synchronization, and Boolean logic. Of the seven categories
of programming content, ve showed statistically signicant gains between
projects collected during the rst and second years of the project, indicating
a growth in the ability of students to design more advanced projects. More-
over, the students did not relate their actions to computer programming,
with some actually giving the researchers a quizzical look when asked what
computer programming was. The researchers indicated that the students
used terms such as “cool” or “fun,” not realizing that what they were doing
was indeed computer science. However, some students did see the career
potential if they continued to excel in game and media design.
Another programming language, Alice (http://www.alice.org/), is a 3-D
environment that also allows students to create games and digital stories. As
their website notes, it features a drag-and-drop interface that creates “a more
engaging, less frustrating rst programming experience” (Carnegie Mellon
University, 2011, ¶ 1). Sung, Shirley, and Rosenberg (2007) discussed the
enhancement of a college computer graphics course with Alice. While the
original intent of the course was computer graphics, many students mistook
the class for a game design course; and as a result the course was modi-
ed to meet all of the computer graphics objectives while students designed
games for the course. The researchers noted that despite an increased work-
load and little time dedicated to the programming aspects of the course, stu-
dent attitudes regarding the workload remained unchanged, and the projects
created by the students contained richer graphical environments than in pre-
vious semesters of the course that did not use Alice.
Alice has also been used to increase the knowledge of computer program-
ming concepts among non-computer science majors. Bishop-Clark, Courte,
Evans, and Howard (2007) examined three areas (i.e., knowledge, enjoy-
ment, and condence levels) with students who were not computer science
majors using Alice in a university setting. In a survey of 154 students, which
also include pretest and posttest data, students showed signicant gains in
all three categories after completing a series of tutorials about Alice and two
programming exercises. Alice has also been used at the K-12 level. For ex-
ample, Rodger et al. (2010), while teaching Alice at the university level for
years, have begun efforts to infuse Alice into elementary school curriculum.
The authors detailed efforts to provide training to elementary teachers by
providing summer workshops, tutorials, quiz templates and technical sup-
port to hundreds of teachers. These efforts have been similar to the origi-
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Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
nal Logo trainings with summer workshops for teachers (Logo Foundation,
2000).
A key component to constructivist and constructionist techniques is nd-
ing the appropriate level of structure to the lessons. On one hand, several
studies have shown that constructivist teaching methods are not superior
to guided methods of instruction. Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark’s (2006)
review of constructivist and project-based learning concluded that guided
instruction is overwhelmingly superior to methods that provide minimal
guidance. In addition, according to what was then current knowledge of
cognition and information processing, it was detrimental to take novices
through a process of application without a solid base of knowledge. Mayer
(2004) also pointed out the lack of successes with instruction using mini-
mal guidance methods, specically citing studies using Logo, in his review
of constructivist literature. Kurland and Pea (1985) found that students who
learned Logo under pure discovery conditions could write simple programs,
but were never able to write complex programs built of simple, fundamental
concepts. Interviews showed that the students had many incorrect assump-
tions about programming in Logo. In a separate study, Pea and Kurland
(1984) also found that students with extensive experience in Logo were no
better on tests of planning than control groups. This was contrary to Pap-
ert’s assumption that Logo taught students how to problem solve. However,
these studies were conducted in situations where Logo was taught in a pure
discovery format. Mayer (2004) did nd that students who were given ex-
tensive training in Logo were able to outperform students who learned Logo
under pure discovery conditions, but failed to mention any results that com-
pared those students to a control group who received no training in Logo.
Mayer concluded by saying that guided instruction in Logo is a prerequisite
for transfer, and that Papert was often misunderstood as being a sole propo-
nent of pure discovery learning.
With respect to the actual construction of a homemade PowerPoint game,
constructionism can be seen on three levels: the actual MS PowerPoint le
into a coherent game, the creation of a storyline or narrative for the game,
and the construction of the questions themselves. As stated earlier, the pur-
pose for using MS PowerPoint as the vehicle to construct the game is to
limit the amount of technical acumen needed to implement construction-
ism. Both teachers and students have a working knowledge of how to use
the program. Similarly, the second philosophical justication for creating
games, the writing of the narrative or storyline, relies on simplicity as well.
