Annual Reunion with Prof. Max

Summary of meeting:

PLANNING PHD

Research Question: 

Can a video game with zoomorphic robots animated agents improve motivation in creative 
problem-solving in children of High School? 

Secondary Question:

Review Literature

1. What has been done concerning games in robotics to motivate children?

2. What are relations between video games, motivation and creative problem-solving?

Design

3. How to design an environment of video game with zoomorphic robots to motivate in 
creative problem-solving?

Evaluation

4. How can we evaluate the motivation in creative problem-solving with the video 
game in robotics?

5. What are the social and educational contributions of the video game with 
zoomorphic robots?


This is feedback of Max: 

Thank you for your research questions. I am sorry I had not the opportunity to look at this in detail before, but I have included some of the comments/questions I have. I think the biggest question for you is this: what makes your question unique? Of the extensive literature on serious gaming, education and problem-solving, how will you make a difference. I think it would be good to have that research questions in place, as it helps you tailor your work (incl. the literature review).

To help you a bit, I can imagine that you want to investigate one or more of the following questions:

* cultural differences between high-school students in the Netherlands vs. Brazil

* differences in topics on problem-solving (e.g. you mentioned the animal kingdom and compare animals with a non-animal abstract game on problem-solving)

* specific difference between the presence vs. absence of an embodied agent.

* different kinds of motivation (on-task, vs. off-task, educational, social)

* different ways of measuring motivation and problem-solving (game-like, post-test)

I am not arguing that these are the questions you should investigate, but they are examples of questions you may want to consider. In any case, you need to find a question that others have not already answered for you. I am happy to help with that question, but I am sure that Marie and Menno also have ideas.

This is feedback of Marie: 

Thank you for your kind input, these are very good suggestions. Alexandra is now focusing on the most recent literature in the area of problem-based learning which is related to topic 2 and 5, so that might be a good start!