The Effectiveness of a Web-based Board Game for Teaching Undergraduate Students Information Literacy Concepts and Skills
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Author(s): Karen Markey Fritz Swanson Andrea Jenkins Brian Jennings Beth St. Jean Victor Rosenberg Xingxing Yao Robert Frost
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Sources(s): Community
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Abstract
To teach incoming undergraduate students information literacy skills, a research team at the University of Michigan School of Information developed the Defense of Hidgeon, a web-based board game. We opted for a game in lieu of other approaches because what people are doing when they are playing good games is good learning. This article describes the game's backstory, how to navigate its 34-space game board, and special game-play features. The research team invited a class of undergraduate students to play the game, gave monetary awards to winning teams, and interviewed students about their game-play experiences to determine what they learned and obtain their suggestions for improvements to the game. The authors offer three premises for the redesign of the Defense of Hidgeon and discuss these premises with regard to the design of future information literacy games.