Building a scoring method for student-created Mars habitats in Minecraft

Shipley, Evan Joseph

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120162 Copy

Description

Title

Building a scoring method for student-created Mars habitats in Minecraft

Author(s)

Shipley, Evan Joseph

Issue Date

2023-05-03

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Lane, H C

Department of Study

Curriculum and Instruction

Discipline

Curriculum and Instruction

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

Minecraft, Work Products, Mars, Habitation, Educational Games, STEM

Abstract

This study explored the viability of implementing a scoring system for Mars habitats modeled and built using Minecraft, a commercial game widely utilized in the educational games space since its release. After building a scoring scheme consisting of 12 science-based mastery categories, 24 student-built habitats were assessed to address the following question Is the proposed method for scoring Mars habitats fair for all camp settings? These assessed scores were used in a Spearman’s rank correlation analysis to compare team group sizes, student face-to-face time with instructors, and scores on intermittent knowledge assessments conducted by instructors. The correlation between habitat scores and: group size was found to be slightly negative (r = -0.03), face-to-face time was found to be positive (r = 0.13), and knowledge assessment score was found to be positive (r = 0.51). This indicates that the scoring method is strong and can be utilized to inform future work with Minecraft-constructed Mars habitats and WHIMC project data.

Graduation Semester

2023-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2023 Evan Shipley

Owning Collections