Incubating Infrastructure to Improve STEM Learning by Leveraging Data from Digital Educational Games

Digital educational games provide a unique opportunity to study STEM learning in context. However, infrastructure is needed to systematically collect, store, and process data from digital educational games so that it can be leveraged by STEM researchers. This Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure Incubator is developing a data and distribution infrastructure that will enable researchers to study how STEM learning occurs in these contexts and how digital interventions can be designed to serve different audiences and address different learning goals. The Incubator activities will include asynchronous discussion/surveys, in-person workshop events, and report-writing workgroups geared toward planning of the infrastructure. Six focal research areas will guide the planning: (1) using digital educational games as instruments for developing and refining learning and cognitive science; (2) understanding how these games support STEM learning; (3) developing and evaluating digital assessments; (4) understanding how these games are and can be leveraged in classrooms; (5) developing practices, tools, and methods to support educational data mining; and (6) understanding the affordances of educational game-based learning for diverse audiences. By addressing the most significant gaps in the conduct of STEM educational research with digital educational games, this project will allow for entirely new forms of research to be conducted and provide mechanisms for new researchers to participate. This project is supported through a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and the Walton Family Foundation. Funding is also provided by the Research on Emerging Technologies for Teaching and Learning (RETTL) program at NSF. 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.