Narratives
The second justication for the use of homemade PowerPoint games in
the classroom is the aspect of writing a narrative for the game. Many games
Siko and Barbour
96
have a story that is embedded in the rules and objectives of the game. For
example, the game of Monopoly® employs the narrative of competing real
estate barons whose goal is to own as much property as possible and to force
the others into bankruptcy. Narratives are written in everyday language, un-
like the unfamiliar language of scientic texts or edu-speak (Avraamidou &
Osborne, 2009). This mysterious language is believed to alienate students;
therefore, it is believed that science education should make a move toward
writing in the everyday language contained in books, movies, and televi-
sion (Prain & Hand, 1996). By extension, this also could include designing
games around a science ction storyline.
Gough (1993) believed that science ction could serve as an avenue for
helping students grasp the social context of science. Science ction is of-
ten set in the future, and the stories told provide a way of describing how
the characters arrived at that point in time. Working backwards to the pres-
ent, students can begin to grasp how the events of today shape tomorrow,
providing meaning to the content by showing how it will directly inuence
their future. Jang (2009) examined how technology and writing affected
student motivation in a seventh-grade science class. The students were al-
lowed to foster real-life examples of content being covered (e.g., dieting and
weight management during a nutrition unit). Using qualitative methods, the
researcher found the ability for students to create their own meaningful con-
text for content increased motivation, problem-solving skills, and creativ-
ity. The study also concluded that creativity did not occur on its own; the
environment needed to be highly structured to achieve optimal creativity.
Pickens and Eick (2009) also noted increased interest in more inquiry-based
assignments for lower achieving students.
Further, Glynn and Muth (1994) discussed the importance of writing as
an instructional tool in science. Metacognitive processes involving retrieval,
organization, and writing skills force students to work with new knowledge
and existing schema. When given a writing assignment, students must con-
sider all of these in addition to the audience for which the writing assign-
ment is intended. However, studies involving writing across the curriculum
have not been overwhelmingly convincing. In a meta-analysis of 48 writ-
ing across the curriculum studies, Bangert-Drowns, Hurley, and Wilkinson
(2004) found only a small but positive impact in achievement from the im-
plementation of such strategies. They found that using the strategies in the
appropriate context was benecial, and that strategies using metacognitive
prompts showed enhanced effects. The authors also found the length of the
writing assignment reduced the effects of the strategy. The last nding was
applicable to games, as the narratives for games are not lengthy (Dickey,
2006). Game designers do not want players to spend inordinate amounts
of time reading; they simply want you to get the gist of the game and start
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Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
playing as quickly as possible. In the example given above for Monopoly®,
the narrative can either be found on the box itself or in a small handout. This
style of condensed writing assignments, where ideas are written as concisely
as possible, is consistent with the type of writing required by microthemes
(Stewart, Myers, & Culley, 2010).
Ambron (1987) stated that the difference between note-taking and vari-
ous narrative-based writing assignments (i.e., journals and microthemes)
was that the latter involved an active engagement in the content. Collins
(2000) compared the performance of biology students who either completed
a series of microtheme assignments or a longer term paper, and found that
students who completed more microtheme assignments (i.e., 9-11 assign-
ments) scored 13.2% higher on test scores than those who completed the
term paper assignments. Furthermore, Kirpatrick (1984) examined the ef-
fects of the use of microthemes in a physics course and also found increased
student achievement on tests. Finally, Stanley (1991) and her colleagues
noted increased motivation and participation with the use of microthemes in
technology courses offered at community colleges. A theme consistent in all
three studies was the notion of dispelling myths that writing strategies are
solely for English courses.
