“Video games are a very effective tool for the transmission of knowledge”
We interviewed Dr. Xavier Rubio Campillo, Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Education of the University of Barcelona and director of the Didactics and Heritage Research Group (DIDPATRI).
What does your research group do?
Our research group mainly focuses on how to present social sciences in formal settings —such as didactics applied to schools— and in informal settings, such as museums and archaeological sites. We understand that learning happens in all phases of life and we investigate how best to explain archaeology and history across these stages. The group has about thirty members.
One of the areas of research you are also involved in is the creation of video games designed for learning.
We believe that history should not be inherently boring. We are experts in didactics and we know that there are many ways to explain history or any other subject. Video games have a special feature that makes them unique and any game is a learning tool. When you start a game, you know nothing about the story or the digital world that has been built into it. The game presents you with its own created universe where you have a series of complicated problems or challenges, and you must learn the mechanics of the game in order to progress. And this happens not only with Super Mario but also with a 17th-century historical strategy game, or a football game. When applied to learning, we call this process a transformative video game.
What is a transformative video game?
This means that, if you design the game mechanics effectively and thinking about the knowledge you want to teach, you can ensure that the user learns by just playing the game. One of the important factors is that the game is interactive, therefore, each player makes decisions and each decision has its consequences. In this way, through a historical video game, the user will better understand the causes and consequences of the social changes of a specific time. In addition, since the player walks in the shoes of a character, you can enhance empathy, empowerment, and so on. The video game is the only format in which you speak in the first person. When you read a book or watch a film, you don’t say: “I’ve been killed or I’ve won”. So players are not passive, they are active, and they are part of the story. From this perspective, it is much easier to impart knowledge and, for this reason, we are creating a series of video games that facilitate the learning of complex subjects.
As for example?
We created the video game ‘Júlia: a Science Journey’, awarded with the best educational video game in a European congress on learning in games. We developed this video game to help teenagers manage the social impact of the pandemic. We also wanted to reflect on the role of science and technology, and to encourage scientific culture and curiosity. We have a mini-game that is a comparison between the Covid pandemic and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. In this way, the student can see the similarities between the two phenomena and learn about the history of the Spanish flu.
The video game ‘Júlia: a Science Journey’ also includes a mini-game about fake news in the context of the pandemic.
Yes, it is a game that encourages reflection on the impact of social media on teenagers, scientific dissemination, ideological disinformation, pseudo-science, etc. The video game is a simulator to better understand and detect what is fake news and what is not. It is also a citizen science project. The system anonymously collects data from the players and, from there, we can better understand the learning process in videogames.
What conclusions have you been able to draw from this data?
The video game has allowed us to collect very detailed metric data on how users are playing it. In this mini-game of fake news, we created a kind of Twitter where the player received various messages. The user had to react with a like, dislike or a report to warn that this publication was fake news. There were also two factors that had to be balanced: popularity and the mental health of the protagonist. This helps us to reflect on what popularity means in social media, toxic information, etc. Then we can see what kind of messages led players astray.
What were those messages?
We could see that, in general, messages related to pseudoscience were easy to detect. Users looked not so much at the content, but at the sender of the message. Players trusted messages from the World Health Organisation, but were wary of strange users. People were usually mistaken about posts that were ideologically charged. If the fake news is in line with the user’s thinking, it is much easier not to see that it is disinformation. In other words, it is more important that the fake news proves you right than the veracity of the publication. Therefore, one of the drivers that helps to spread disinformation is ideological bias. You spread things that are in line with what you believe.
What is needed to make teachers aware of the usefulness of video games for the transmission of knowledge?
We are aware that video games are not a panacea, but they are a very effective tool for the transmission of knowledge. Some things can be explained through this tool and others cannot. The teacher who uses a video game must understand its language, just as he or she understands the language of literature, mathematics or any other subject. There is a problem and that is that video games are perceived as harmful. If teachers are not convinced that this is an educational tool and that it is culture, they will hardly be effective in passing on this knowledge.
<< To take a look at the videogames developed by this research group, click here.
More about Xavier Rubio
The best invention in history?
Computers.
What would you like to see in the future?
I would like to see a more democratic digital society.
A future advancement that scares you?
Some applications of AI.
A role model?
Alan Turing.
What can be done to achieve equality between men and women?
Equality in academia and science needs to be actively promoted.
Knowledge transfer is important…
To give meaning to research. If we don’t pass what we do on to society, we remain in our ivory tower. We must remember that our salaries come from public funds.