Multi-User Virtual Environments - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 292

Data Collection & Analysis participant to gain a better understanding of how

much time learners actually spent in the SIE. In
addition to calculating in-game time, the patterns
of quest completion were coded and complied.
There were a total of nine quests (5 apologies and
4 requests) with a series of 1 to 3 different steps
for completing each quest. The ways in which
these quests were completed is critical to under-
standing future integration of different task types.
In addition to the analysis of the in-game activ-
ity, interview and survey data were then analyzed
to gain additional insight into participant aware-
ness of their individual experiences in the SIE as
well as learner explanations of how they used the
space. This triangulated approach was critical to
gaining a comprehensive understanding of user
behavior patterns in Croquelandia . While pre-
and posttest data were collected, the focus here
is more comprehensive. This is congruent with
design-based research aimed at understanding
the complete picture of the effectiveness of an
instructional intervention. As the Design-Based

All students played Croquelandia for six weeks
as part of their language course. During that time,
they completed two modules focused on different
communicative acts (i.e., requests and apologies).
At the end of the six weeks, the students presented
what they had learned in an oral class presentation.
In addition, a sub-group (N=25) participated in
pre- and posttests as well as a midpoint and exit
interview.
All in-game behavior was recorded and then
made available to the researcher for real time
playback in the game space itself. This essentially
allowed the researcher to follow each learner
throughout his or her game play experience with
no outside interference on the player's behavior.
Figure 3 presents a sample screen of the video
playback and written transcript used for analysis.
In order to ascertain user-behavior patterns
three specific data points were analyzed. First,
the total in-game time was calculated for each

Figure 3. Data analysis sample screen