Garner (1994) examined the use of microthemes in a college accounting
class. He noted that writing across the curriculum was useful to help in the
active engagement of students, and believed microthemes helped students
create a structured and focused argument due to the microtheme’s limited
space. Anecdotal evidence indicated assignment grades rose from almost
all low grades to very few low grades. Teacher evaluation scores also rose,
and 80% of the students voted that the use of microthemes should remain
as part of the curriculum. Stewart, Myers, and Culley (2010) conducted a
study using a microtheme writing strategy in a women’s psychology course.
Throughout the semester the treatment group was given several short, unan-
nounced microtheme writing assignments during class time, while the con-
trol group did not. Near the end of the semester both groups were given an
assessment consisting of multiple-choice questions and an essay that was
similar to the microtheme assignments given to the treatment group. The
group who wrote microthemes scored statistically signicantly higher on
both portions of the test than the control group.
In summary, the use of short writing exercises in subject areas other than
English language arts has been shown to be an effective tool for increas-
ing both student performance and motivation. Proponents of homemade
PowerPoint games stated that the storyline of the game is an example of a
microtheme narrative, since it is limited to the space on a single MS Power-
Point slide. The nal philosophical justication, constructing questions for
the game, requires students to consider many variables. Yet, similar to mi-
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Siko and Barbour
crothemes, questions need to be revised and reworded to be as clear as pos-
sible. In the next section, we look at research involving the use of student-
generated questions as an instructional strategy.
Question Writing
The nal philosophical justication for using homemade PowerPoint
games as an instructional strategy is the act of providing challenge to the
game by writing relevant questions based on the material (Barbour, Krom-
rei, et al., 2009). In addition, the students must come up with several choic-
es. The students must obviously have the correct option, but they must also
create plausible yet incorrect options as distracters. The students are learn-
ing what is incorrect as well as reinforcing the correct answer. The process
of developing questions, choosing a correct answer, and developing plau-
sible incorrect alternatives forces the students to analyze the content, even
addressing their own misconceptions about the material. Chin and Osborne
(2008) stated that there were four reasons for students to write questions in
science:
“direct their learning and drive knowledge constructions;•
foster discussion and debate, thereby enhancing the quality of discourse •
and classroom talk;
help them to self-evaluate and monitor their understanding; and•
increase their motivation and interest in a topic by arousing their •
epistemic curiosity” (p. 3).
Wong (1985), in reviewing 27 studies using self-questioning techniques,
gave three theoretical justications for using self-generated questions as an
instructional strategy. First, self-questioning was a form of active process-
ing, which helped learners guide their thinking. Second, self-questioning
was supported by metacognitive principles, where students became self-
aware of their current level of understanding. Third, schema theory support-
ed the use of self-questioning, since questioning was a way to integrate new
information with current schema. Wong found the majority of these studies
did enhance learning. However, the results were not overwhelmingly con-
vincing, since there were studies that showed no difference in performance
and a few that showed negative results. Upon further examination, Wong
determined the level of direct instruction on how to write questions, goals
involving more higher-order questions, and the amount of processing time
given were all key factors in more successful studies. Wong’s ndings were
also supported by Rosenshine, Meister, and Chapman (1996), who found
that reading comprehension generally increased when question writing was
used as a comprehension strategy.
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Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
Lotherington and Ronda (2010) conducted a study involving fourth-grade
students creating online board games for geography content. They found
that students wrote better questions over time when given the opportunity to
not only revise their questions, but to help edit the questions of other class-
mates as well. Based on classroom observations, the authors found the chil-
dren to be excited and engaged throughout the project. Harper, Etkina, and
Lin (2003) examined question-generating interventions in an introductory
physics course. Over a period of eight weeks, students generated questions
based on the physics content, and these questions were rated based on the
level of difculty. Roughly half of the questions written by students were
rated as low difculty, while the other half of the questions were rated as
being of medium or high difculty. Test scores showed no relationship be-
tween student performance and the number of questions written. However, a
signicant relationship was found between student learning and the number
of conceptually difcult questions written.
