Siko, J. P., Barbour, M. K., & Toker, S. (2010, October). Homemade PowerPoint games in a high school science setting. A paper presented at the annual convention of the Association for Educational Communication and Technology, Anaheim, CA.
This study examined the use of homemade PowerPoint games in a secondary environmental chemistry classroom, comparing the performance on two unit tests between a control group and a group that created PowerPoints games. Results were mixed; with no significant difference in performance on one unit test and students who designed the games performed significantly better on the other unit test. There was also an increase effect for students who created games for both tests.
AECT 2010 - Homemade PowerPoint Games in a High School Science Setting
1. Homemade PowerPoint Games
in a High School Science Setting
Jason Siko
Michael Barbour
Sacip Toker
Wayne State University
2. Homemade PowerPoint Game
Student-generated game using MS
PowerPoint
Can be self-contained within .ppt file or have
a printable game board and pieces
Template can be found at: http://it.coe.uga.edu/wwild/pptgames/
3. Story ORE BURST
Game Directions
Game Preparation
Game Pieces
Play the game
A Homemade PowerPoint
Objectives Game
By
Credits
Clarkston high school
Copyright Notice
4. Game Preparation
Game board: Print out slides 37-38, cut off the
edges, then tape together
Game Pieces: Print out slide 5
Need Dice
Home Page
5. Justifications for use
Constructionism
Learning by building
Creation of meaningful artifact
Microtheme narratives
Concise narratives focus thoughts and ideas
Question-writing
Process of writing questions, determining answer, &
creating plausible alternatives forces students to analyze
and synthesize content
With practice, students write higher-order questions
6. ORE BURST!
HURRY!!!! Be the first to get you and your equipment to the
mining spot before your competitors. You and your workers
are competing with three other mining companies. You have
just heard that in the state of Nebraska they have come
across a large amount of ore. They are letting anyone come
and retrieve it from the ground for a cheap price and the
quantity is unlimited. You want to be the first group to get to
Nebraska to claim where you are going to dig and retrieve
your share of the ore. Along the way you are traveling you will
encounter some tough times where you are stopped and
possibly sent back home. So don’t wait and get the move on!
Home Page
7. Time to play Ore Burst!
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25
Home Page Game Directions
8. If zinc’s atomic number is 30 and it has
31 neutrons how many protons does it
have?
31 61 30
9. Prior Research
Parker (2004)
Middle school grammar – showed pre/post gains, but not
as much as control
Barbour et al. (2007)
U.S. History – NSD
Clesson, Adams, & Barbour (2007)
British Literature – NSD
Barbour et al. (2009)
Analysis of questions from Barbor et al (2007) study
~93% of questions “Knowledge”-level
10. Methodology
In this study we set out to answer the following research questions:
Do students reviewing for a chemistry test by generating
homemade PowerPoint games perform better on multiple-
choice tests than students who use a traditional worksheet
review guide?
Do students who have used this technique more than once
perform better than those who have never constructed
homemade PowerPoint games or have only constructed
games once?
For these two research questions, we developed the following
hypotheses:
Ho: No difference in student performance
H1: A positive difference in student performance
11. Methodology
Two 50-question unit tests
t-test between control and treatment groups
ANOVA to compare performance of students
who made games for both units, one unit, or
not at all
12. Setting
Large Midwestern suburban high school
Environmental Chemistry course (ACS
ChemCom curriculum)
Trimester system
3 Teachers
13. Setting
Table 1
Distribution of Control and Treatment Groups Among Teachers A-C
Unit 1 Unit 2
Trimester Control Treatment Control Treatment
1st A – 2 sections
(n = 37)
B – 2 sections
(n = 44)
C – 1 section
(n = 20)
2nd A – 3 sections B – 2 sections
(n = 62) (n = 37)
3rd B – 2 sections A – 4 sections
(n = 32) (n = 69)
14. Results
Do students reviewing for a chemistry test
by generating homemade PowerPoint
games perform better on multiple-choice
tests than students who use a traditional
worksheet review guide?
15. Results
First Unit Test: (t = 3.069, p = 0.87)
16. Results
Second Unit Test: (t = -2.114, p < 0.05)
17. Results
Do students who have used this technique
more than once perform better than those
who have never constructed homemade
PowerPoint games or have only constructed
games once?
18. Results
Results of ANOVA (F = 2.286, p = 0.106)
19. Discussion
First statistically significant result with
homemade PowerPoint games
Largest sample size to date
More higher-order questions (based on
observation only; research ongoing)
20. Implications
For practitioners:
More time than traditional review
Boundaries on file size, narratives
Spend more time on questions; less in lab
Further research:
Continued analysis of questions
Does review = constructionism?
Project grade vs. Test grade