Current serious games give all learners the same unregulated scaffolding, which the authors argue contradicts the notion of scaffolding¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 2013 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on a source with no registered publication record (a web page, book or unpublished report). It is kept because 3 design pages cite it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In current classroom application of serious games, all learners receive the same scaffolding ('blanket scaffolding') regardless of changing expertise, which the authors argue contradicts the very notion of scaffolding. → Obikwelu 2013

Evidence¶

Obikwelu 2013¶

Obikwelu, C, Read, J, and Sim, G. (2013). Children’s Problem-Solving in Serious Games: The “Fine-Tuning System (FTS)” Elaborated. The Electronic Journal of e-Learning Volume 11 Issue 1. https://www.ejel.org

q2 · i? · the article prints no effect size for this finding · review · r1

A literature-analysis section (§4 Problems and Solutions) of this narrative review-style paper reports that embedded learning support in serious games does not consider multiple ZPDs in the classroom, so "All learners get the “same” scaffolding – “blanket scaffolding”". No empirical data are reported; this is the authors' synthesis of cited literature.

"All learners get the “same” scaffolding – “blanket scaffolding”, contradicting the very notion of scaffolding (Puntambekar & Hubscher, 2002)."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Contingent scaffolding improves learning more than fixed or absent support. — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Instructional support suited to novices can have negative effects for more expert learners (expertise-reversal effect), so instructional design should be tailored to learner experience — a broader claim this one bears on
• Contingency is not treated as a necessary condition of scaffolding in bilingual education research, unlike broader educational research — related