Conversely, a similar study by Berry and Chew (2008) examined student
performance in an introductory psychology course over three exams and
found no relationship between question difculty and performance. When
these authors compared the groups who wrote questions versus those who
did not, they found the group writing questions made signicant gains in
performance over the course of the three exams. In other words, the students
writing questions were performing at a lower level earlier in the semester
but had erased those differences by the end of the semester. The authors not-
ed a potential reason for the differences in ndings between their study and
the Harper et al. (2003) study with respect to question difculty could be the
content in the introductory courses. In other words, an introductory physics
course may require more higher-order thinking skills than an introductory
psychology course. An introductory psychology course may require more
factual knowledge than analytical skills. Thus, students who wrote more
difcult questions were better prepared for the assessments in the physics
course, whereas analytical skills were not emphasized in the introductory
psychology course.
Chin and Osborne (2008), in their literature review of question genera-
tion in science, found several common themes. They stated that the nature
of the questioning in classrooms has evolved over time from factual exercis-
es to socio-cultural and inquiry-based questions. In addition, the skill need-
ed to be explicitly taught to the students, through scaffolds, prompts, and
modeling. While they stated the strategy could lead to positive outcomes, it
was ultimately the responsibility of the teacher to foster an environment of
inquiry. Herring (2010) provided support for the latter from his qualitative
study of question generation at three Australian secondary schools. Further,
Herring found a generally favorable attitude toward the technique; however,
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Siko and Barbour
small pockets of students did not nd question generation helpful. With re-
spect to transferring the technique to other courses and for future use, trans-
ferring the technique was more of a function of school culture rather than
the techniques themselves.
Question writing has been shown to be an effective instructional strategy.
There are differing views on whether the quality (i.e., level of difculty),
the quantity of questions written, or both have a greater effect on student
performance (Berry & Chew, 2008; Harper, et al., 2003). However, there
is general agreement that the effectiveness of the strategy can be enhanced
through practice, feedback, and scaffolding. The primary challenge in a
homemade PowerPoint game is to answer questions created by the designer.
The designer must pay attention not only to the construction of the question
and the correct answer, but also the alternative choices (Barbour, Rieber, et
al., 2009). This process should be supported by teacher through modeling
and feedback (Lotherington & Ronda, 2010).
In this section we have reviewed the three justications for the use of
homemade PowerPoint games in the classroom. Constructionist philosophy
promotes learning through the building of the homemade PowerPoint game.
Writing the narrative or game story gives students an opportunity to dem-
onstrate their knowledge in short, concise writing exercises. Question gen-
eration to provide the appropriate level of challenge to their games allows
students to develop their understanding through the demonstrating their
knowledge of what is correct as well as what is incorrect. The support for
these justications was generally positive but not overwhelmingly so. In the
next section we will look specically at how these ndings related the justi-
cations for using homemade PowerPoint games are reected in the studies
examining the games themselves.
DISCUSSION
Given the research involving the justications for the use of homemade
PowerPoint games in the classroom, it would seem that researchers would
have little difculty seeing signicant ndings in studies examining the
implementation of a game project in the classroom. Therefore, we need to
question how well the justications align in practice in the studies examin-
ing homemade PowerPoint games.
With respect to constructionism, Siko et al. (2011) rst suggested that
the game projects, used as a review exercise, did not constitute construc-
tionism. On one hand, the students did create an artifact representing their
knowledge. In theory, however, the students would have already learned all
of the content through other instructional methods; the game was solely a
reinforcement tool applied immediately before the students were given an
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Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
assessment. Siko and Barbour (2012), in the second iteration of the study,
altered the implementation of the game project away from a review tool to
a project that extended through the entire unit. This change, along with oth-
ers (i.e., corrective feedback, revisions, requirements on question difculty),
may have led to the only statistically signicant nding in any of the re-
search examining homemade PowerPoint games.
In the studies examining narratives, researchers found that writing
about science could affect motivation (Jang, 2009), and these motivating
effects could be seen in lower achieving students (Pickens & Eick, 2009).
Parker (2004) suggested that these effects could be seen in lower performing
students who created homemade PowerPoint games. However, researchers
have yet to examine the effects of homemade PowerPoint games on lower
achieving students.
