Daniel B. Horn’s research while affiliated with U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences and other places

Instructional video game development is occurring in both the commercial game development and the instructional design/development communities, but regularly in isolation from one another. While many proclaim that game-based learning offers an instructional revolution, the empirical results on instructional effectiveness have been mixed. These mixed findings may be due to the contrasting approaches utilized within these two communities. These communities differ with respect to prioritizing goals and design/development processes. However, the creation of an effective instructional video game—one that both motivates and teaches—is dependent on the successful partnering of these communities. Accordingly, this chapter elucidates the commonalities and differences in the development goals and approaches of these communities and discusses how best practices of each community should be blended for optimal instructional video game design. This chapter also includes relevant experiences from an instructional PC-video game development project, illustrating challenges faced and new opportunities afforded via a collaborative development effort.

Videogames are increasingly being used for military training. One assumption is that the majority of soldiers play videogames regularly; however, research by Orvis, Horn, and Belanich (2009)20. Orvis , K. A. , Horn , D. B. and Belanich , J. 2009 . An examination of the role individual differences play in videogame-based training . Military Psychology , 21 : 461 – 481 . [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®]View all references found that only approximately 40% of U.S. Military Academy cadets reported moderate to heavy game-play. Given that cadets may be a special population, this research examines the frequency of videogame usage across the U.S. Army. Results indicate that fewer than 43% of over 10,000 soldiers surveyed play videogames at least weekly. Junior enlisted soldiers report the highest frequency (51–59%), whereas senior enlisted/officer ranks play much less (11–37%). Implications for utilizing serious videogames for military training are discussed.

Videogames are emerging as an increasingly popular training tool in the military. Given this trend, it is important to investigate factors that maximize the effectiveness of this training medium. The present research analyzed the impact of trainee attributes (i.e., prior videogame experience, videogame self-efficacy, and goal orientation) on game-based training outcomes. Participants completed a game–based tactics training exercise. The training exercise used America's Army, a first-person-perspective videogame with a single-player section to introduce game-specific tasks, followed by a multiplayer section where participants form small teams to conduct collaborative missions. Prior to and after the training exercise, participants completed online questionnaires. Results suggest that the trainee attributes, as a set, had a positive impact on trainee motivation, trainee satisfaction, ease in using the training game interface, metacognitive strategies utilized during training, and time spent engaging in the training game. These findings have implications for instructors using videogames as training tools. Recommendations for future research in this area are provided.

Social network analysis (SNA) has become an important analytic tool for analyzing terrorist networks, friendly command and control structures, and a wide variety of other applications. This project proposes a new method for detecting change in social networks over time, by applying a cumulative sum statistical process control statistic to normally distributed network measures. The proposed method is able to detect organizational change in the same manner as a quality engineer can detect a change in a manufacturing process. The new algorithm is demonstrated on social network data collected on a group of 24 Army officers going through a 1-year graduate program at Columbia University and on al-Qaeda leading up to and immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Instructional video game development is occurring in both the commercial game development and the instructional design/development communities, but regularly in isolation from one another. While many proclaim that game-based learning offers an instructional revolution, the empirical results on instructional effectiveness have been mixed. These mixed findings may be due to the contrasting approaches utilized within these two communities. These communities differ with respect to prioritizing goals and design/development processes. However, the creation of an effective instructional video game—one that both motivates and teaches—is dependent on the successful partnering of these communities. Accordingly, this chapter elucidates the commonalities and differences in the development goals and approaches of these communities and discusses how best practices of each community should be blended for optimal instructional video game design. This chapter also includes relevant experiences from an instructional PC-video game development project, illustrating challenges faced and new opportunities afforded via a collaborative development effort.

Social network analysis (SNA) has become an important analytic tool for analyzing terrorist networks, friendly command and control structures, and a wide variety of other applications. In this project we collect social network data from a group of 24 Army officers in a one-year graduate program at Columbia University. In this report we discuss methodological issues associated with collecting e-mail social networks and include source code for an add-in to Microsoft Outlook to aid in this process. These data were investigated for patterns and trends in mutual, asymmetric, and null dyads. Behavioral changes in the group resulting from awareness of one's position in social network were also studied. Additionally, comparisons were made between SNA data derived from e-mail traffic and from questionnaires. The differences between these two types of networks are important concerns when considering the implementation of SNA as a command and control tool for friendly forces.

Video game-based environments are an increasingly popular medium for training Soldiers. This research investigated how various strategies for modifying task difficulty over the progression of an instructional video game impact learner performance and motivation. Further, the influence of prior video game experience on these learning outcomes was examined, as well as the role prior experience played in determining the optimal approach for adjusting task difficulty. Participants completed a game-based training task under one of four task difficulty conditions: static, increasing, adaptive-low and adaptive-high. All participants completed an identical pre-training trial, 10 practice trials varying in difficulty level according to condition, and a final performance trial. Results demonstrate that learner performance and motivation significantly improved in all difficulty conditions. Yet, contrary to expectations, no single condition maximized these outcomes relative to others. There was a significant 3-way interaction between performance, condition, and prior video game experience. Further, prior experience was found to significantly influence these learning outcomes. Learners with greater experience consistently performed better regardless of condition. Experienced gamers also initially reported high task self- efficacy and set higher performance goals for the training task. The results of this research provide information useful to training game developers and instructors utilizing video games as training tools.

While there has been substantial interest in using e-science and cyberinfrastructure technologies to enable synchronous remote participation in experimental research, the details of such participation are in question. On the one hand, there is a desire to give remote participants the same views and capabilities that they would have as local participants. On the other hand, there are settings where experimental specimens and apparatus are large and difficult to manipulate effectively or view from a remote vantage point. This article argues for more novel forms of remote participation by drawing on exploratory interview and observation data gathered in civil engineering laboratories. It is shown that, while experiments are in progress, the engineers studied focus primarily on detecting and preventing specimen failures, and that their unease about remote participation stems from doubts about the ability of remote participants to detect failures adequately. It is argued that this presents the opportunity to consider novel roles for remote participants that exploit the features of e-science technologies.

Personal computer (PC)-based videogames are emerging as an increasingly popular training tool in the U.S. Army. The present research represents a follow-up investigation to Orvis, Orvis, Belanich, and Mull in (2005) with regards to the impact of trainee characteristics in videogame-based training environments. Specifically, this follow-up research examines prior videogame experience, videogame self-efficacy, and goal orientation as antecedents that maximize trainee motivation, as well as other learner choices and outcomes, in PC game-based training. In this research, participants played a first-person-perspective videogame that began with a single-player section to introduce game- specific tasks, followed by a multi-player section where participants formed small teams to conduct several collaborative missions. Prior to and after the training exercise, participants completed online questionnaires. This research extends Orvis et al. (2005) by demonstrating that these trainee characteristics, as a set, had a positive impact on trainee motivation to use the training game, trainee satisfaction with the training experience, ease in using the training game interface, team cohesion, metacognitive strategies utilized during training, and time spent engaging in the training game. The results of this research provide useful information to training game developers and instructors using videogames as training tools.

This paper reports on the emergent use of lightweight text chat to provide important grounding and facilitation information in a large, distributed, ad-hoc group of researchers participating in a live experiment. The success of chat in this setting suggests a critical re-examination and extension of Clark and Brennan's work on grounding in communication. Specifically, it is argued that there are some settings characterized by reduced information and clarification needs, where the use of extremely lightweight tools (such as basic text chat) can be sufficient for achieving common ground - even when conversational participants are unknown to each other. Theoretical and design implications are then presented.