Materials:

Costello, R. (2020). Gamification strategies for retention, motivation, and engagement in higher education: Emerging research and opportunities. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global). (Online link)

Chen, J. (2012). 50 digital team-building games fast, fun meeting openers, group activities, and adventures using social media, smartphones, GPS, tablets, and more. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. (Online link)

Jesionkowska, J., Wild, F., & Deval, Y. (2020). Active Learning Augmented Reality for STEAM Education—A Case Study. Education Sciences, 10(8), 198. doi:10.3390/educsci10080198(Online link)

Choi, D. H., Dailey-Hebert, A., & Estes, J. S. (2020). Current and prospective applications of virtual reality in higher education. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/reader.action?docID=6272680&query=.R. (2021). Roobicks. Retrieved April 12, 2021, from https://escape.roobicks.com/

Evaluation Plan

The learning goals for this project are twofold: letting incoming ECT students be familiar with available campus resources and services to them, and offering spaces for them to get in touch with their peers and ECT faculty members.

Ideally, the success of this project could be evaluated by several sections that will be offered in the App during an in-person mode, which are listed below:

1. Students’ sharing during the debriefing period: During the debrief, each group will share the resources and services provided by the department/office that’s assigned to them. The richness of the information they share would be a valuable measure of the success of the project to test out how much students know about the department/office.

2. The facial expressions of students on the group photo students take during the scavenger hunt game: We are looking for smiles or other pleasing facial expressions which might showcase that the group members might have a great time engaging with each other.

3. Post-orientation survey or/and the “feedback” feature in the app: On a short survey/the feedback page of the app, students are asked for how they would like to rate the game activity (an average rate of 3.5 out of 5 stars would be a good indicator of success) and also whether they build connections with team members after the event.

However, due to the covid-19, we can only offer and test our App with the online mode, and the outcome of it will be evaluated by the following sections:

1. How well do the students engage with each of the games? Are the tasks for each of the missions challenging?

We want to create tasks that can have some level of difficulty to finish, and that can help the students to get more engagement with the mission, to have a deeper impression of the information that is included in the tasks. We can measure this by the time each of the student groups finished their missions.

2. How much collaboration do the students feel about what the game has provided?

We want to offer a platform that can help students to build their connections with their peers. During the game, they can talk and help each other through the group chat function. Ideally, we should be able to collect the data about how many times each of the students used the group chat function during the game ( To protect their privacy, we won't know the content of their conversations). And also, we will do a follow-up survey to ask the students if they are able to build long-lasting relationships with the peers they have worked with during the game.

3. Post-orientation survey or/and the “feedback” feature in the app ( same as the in-person mode):

On a short survey/the feedback page of the app, students are asked for how they would like to rate the game activity (an average rate of 3.5 out of 5 stars would be a good indicator of success) and also whether they build connections with team members after the event.

How social constructivism and constructivism, the two learning theories that are central to our design, played out in the scavenger game we design is that we make the game too challenging for an individual to complete so that it calls for more group efforts. We will evaluate the success of the implementation of these two theories based on the feedback we gain from the peer mentors/faculty members who are assigned to each location and observe the whole process of how students interact with each other. Moreover, for the situated learning, we will ask students how comfortable they are if they solve similar tasks again in the future in the post-orientation survey or in the "feedback" feature in the app.

Implementation & Iteration:

Explain how you tested your design:

• The application was tested with 3 ECT peers during Wednesday's class. Since it was an online class, our participants couldn't move around the campus in person by using the app. Instead, we showed the app interface on Figma with our participants to test out whether the instructions were clear and intriguing to them.

Explain the findings tied to the evaluation plan:

• They both enjoyed the game and looked forward to seeing more design elements we have, which matches with the second evaluation method we purposed. One of the students mentioned that it would be great to think over what design elements we could add to the interface to intrinsically/extrinsically motivate the participants to continue the game.

Refinement Rationale:

• Students would like to see design elements that are intrinsically/extrinsically motivate them to continue to the game

  • Add a "congratulation" page to reward the participants after they complete each task

  • Tell participants that a special reward is awaiting for the winning group

  • Add a timer on the interface to let participants feel the pressure of time

• Students would like the interface to be as intuitive as possible to be able to focus on the collaboration and the activity itself

  • Add a map view where students can search for the direction to the campus

• Students would like this app to be a platform where they can continue to collaborate

  • Add bonus activity to participants have more time

  • Add more informational/communication features that would be good resources throughout the school year

• Students would like to feel like they are a part of improving this app and wants their voices heard

  • Add a survey at the end of the orientation for a quick evaluation