In terms of student performance, the review conducted by Bangert-
Drowns et al. (2004) only found a small, positive change in achievement
from writing across the curriculum strategies. And while studies examin-
ing microthemes have shown increased achievement when the technique is
used (Collins, 2000; Kirkpatrick & Pittendrigh, 1984; Stewart, et al., 2010),
these microtheme assignments dealt with writing about the content. There is
a difference between writing a narrative for a game (i.e., ction) and writ-
ing a concise answer to a question posed by an instructor about the con-
tent. If a homemade PowerPoint game contained a narrative extrinsic to the
content, the justication does not stand. However, Siko and Barbour (2012)
addressed this issue by requiring students to relate their story to a content-
specic narrative so that the story fostered questions related to scientic
processes and inquiry. Even if the game had a narrative that was somewhat
related to the content being covered in the course, rewriting and revising
the narrative was not the same as answering a specic question related to
the course objectives within a dened word limit. Further, when the games
were used as a review tool over the course of several days in the computer
lab, one could question how many times the narrative was revised. Finally,
Collins (2000), Stewart et al. (2010), and Garner (1994) all examined the
effects of microthemes when they were used multiple times throughout a
course. Thus, the effects of one short writing assignment (i.e., the narrative),
which may be related to the content, on student test performance should be
scrutinized.
The task of writing questions for homemade PowerPoint games also
contained gaps in the relationship between the research involving the strat-
egy and how it was implemented in the research examining the effects of
games. Once again, literature reviews on this strategy showed small, albeit
positive effects (Rosenshine, et al., 1996; Wong, 1985). Studies involving
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Siko and Barbour
question writing included opportunities for revisions and review (Lother-
ington & Ronda, 2010); however, when the games were used as a review
tool, there was no time for teacher feedback on the questions. Similarly,
the review by Chin and Osborne (2008) found that question writing skills
needed explicit instruction, scaffolds, prompts, and modeling in order to be
effective, and this was simply not possible over the course of several con-
secutive days in the lab to start and nish the game design project. Once the
game design project shifted from a review exercise to a unit project, which
allowed for signicant instruction on question writing, test scores revealed a
statistically signicant nding (Author, 2011a).
Finally, one could begin to question whether the homemade Power-
Point games are indeed games. As stated in the introduction, Aldrich (2005)
noted that games have challenges and built-in inefciencies that are both
motivating and entertaining. Both Siko et al. (2011) and Siko and Barbour
(2012) lamented that the games created in their studies often had narratives
that were extrinsic to the content, and that the games rarely referred back to
the narrative once the players began to answer questions. Therefore, it could
be said that games with extrinsic narratives could not be considered games,
as the challenge of answering multiple-choice questions without a theme,
narrative, challenge, or any built-in inefciencies was nothing more than a
digital worksheet with feedback tacked on to a short story.
In summary, based on the justications set forth by researchers exam-
ining homemade PowerPoint games should yield small, positive effects on
student learning. However, the justications as implemented in the research
examining the effects of homemade PowerPoint games on student perfor-
mance were suspect. It was questionable whether the games actually con-
stituted constructionism because the games were often created as a review
tool. The narrative research and research examining microthemes dealt with
actually writing about the content. If the game’s narrative was not intrinsi-
cally and explicitly linked to the content, then the justication should not
be warranted. The research involving question writing as an instructional
strategy showed only minimal gains in student performance which could be
enhanced through such practices as opportunities for student revisions, peer
review and feedback, and the quality of instruction on how to write good
questions. These enhancements were difcult to accomplish when the game
project was conducted as a review where students spent consecutive days in
the computer lab constructing the games from scratch. Finally, if a home-
made PowerPoint game lacked any linkage between the narrative and the
questions themselves, it would be difcult to classify the artifact as a game
by most denitions.
