Engineering is arguably one of the most critical skills in any society, from building bridges and homes, to designing cell phones and life-saving medical devices. Yet many Americans do not consider engineering to be essential or relevant to their everyday lives, and may even question its positive impact on society. While there have been gains in the number of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM professions over the past few decades, their numbers in the field remain disproportionately low. The Built World integrated multimedia and research project therefore aims to expand access to engineering content through the lens of “inclusive engineering,” which highlights how problem-solvers of all ages, genders, backgrounds, and perspectives approach and overcome challenges to innovate. The project applies this concept through the creation of Built World, a three-hour documentary series for broadcast on PBS stations nationwide, and a complementary interactive escape game streamed live on Twitch, where individuals of all ages and backgrounds can play and solve engineering challenges together. There is a need for effective remote and virtual interaction to support informal STEM learning, and live streaming game platforms present a promising approach to filling this need. Built World is poised to advance the field through: (1) content - creating high-quality inclusive engineering content across multiple platforms to reach a wide audience (Built World documentary, digital reporting and short form videos, community outreach campaign); (2) applied research - designing and studying how live-streaming, collaborative platforms can serve as safe and inclusive spaces for engineering learning; and (3) best practices - exploring how audiences engage with inclusive engineering on different platforms—a traditional documentary format (Built World) versus an interactive, collaborative space (Twitch game)—and identifying what learning outcomes might be expected on each.
A three-phase research design aims to understand what motivates users to engage with STEM content on Twitch; how to define and measure learning outcomes associated with the platform; and how to mitigate the risk of toxic environments in online communities by fostering safe spaces for a diversity of gamers. Phase 1 informs the initial design of the Twitch game and audience interaction strategies and seeks to answer: What is the best way to measure informal learning on Twitch? What is the best way to design a Twitch channel to create an inclusive space while optimizing learner engagement? Phase 2 is the core focus of the research and uses a semi-experimental design to answer questions such as: Is there evidence of learning on Twitch, and what type of learning is happening? What is the digital culture that emerges? Phase 3 assesses the pairing of the documentary series with the Twitch game to maximize informal STEM learning and is guided by questions such as: How does inclusive engineering content presented on two platforms (Twitch game and Built World series) mediate learning outcomes? How does inclusive engineering content presented on two platforms shape learners’ experiences of inclusivity and belonging? Knowledge generated through the Built World project will offer tools and best practices to other STEM media producers so that they may also leverage live streaming platforms for learning.
This NOVA multiplatform media initiative consisted of a 2-hour nationally broadcast PBS documentary, Polar Extremes; a 10-part original digital series, Antarctic Extremes; an interactive game, Polar Lab; accompanying polar-themed digital shorts, radio stories, text reporting, and social media content; a collection of educational resources on PBS LearningMedia; and community screening events and virtual field trips for science classrooms. Across multiple media platforms the project’s video content had nearly 13 million views.
The research explored the potential for informal STEM learning
This project tackles the urgent needs of the nation to engage people of all ages in computational thinking and help them learn basic computer science concepts with a unique and innovative approach of structured in-game computer program coding. Researchers will explore the design and development of a 3D puzzle-based game, called May's Journey, in which players solve an environmental maze by using the game's pseudo code to manipulate game objects. The game is designed to teach introductory but foundational concepts of computer programming including abstraction, modularity, reusability, and debugging by focusing players on logic and concepts while asking them to type simple instructions in a simplified programming language designed for novices. The game design in this project differs from today's block-based programming learning approaches that are often too far from actual computer code, and also differs from professional programming languages which are too complex for novices. The game and its embedded programming language learning are designed to be responsive to the progress of the learner throughout the game, transitioning from pseudo code to the embedded programming language itself. Error messages for debugging are also designed to be adaptive to players' behavior in the game. Using extensive log data collected from people playing the game, researchers can study how people learn computer programming. Such knowledge can advance understanding of the learning processes in computer programming education. Additionally, this work emphasizes the use of games as informal learning environments as they are accessible and fun, drawing attention and retention of many learners of different age groups with the potential to change attitudes towards computer programming across different populations. This project is co-funded by the STEM + Computing (STEM+C) program that supports research and development to understand the integration of computing and computational thinking in STEM learning, and the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program that funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings with its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments.
The project's formative and summative evaluation methods, including surveys, expert reviews of learners' computer code developed in the game, and interviews, are used to gauge learners' engagement as well as learning. In exploring learning, researchers aim to understand how players build implicit computer science knowledge through gameplay and how that gameplay relates to their performance on external transfer tasks. The project will answer the following three research questions: (1) Can observers reliably detect and label patterns of gameplay that provide evidence of learning or misconceptions regarding the four computer science constructs - abstraction, modularity, debugging and semantics - that learners exhibit playing May's Journey? (2) How does learner's implicit knowledge of these computer science constructs change over time and do those patterns vary by gender and prior programming experiences? (3) Is there a strong correlation between implicit learning measures and transfer of CS concepts: modularity, debugging, semantics, and abstraction? How do these correlations vary across elements of the game? This work will result in several outcomes: game design metaphors tested for their learning and engagement value that can be abstracted and embedded in different games. This project will also contribute patterns and an understanding of how people learn and engage in problem solving using concepts of abstraction, modularity, debugging and semantics. These outcomes will lead to advancement in knowledge in the learning sciences as well as the design of educational games that enrich STEM learning, particularly in programming and computational thinking. In addition, this project will engage female participants and underserved populations through partnering organizations including National Girls Collaborative project.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.