You’ve probably heard of the videogame that treats depression; now there’s a videogame that teaches scientific reasoning. It’s called Operation ARA and the initial research looks promising.
Students learn the skills of scientific reasoning by engaging in interactive dialogs with avatars. They are tutored by avatars with tutoring sessions that vary depending on how well students have responded to questions about the material they are learning. Students also play a jeopardy-like game against a feisty avatar to identify flaws in research and then generate their own questions to determine the quality of different types of research. The research examples are taken from psychology, biology, and chemistry to help students transfer the thinking skills across domains of knowledge. Early results show encouraging learning gains.