“How to Fail Your Research Degree” An educational game for postgraduate students Daisy Abbott D.Abbott@gsa.ac.uk @DAbbottResearch

Academic Context GSA Core Research Skills programme Challenges Range of modules delivered to PG (taught) students Similar programme for PG (research) students Specific module: “Academic Skills for Masters Research” Challenges Postgrads require more independent modes of learning Subject can be seen as ‘dry’ Limited class size restricts access Lecture-based delivery

Rationale for a serious game Game = constructivist/experiential learning Deep understanding of research skills Embed knowledge/skills into practice Risk-taking (in a safe environment) Memorable, enjoyable, high-impact Motivation/enjoyment of research

Game Design: Learning Outcomes Understand the various risks affecting research and their impact on projects Recognise dependencies between tasks at different stages of research Understand the interrelations of different risks with the activities to negate or mitigate them Be aware of the time-critical nature of short research projects

Iterative Development

Evaluation: Lessons % who agreed with each ILO statement: 93.8%, 90.7%, 95.9%, 80.4%, respectively. N=97

Qualitative Evaluation: Lessons The interconnectedness/dependencies in research activities. The importance of planning to mitigate risks. The impact of both internal and external risks. That the game would be most useful played early in the research process/course. “I wish we could have done this or had it required at the beginning of our proposals.” Familiarising students, novice researchers, and those with English as an additional language with research terminology.

Evaluation: Experience Keller’s Attention Relevance Confidence Satisfaction (ARCS) model Uses an extensive review of motivational literature to cluster motivational concepts into four categories ARCS Model (Keller, 2010, p.45) Major Categories Definitions Process Questions Attention   Capturing the interest of learners; stimulating the curiosity to learn How can I make this learning experience stimulating and interesting? Relevance Meeting the personal needs/ goals of the learner to effect a positive attitude In what ways will this learning experience be valuable for my students? Confidence Helping the learners believe/ feel that they will succeed and control their success How can I via instruction help the students succeed and allow them to control their success? Satisfaction Reinforcing accomplishment with rewards (internal and external) What can I do to help the students feel good about their experience and desire to continue learning?

Evaluation: Experience % who agreed with each motivation statement: 93.3%, 92.0%, 56.8%, 85.4%, respectively. N=89

Qualitative Evaluation: Experience “In a subtle way it teaches the essentials of research” “Thoroughly enjoyed playing.” “This game is extremely interesting. It can make me to understand quickly.” “I think this was very accurate to myself” “I hope my classmates do this”

Longitudinal Evaluation “I think overall the game had a positive impact on my approach to planning my research project, as I took a lot of it into consideration when planning the next stages of my project.” “It was a fun and engaging way to understand what the steps for a research project are.” “It was a good laugh at the time but now, more than half way through the dissertation project, I can appreciate the take home message from the game more.”

Conclusions Succeeds emphatically in all four intended learning outcomes. Functions as a crash course in doing a research project Lessons appear to be retained over time Learning arises from ‘failure’ paradigm: e.g. “our experience provided us with a relatively pain-free route to the thesis - it was only seeing how other teams ran into difficulties that underlined risks”

Conclusions Experience is very strongly positive in three of Keller’s four motivational categories (attention, relevance, and satisfaction). Implies increased motivation for learning and embedding research skills into practice.

Conclusions Slightly positive results for increasing confidence. Negative outcomes can have very strong learning potential (but can decrease confidence) Knowing what you don’t know; removing ‘blissful ignorance’ Frustration over pure luck/lack of control

Conclusions Unexpected outcome: much wider applicability than just being used to teach Master’s students. Unexpected outcome: success relies heavily on tutor guidance, interpretation, performance.

Further development Rules have been altered to increase player agency using a ‘work late’ card Illustrations for cards Final release: FREE/print-on-demand www.howtofailyourresearchdegree.com

Future work? Video to explain game rules Raise awareness (please tweet about it!) @DAbbottResearch Design and run comparative experiment?

Questions? d.abbott@gsa.ac.uk @DAbbottResearch