Browsing by Subject "Games"
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Item A problem solving application in mathematics education(2006-12) Arizpe, Omar; Dwyer, Jeremiah; Harris, Gary; Stevens, TaraA solution to the Rubik's Cube was introduced to an eighth grade mathematics class. The purpose of this study was to determine if an introduction to a solution to the Rubik's Cube could enhance students' problem-solving abilities, increase their general interest in mathematics, and enhance students' problem solving self-efficacy. Pre and Post Surveys were administered. The results revealed a significant increase in students' problem solving abilities and self-efficacy, but no significant difference was found in student interest. A highly statistically significant difference was found in the girls' problem solving abilities. This may have been as a result of the algorithmic approach taken to solve the Rubik's Cube.Item Attributes and motivation in game-based learning : a review of the literature(2012-08) Kang, Jina, Ph. D.; Liu, Min, Ed. D.; Toprac, PaulSince the mid-1980s, various educational games have been developed, and their popularity has implications for the use of games in the classroom. Although research over many years has shown games to be effective in enhancing motivation and improving learner performance, studies that connect specific elements of games and learner motivation are lacking. This report is a literature review of relevant articles on motivation and attributes in game-based learning, including empirical studies and theoretical articles from 2009 to present. Based on the attributes presented by Wilson et al. (2009), the game environments in these studies are reviewed, with a focus on recent studies and trends related to game-based learning. This review also presents an examination of how the recent studies conducted their experiments in order to investigate game attributes and motivation. The relationship between the attributes and learner motivation is discussed. Because of the current lack of research on the relationship between attributes and learner motivation in game-based learning, the results of this literature review can provide insight into the potential use of game attributes.Item Automated domain analysis and transfer learning in general game playing(2010-08) Kuhlmann, Gregory John; Stone, Peter, 1971-; Lifschitz, Vladimir; Mooney, Raymond J.; Porter, Bruce W.; Schaeffer, JonathanCreating programs that can play games such as chess, checkers, and backgammon, at a high level has long been a challenge and benchmark for AI. Computer game playing is arguably one of AI's biggest success stories. Several game playing systems developed in the past, such as Deep Blue, Chinook and TD-Gammon have demonstrated competitive play against the top human players. However, such systems are limited in that they play only one particular game and they typically must be supplied with game-specific knowledge. While their performance is impressive, it is difficult to determine if their success is due to generally applicable techniques or due to the human game analysis. A general game player is an agent capable of taking as input a description of a game's rules and proceeding to play without any subsequent human input. In doing so, the agent, rather than the human designer, is responsible for the domain analysis. Developing such a system requires the integration of several AI components, including theorem proving, feature discovery, heuristic search, and machine learning. In the general game playing scenario, the player agent is supplied with a game's rules in a formal language, prior to match play. This thesis contributes a collection of general methods for analyzing these game descriptions to improve performance. Prior work on automated domain analysis has focused on generating heuristic evaluation functions for use in search. The thesis builds upon this work by introducing a novel feature generation method. Also, I introduce a method for generating and comparing simple evaluation functions based on these features. I describe how more sophisticated evaluation functions can be generated through learning. Finally, this thesis demonstrates the utility of domain analysis in facilitating knowledge transfer between games for improved learning speed. The contributions are fully implemented with empirical results in the general game playing system.Item Designing a Real-time Strategy Game about Sustainable Energy Use(2011-08-08) Doucet, Lars AndreasThis thesis documents the development of a video game about sustainable energy use that unites fun with learning. Many other educational games do not properly translate knowledge, facts, and lessons into the language of games: mechanics, rules, rewards, and feedback. This approach differs by using game mechanics in new ways to express lessons about energy sustainability. This design is based on the real time strategy (RTS) genre. Players of these types of games must manage economic problems such as extracting, refining, and allocating resources, as well as industrial problems such as producing buildings and military units. These games often use imaginative fantasy elements to connect with their audience, but also made-up economic numbers and fictional resources such as magic crystals which have little to do with the real world. This thesis' approach retains the fantasy elements and gameplay conventions of this popular genre, but uses numbers, resources, and situations based on research about real-world energy production. The intended result is a game in which the player learns about energy use simply by trying to overcome the game's challenges. In addition, a combined quantitative/qualitative study was performed, which shows that players of the game learned new things, enjoyed the game, and became more interested in the topic of energy use.Item Here be dragons : imaginative geographies of online video games(2013-05) Schwartz, Leigh; Zonn, LeoAs articulated by J. K. Wright (1947), "terrae incognitae," or unknown lands, capture the imagination and inspire an excitement to explore and learn, but with a reduction in travel times and subsequent expansions of potential travel range, along with growth in media and the development of the video game industry, for many, terrae incognitae has shifted from places on Earth to the intangible environments of interactive media. While the virtual environments of video games can be fantastic, they are also designed and created by human beings to exist entirely in relation to the game player, who is an adventurer, explorer, settler, civilizer, or conqueror. Using qualitative research methods, this dissertation analyzes the geographies online video gaming in relation to an original framework based on the mutually constitutive concepts of representation, exploration, and geographic narrative, as well as the intersecting roles of myth, fantasy, and the virtual in shaping narratively structured imaginative environments. With specific chapters examining themes of interaction between human and software, gender and sexuality, exploration, narrative, cooperation, and creativity, this dissertation proposes that video games can be best understood as both collaborative representations and virtual environments.Item The Ludic wars : the interactive pleasures of post-9/11 military video