Investigating the Role of Self-explanation and Co-explanation in 4th Graders’ Game-based Science Learning

Abstract

This study extends our previous studies on investigating the effects of embedding self-explanation principle into game-based science learning. In order to enhance the students’ generating their own explanations during the game, we replaced the multiple choice questions with the design of allowing dyads to co-explain their causes of failure in the game via utilizing the technique of online chat. The participants were 60 4th graders recruited from an elementary school in southern Taiwan. They were randomly assigned to dyads of either an experimental group (conducting co-explanation via online chat) or a control group (conducting self-explanation via multiple choice questions). The measurements included the pretest, posttest, and a three-week retention test. The results show that both games had a positive impact on facilitating the students’ acquisition of scientific concepts. But, the players who performed co-explanation via online chat did not outperform those who used multiple choice questions as self-explanation prompts. Through analysis of dialogue of the players in the experiment group, we found that the quality of the dyads’ dialogue was poor; they rarely discussed the causes of failure when the prompts appeared in the game.