New Perspectives in Science Education

Developing competences for sustainable energy management does not only demand expertise in technology and physics, it also requires the ability of decision making under controversial constraints and insufficient evidence. The Learning Environment BLUKONE accepts this challenge by blending content learning with personal, social and strategic skills within a serious game design. Eilks et al. (2011) provided evidence that problems of open character with no unique expected solution can be used for training the students´ tolerance of ambiguity and that re-enacting such controversial situations is an ideal training on how to successfully deal with opposing opinions. SSI are widely used in the field of sustainability, following this same approach (cf. Sadler & Donnelly, 2006).

Thus the BLUKONE design tries to foster the students´ decision making skills by modeling realistic situations in a game based environment, offering one group discussion and several role plays. These situations are analyzed against the model of decision making developed by Eggert & Bögeholz (2006) where the decision process consists of the steps “evaluation”, “decision”, and “reflection”. In the last step students learn to analyze their own values and norms, as well as those of others.

The research questions of interest concern the change in the students´

(1) knowledge of energy and alternative energy issues and

(2) their decision making ability

while using the BLUKONE environment.

The first was evaluated using a survey based on parts of the Energy Concept Assessment (Neumann et al. 2013) and the Energy Literacy Survey by DeWaters and Powers (2011).

Data on the latter are available as audio- and videotaped presentations and group discussions which are part of the learning environment. They are analyzed using the “conversation analysis” method as described by Bohnsack (2009).

The group discussions monitored indicate that the students´ decision making skills are not advanced in the beginning: Decisions are made mostly intuitively with post-hoc reasoning. In the upcoming small simulation games we hope to observe more complex patterns of argumentation, combined with a more elaborate use of factual knowledge.

References

Bohnsack, R. (2009). Qualitative Bild- und Videointerpretation. Einführung in die dokumentarische Methode. Opladen: Barbara Budrich

DeWaters, J. E., & Powers, S. E. (2011). Energy literacy of secondary students in New York State (USA): A measure of knowledge, affect, and behavior. Energy Policy, 39(3), 1699-1710.

Eggert, S., & Bögeholz, S. (2006). Göttinger Modell der Bewertungskompetenz, ZfDN 12, 177-197.

Eilks, I., et al. (2011). Der Klimawandel vor Gericht. Materialien für den Fach- und Projektunterricht. Aulis.

Neumann, K., et al. (2013). Towards a learning progression of energy. JRST 50(2), 162-188.

Sadler, T. D., & Donnelly, L. A. (2006). Socioscientific Argumentation: The effects of content knowledge and morality. IJSE 28(12), 1463-1488.