eLearning Guild Research: Why Failing (While Learning) Is Good

The Guild’s latest research report, Gamification, Games, and Learning: What Managers and Practitioners Need to Know, discusses one of the critical gamingelements used in games and sometimes in gamification, the freedom to fail. The report explains that failure is one of theprimary ways that we learn how to master the game.

Learning from mistakes

Imagine a game, any game, where you make a tiny mistake and aninsignia appears on the screen: GAME OVER. That’s not how games usually workbecause chances are, you’d be demotivated and never play that game again. Instead,you typically make a mistake, and because of that mistake learn what not to doin the future. (Kind of like life, if you’re smart.)

Research shows that learning from mistakes is extraordinarilypowerful, which is one of the reasons that game learning can be so powerful,and it’s another reason for using game-based learning. In Moving Learning Games Forward: Obstacles, Opportunities, and Openness(see the References at the end of this article), a discussion of using gamesand play for learning, the authors describe good games and play-based learningenvironments:

Game players regularly exhibitpersistence, risk-taking, attention to detail, and problem solving skills … Gameenvironments enable players to construct understanding actively, and atindividual paces … well-designed games enable players to advance on differentpaths at different rates in response to each player’s interests and abilities,while also fostering collaboration and just-in-time learning.

Game learning vs. typical learning

Isn’t this exactly the sort of environment we want forlearning? But ask yourself, is this how people in typical learning environments(including eLearning) behave? Is this what typical learning environments(including eLearning) are like? (Yeah, no.)

In Moving LearningGames Forward: Obstacles, Opportunities, and Openness, authors Klopfer,Osterweil, and Salen describe how, in play and games, you can learn throughdoing things that result in what might look like failure but are actually aform of experimentation. For example, a toddler builds a too-high block tower andit topples. In doing so, she learns about what works for a building foundationand the nature of block towers. And so it goes for people of all ages who arelearning about anything, whether building a fort, programming Perl, tiling behinda toilet, fixing the gears on a bicycle, or making mosaic jewelry.

Figure 1 shows an example of feedback from the Gamification, Games, and Learning: WhatManagers and Practitioners Need to Know research report. This is feedback from a previous interaction and, as you can see, the player is now dealing with someconsequences. In order for this feedback to be useful, learners must be able tolearn from what they did and figure out what to do next. Look carefully forprompts and information from the last interaction. When the player clicks thebutton, additional maps become available.

Figure 1: Example of game feedback

The value of the do-over

One of the problems with most instruction is that we don’t includemuch allowance for failure or what-if scenarios in the design so people can seewhat would happen in different circumstances. And make no mistake; in real lifethere will be failure and the need to try different scenarios. Our lineartraining may actually undermine confidence and competence to deal with failureand different scenarios because these situations are often not included intraining situations. And when they are, they are sometimes included asterrible, you-should-have-known better options rather than possible optionsthat might not have worked as well.

In his book, WhatVideo Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, James Paul Gee providesa set of principles encountered during the mastery of games. His psychosocialmoratorium principle explains that games allow us to take risks in a spacewhere real-world consequences are lowered, which is akin to the freedom to failthat I’ve been discussing. As a result, experimental or “what-if” behavior canthrive under these conditions. The player can see their consequences in thegame world but even the most significant losses can be remedied by starting over.

In games, you are allowed to try over and over again. Notonly are you allowed to, you want to.When playing with others, you also get to learn from their mistakes. Tell methis doesn’t sound like the perfect learning environment.

References

Gee, James Paul. WhatVideo Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second edition. Macmillan, 2007.