The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning: Multimedia Learning in Games, Simulations, and Microworlds

This chapter reviews and critiques the scientific evidence and research methods studying the use of games, simulations, and microworlds as multimedia learning tools. This chapter focuses on interactive educational multimedia, which is distinguished from scripted forms of educational multimedia by the degree to which users participate in and control the multimedia software. This chapter also uses the distinction between explanation and experience to understand the unique design opportunities of interactive educational multimedia. The strongest empirical evidence comes from the simulation literature, especially that related to questions about how to design a simulation’s interface to provide feedback and questions about students engaged in discovery learning activities. Microworld research is less empirically rigorous with evidence continuing to remain largely anecdotal based on implementation reports. Research on gaming is the most transitory, ranging from early research on learning from playing games to learning from designing games. Current debates among educational researchers about what constitutes scientific research are particularly relevant to anyone interested in research about interactive multimedia due to the increased use of qualitative research methodologies and the newly emerging trend toward design experiments. What Is Multimedia Learning in Games, Simulations, and Microworlds? The purpose of this chapter is to review the scientific evidence on the use of games, simulations, and microworlds as multimedia learning tools. This is a tall order. All three have very distinctive design and research pedigrees resulting in many cases from very distinctive philosophies about education. Despite these differences, there are advantages to considering all three in discussions of interactive multimedia because each has strengths and ideas that help mitigate weaknesses or gaps often found in the other two (Rieber, 1992; 2003 for detailed discussions). This chapter is written to consider games, simulations, and microworlds within the broad organizational framework of educational multimedia. Most of the educational multimedia studied by researchers is not interactive or experiential, but instead is used as part of instructional texts that explain content to students. For that reason, it is useful to consider the distinction between explanation and experience when trying to understand the design and use of educational multimedia. Multimedia that emphasizes explanation uses multimedia elements (e.g., text, static graphics, animation, and audio) in “scripted” ways. By scripted, I mean multimedia that is designed to be read or viewed in one particular way,