Sixteenth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society

Abstract

Our research endeavor focuses on triggering interest in STEM topics and tracking interest development over time, in particular for underrepresented populations in the STEM field. The widely available and incredibly popular video game, Minecraft, is frequently used to engage learners with STEM concepts and promote other educational goals both formally and informally. By utilizing the popularity and familiarity of Minecraft, we have created environments designed to trigger STEM interest, promote scientific inquiry, and engender creativity and exploration of astronomy concepts. We invited learners from two summer camps at a local non-profit community center to interact with our environments to better understand scientific misconceptions about astronomy, coded learner in-game observations to measure how learners are perceiving and sense-making the digital environments, and collected observational, interview, and survey data to determine levels of interest in school, games, and science. We consider case studies of selected learners and their level of interest in science prior to our intervention (high and low), and explore how they make sense of the hypothetical digital environments. In addition, the increases of interest in STEM through playing video games lends weight to the effectiveness of video games in education.