games(2011-08) Payne, Matthew Thomas; Strover, Sharon; Straubhaar, Joseph; Kackman, Michael; Tyner, Kathleen; Cloud, DanaThis dissertation examines how commercially successful military-themed video games produced after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks are crafted, marketed, and played with the goal of understanding the interlocking technological, cultural, and social practices that contribute to their interactive pleasures. The systematic inquiry into the production and experience of media pleasure carries with it vexing questions about how such affect is created and how it is situated within broader cultural fields. This interdisciplinary project accordingly utilizes multiple methods including close textual readings of seminal games, a critical discourse analysis of marketing materials, and an ethnography and focus group of a war gaming fan community to track how these sites of practice give post-9/11 military-themed gameplay its distinctive experiential character and cultural import. The case studies examined herein reveal that the affective dimensions of militarized gameplay are intimately linked to the political and cultural forces undergirding their production, marketing, and reception, and that the games industry mobilizes anxieties about terrorism to entice gamers into virtually striking back against foreign aggressors.Item Modeling and formal verification of gaming storylines(2016-05) Holloway, Lane Thomas; Fussell, Donald S., 1951; Elster, Anne C.; Abraham, Jacob; Chase, Craig; Miikkulainen, RistoVideo games are becoming more and more interactive with increasingly complex plots. These plots typically involve multiple parallel storylines that may converge and diverge based on player actions. This may lead to situations that are inconsistent or impassable. Current techniques for planning and testing game plots involve naive means such as text documents, spreadsheets, and critical path testing. Recent academic research [1] [2] [3] examines the design planning problems, but neglect testing and verification of the possible plot lines. These complex plots have thus until now been handled inadequately due to a lack of a formal methodology and tools to support them. In this dissertation, we describe how we develop methods to 1) characterize storylines (SChar), 2) define a storyline description language (SDL), and 3) create a storyline verification tool based in formal verification techniques (StoCk) that use our SDL as input. SChar (Storyline Characterization) help game developers characterize the category of story line they are working on (e.g. linear, branching and plot) through a tool that give a set of guided questions. Our SDL allows its users to describe storylines in a consistent format similar to how they reason about storylines, but in such a way that it can be used for formal verification. StoCk accepts storylines, described in SDL, to be formally verified using SPIN for errors. StoCk is also examined in three common use cases found in the gaming industry used as a tool 1) during storyline creation 2) during quality assurance and 3) during storyline implementation. The combination of SChar, SDL, and StoCk provides designers, writers, and developers a novel methodology and tools to verify consistency in large and complex game plots.Item Pursuit and evasion games: semi-direct and cooperative control methods(2009-05-15) Parish III, Allen S.Pursuit and evasion games have garnered much research attention since the class of problems was first posed over a half century ago. With wide applicability to both civilian and military problems, the study of pursuit and evasion games showed much early promise. Early work generally focused on analytical solutions to games involving a single pursuer and a single evader. These solutions generally assumed simple system dynamics to facilitate convergence to a solution. More recently, numerical techniques have been utilized to solve more difficult problems. While many sophisticated numerical tools exist for standard optimization and optimal control problems, developing a more complete set of numerical tools for pursuit and evasion games is still a developing topic of research. This thesis extends the current body of numeric solution tools in two ways. First, an existing approach that modifies sophisticated optimization tools to solve two player pursuer and evasion games is extended to incorporate a class of state inequality constraints. Several classical problems are solved to illustrate the e?cacy of the new approach. Second, a new cooperation metric is introduced into the system objective function for multi-player pursuit and evasion games. This new cooperation metric encourages multiple pursuers to surround and then proceed to capture an evader. Several examples are provided to demonstrate this new cooperation metric.Item Sex-role stereotypes in sports and games(Texas Tech University, 1979-08) Creel, Lonna RichardsonThe purpose of this study was to develop an instrument which would measure sex-role stereotyping in children through selected sport and game objects. Eighty-seven children (^2 boys and kS girls) aged 6, 8, and 10 were randomly selected as subjects. The instrument which was devised contained 19 pictures consisting of objects used in various sports and games. Subjects were instructed to look at each picture and decide if they thought that boys play with the object, if girls do, or if both boys and girls play with the object. Subjects made their responses by placing an "X" in one of three boxes with the headings "BOYS", "GIRLS", and "BOYS AND GIRLS". If they did not recognize the object, they were to mark their response in the box with the question mark. Information concerning each subject's age, sex, ethnic group, brother-sister status, and parental status was obtained to determine the relationship between these variables and stereotyping. Chi Square was computed to determine if there were significant changes in stereotyping when compared with each variable. Reliability of the instrument was determined by calculating a contingency coefficient and the percentage of repeatability for each activity. A test-retest method was used in which one week elapsed before the second test was administered. The reliability coefficient for the 19 activities ranged from A? to .98. The low contingency coefficient for some of the activities may be attributed to the fact that several subjects did not recognize the activities and resorted to guessing. Findings of this study indicated that sex-role stereotyping does exist in sports and games. Stereotyping diminished with age and was not limited to a particular sex. Sex, ethnic group, brother-sister status, and parental status had little effect on stereotyping by the subjects.Item The sinner, the stranger, the sacrifice maker : an apocryphal autobiography(2015-05) Francel, Josef Nicholas; Mutchler, Leslie; Rifkin, EdwinThis report serves as a kind of explanation and expansion upon the work I have taken on the past few months. It explores how the concepts of memory and perspective play a role in the narratives that we create. I accomplish this through my work with board games and theatrical recreations. It further discusses the ways in which I address the importance of narrative and story telling through both style and the reinterpretation of my own biography.