Yale Researchers to Study Learning Game Apps - NYTimes.com
4/10/15 1:06 PM
EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Yale Researchers to Study Learning Game Apps
By Natasha Singer
March 24, 2015 2:30 pm
A three-year-old learning games company wants to raise the bar on how
education technology start-ups measure and market the effectiveness of their
products.
Yogome, an educational games developer with offices in San Francisco and
Mexico City, on Tuesday announced a partnership with play2Prevent, a lab at Yale
University where researchers develop and evaluate video games designed to
improve education, health and social intelligence.
As part of the two-year, low six-figure deal, the academic researchers plan to
conduct a randomized, controlled trial – the kind of rigorous study that
pharmaceutical companies undertake to evaluate the effectiveness of novel
prescription drugs — of Yogome math and science games with more than 100
children ages 5 to 11.
“We decided to do this so we could tell parents our games are educational not
just because we say so, not just because we have teachers on our team, but because
a research team at a prestigious university is studying the real impact of our games
on kids’ learning,” Manolo Diaz, the chief executive of Yogome, said in a phone
interview.
Yogome has developed 20 learning games aimed at elementary school-age
children and their parents. Among them are Math Heroes 2, an adventure game
involving multiplication; Science Heroes: Digestive System, an animated game in
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Yale Researchers to Study Learning Game Apps - NYTimes.com
4/10/15 1:06 PM
which players must fight off bacteria to keep nutrients moving through the body;
and Heroes of Knowledge, a compilation of educational mini games.
The games are available in both Spanish and English. The company has raised
nearly $2 million in seed financing, Mr. Diaz said.
Mr. Diaz said his company sought out the Yale play2Prevent lab because
researchers there create digital games with the idea of improving knowledge and
employ scientific methods to measure the games’ effects on players.
The lab previously developed a game called PlayForward, which is designed to
reduce risky behaviors — such as unprotected sex and using drugs — associated
with H.I.V.
With financing from the National Institutes of Health, the researchers
conducted a study of PlayForward on several hundred children, aged 11 to 14, in
the New Haven area. The study compared the knowledge and attitudes of children
who played the behavior intervention game to those who played consumer games
like Angry Birds. The study is not yet completed.
Dr. Lynn E. Fiellin, the director of the play2Prevent lab who is an associate
professor at the Yale School of Medicine, compared her lab’s methods for studying
video games to the drug-placebo comparison trials conducted by pharmaceutical
companies.
“It’s like getting a medicine F.D.A.-approved,” Dr. Fiellin said. “You have to
have the data. The data is everything.”
For the Yogome research, Dr. Fiellin said she hoped to examine not just how
the games might change children’s knowledge, but also how they might affect their
motivations.
“We may be able to teach them the rudimentary skills of algebra,” Dr. Fiellin
said. “But if there is something about game play that enhances the enjoyment of
learning, that’s the golden ticket. Then they can apply that to geometry and algebra
2.”
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Yale Researchers to Study Learning Game Apps - NYTimes.com
4/10/15 1:06 PM
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