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Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
In this article we have reviewed research involving game design as an
instructional strategy, introduced the concept of a homemade PowerPoint
game, and examined the justications for their use in the classroom. We
have also reviewed the current literature on the justications as well as
the research that has been conducted on the use of homemade PowerPoint
games as an instructional tool. Many of the ndings have shown no statisti-
cal difference in performance, and a comparison of the research involving
homemade PowerPoint games and the justications proponents have given
for their use has shown two things. First, the literature has shown minimal
but positive support for each of the justications. Second, the recommenda-
tions for enhancing the effects of these individual strategies were not present
in many of the studies examining the use of homemade PowerPoint games.
These two ndings may explain the lack of statistically signicant ndings
when comparing test performance between students who created homemade
PowerPoint games and those who did not.
Recent changes to how a game design project was implemented, namely
an increase in the amount of structure and their implementation as a unit
project rather than a unit review, has shown statistical signicance (Author,
2012). Therefore, future research should look into whether those changes
are responsible for the change in results, and what further changes could be
made to further enhance those results. The reason for this nding was at-
tributed to a change in the implementation of the game project (i.e., from
a review activity to a unit project and the addition of corrective feedback).
Future directions for research using homemade PowerPoint games should
look to extend those results by examining reasons why students performed
better in those cases.
Siko et al. (2011) rst questioned whether the games, as implemented,
truly constituted constructionism. The authors wondered whether a review
for a test equated to learning by building, as the content had already been
presented in a traditional manner. However, in a more structured setting,
where the game design project was actually part of the curriculum, the ben-
ets of constructionist learning might be seen. The aforementioned stud-
ies that criticized constructionist practices focused their critique on studies
which involved unstructured discovery learning (Kirschner, et al., 2006;
Kurland & Pea, 1985; Mayer, 2004; Pea & Kurland, 1984), with Mayer
(2004) nding that heavily structured constructionist environments outper-
formed less structured constructionist environments. While the answer may
lie with increased structure, researchers should also pay attention to see if
the pendulum can swing too far in terms of structure – as one of the moti-
vating aspects of games in education involves the correct level of structure
(Hirumi & Stapleton, 2008).
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Siko and Barbour
Second, more time needs to be built in for feedback and revision. Stu-
dents were given assignments to write questions as homework, but they
were immediately tasked with constructing the games. Siko et al. (2011)
provided anecdotal comments that the students were writing many of their
questions in class; therefore, no feedback could be given to the students.
Research studies involving student-generated questions mentioned practice
and feedback mechanisms for improvement (Lotherington & Ronda, 2010;
Rickards & DiVesta, 1974; Rosenshine, et al., 1996). In the second itera-
tion of the study (Author, 2012), a structured timeline was provided that in-
cluded due dates for written questions for which the instructor had time and
was able to provide feedback. Also, more instruction and structure was pro-
vided to the students with respect to the difculty level of the questions.
Students were given more examples of how to write more difcult ques-
tions, such as how to take a “Knowledge”-level question and turn it into a
“Comprehension”-level question. One drawback of this approach is that
would not allow comparisons to the studies involving the analysis of ques-
tions such as the Barbour, et al. (2009) and Siko (in press) studies, where
questions were written without difculty requirements. However, perfor-
mance on assessments between unstructured and structured groups could be
compared.
If logistically possible, students should be given more opportunities to
create games. While Siko et al. (2011) and Siko and Barbour (2012) did
not see a statistical difference in performance between groups who creat-
ed games on multiple occasions versus those who only did once or not at
all, the group who did create games twice did have a slightly higher score.
The authors suggested the difference, albeit not statistically signicant, may
have been due to an initial discomfort with the new style of instruction. Giv-
en a more structured environment, or perhaps more opportunities to create
games, is a potential avenue for future research.
Finally, a future direction for research could also be to test the use of nar-
ratives as a justication. Student performance could be compared between
groups who create their own games versus those that simply write questions
that are added to a game with a predetermined narrative, since some studies
involving student-generated questions provide benets without the context
of placing the questions within a game or similar artifact (Berry & Chew,
2008; Harper, et al., 2003; Rosenshine, et al., 1996; Wong, 1985). Taking
this one step further, performance between groups who only write questions
could be compared to groups who create games, testing the constructionist
justication altogether.
105
Game Design and Homemade PowerPoint Games: An Examination
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