Exploring How Role and Background Influence Through Analysis of Spatial Dialogue in Collaborative Problem-Solving Games
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Exploring How Role and Background Influence Through Analysis of Spatial Dialogue in Collaborative Problem-Solving Games Cigdem Uz-Bilgin 1
&
Meredith Thompson 1 & Melat Anteneh 1
Published online: 14 September 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This study examines how different roles and background knowledge transform players’ dyadic conversations into spatial dialogues in a virtual cellular biology game. Cellverse is a collaborative virtual reality (VR) game designed to teach cell biology. Players work in pairs, assuming the role of either a Navigator, with reference material and a global view through a tablet, or an Explorer, with a more detailed interactive view of the cell through a VR headset and hand controllers. The game is designed so players must collaborate in order to complete the game. Our results show that roles influenced their reference perspectives at a level of statistical significance. Furthermore, players with high prior knowledge tried to reduce their partner’s mental effort by giving spatial information from their point of view, thus producing fewer occurrences of spatial unawareness. Results of this study suggest that designers can build in different roles and leverage different background knowledge to prompt effective partnerships during collaborative games. Keywords Spatial dialogue . Collaborative games . Virtual reality . Prior knowledge . Science education
Introduction Collaborative problem-solving (CPS) is an essential skill in education and the workplace, yet CPS skills are challenging to develop and to assess (Fiore et al. 2017). Virtual simulations may provide an avenue for both developing and measuring twenty-first century skills such as CPS. Immersive virtual reality (VR) has the potential to create a shared environment that could enable users to collaborate and evaluate their performances (Ens et al. 2019). An important step in CPS is being able to understand the problem and establish a common language (Duncan and West 2018; Sawyer 2017). This study sets up a CPS scenario where pairs of players collaboratively explore a shared environment from two different viewpoints: an Explorer embedded within a cell and a Navigator who has a more global, yet less detailed view. Having clearly defined roles and a range of expertise helps foster “positive interdependence” among team members (Johnson et al. 1991) where-
* Cigdem Uz-Bilgin [email protected]; [email protected] 1
The Education Arcade, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
in successful completion of the activity requires a joint effort (Weber and Kim 2015). Players must find ways to describe the strange and unfamiliar environment of a human lung cell to a partner when neither partner has a full understanding of what the other one can see. In this study, we focus on how these players establish a shared understanding through the conversations about the environment during the VR-based game. VR is a simulated environment that creates realistic experiences by providing users with regular sensory feedback (
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