Evaluation & Dissemination
Dec 3rd, 2015 by winslc2
Evaluation
We believe the best evaluation for our game would be to hold a focus group in which the students and teachers play our game then discuss it with us to make sure the game works as intended. We would then give a final survey after to make sure we would get all students opinions on what they liked and disliked about the game to improve it.
The point of the focus group is to serve as our user acceptance testing. We want to make sure the game functions as intended. Through open conversation with the students and teachers we will be able to find out what they learned and what they thought the point of the game was and see if it aligned with our vision.
Our validation of objective effects is the survey. We will be giving a survey to the students and teachers after the focus group to ask them how they liked the game. Not only will it test our method of teaching, but it will also ask them if the scenes portrayed the teachings well and/or whether or not the students and teachers understood exactly what we were teaching. The way we have the game set up is to teach the kids in a way that allows them to understand that as they make improper decisions, hurting the environment, they will start to lose points, something kids don’t want to happen during games. We even have feedback telling them why they lost points and what they should do better next time. We hope that through this type of teaching the game will be able to give the students proper education without having to tell them what they need to learn. The survey will validate our mindset on what we wanted the game to portray more than just talking with them in the focus group. We will have written comments from each of the users to give us feedback on what we did right or wrong and even if we taught something that we didn’t even intend on teaching. The survey will help us immensely.
Through both a focus group and survey we believe we will be able to get the best possible feedback on our game. Through using two methods we should be able to get all feedback that the students and teachers have. By ensuring there is no bias in our questions and including all feedback from all the students and teachers we will be able to make sure that our evaluation is statistically valid. This feedback will then allow us to improve our game so that we have the most effective game possible.
Dissemination
Zoe the Green Monkey is free and available to play online! There are many websites that include games to help young students learn about the environment. We are interested in making Zoe the Green Monkey available on one of these more well known websites. Zoe the Green Monkey is intended for use by 4th-6th graders. If teachers are interested in using Zoe the Green Monkey for more advanced students and higher grade levels, there are sources provided in the “Further Teaching” section that will allow more depth to be added to the game.