WoW and Science..... win?

Constance Steinkuehler (2006) examines how MMORPG's, specifically World of Warcraft, can help to foster scientific habits of mind.

She points out that many of the discussions held in the WoW forums are often technical and analytical, making use of mathematical models (theorycrafting), debate, and correlating theory with evidence, and doing all this while building on the information others have provided. The articles notes that certain 'scientific habits of mind' were rare in the forum investigated. Here is an adaptation of a graph from the article, which I am having trouble pasting into this post:

Social knowledge construction = 89%
build on others' ideas = 67%
use of counterarguments = 48%
mathematical models as insight = 35%
understanding technology as socially situated = 28%
systems analysis = 28%
understanding feedback = 28%
read reports = 21%
heuristic reasoning = 16%
questioning results = 15%
appropriate use of mathematics = 12%
multiple forms of arguments = 8%
transformation of data = 7%
use data representations = 3%
generalization of results = 3%
pragmatic understanding of theory = 0%
not equating model with truth = 0%
theory-data coordination = 0%
coordination of multiple results = 0%
expect noise = 0%
reasoning through uncertainty = 0%

Granted, having a 0% next to 6 of the criteria may not be glorious, but remember, this is a GAME which many people think does nothing but assist in the degradation of young minds. Furthermore, the article only investigated the posts on a forum about Improved Mark of the Wild.... this is very small sample size, and also is about a topic which is only mildly challenging for players. If the topic were broader... say about an entire 'spec' (allotment of a limited number of 'talent points' designed to achieve the most efficient gameplay), then perhaps the discussion would have been more technical and the posts would have exhibited a more frequent representation of the investigated criteria. I really like this table though, because it gets me to start thinking about all the things WoWers do in order to play the game well... it really isn't simple and mindless, there is a lot of technical thought and strategy involved. I hope this helps to explain a little bit more about my last pots, even though these are not the same article (authored by the same individual, though). I will probably attempt to more specifically and prolifically address the use of such criteria in WoW in the future, but for now this should suffice to lay some solid ground work for WoW's intellectual benefits.

Steinkuehler, C. & Chmiel, M. (2006). Fostering scientific habits of mind in the context of online play.

On Education and Intellect: Does WoW foster scientific minds?

So the search for legitimate studies on WvL has begun. I have come across a couple promising articles so far, but I haven't been able to access more than an abstract for any of them (yet). Either way, I saw this abstract and I just couldn't pass it by:

In today’s increasingly “flat” world of globalization (Friedman ), the need for a scientifically literate citizenry has grown more urgent. Yet, by some measures, we have done a poor job at fostering scientific habits of mind in schools. Recent research on informal games-based learning indicates that such technologies and the communities they evoke may be one viable alternative—not as a substitute for teachers and classrooms, but as an alternative to textbooks and science labs. This paper presents empirical evidence about the potential of games for fostering scientific habits of mind. In particular, we examine the scientific habits of mind and dispositions that characterize online discussion forums of the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft. Eighty-six percent of the forum discussions were posts engaged in “social knowledge construction” rather than social banter. Over half of the posts evidenced systems based reasoning, one in ten evidenced model-based reasoning, and 65% displayed an evaluative epistemology in which knowledge is treated as an open-ended process of evaluation and argument (Steinkuehler & Duncan, 2008).

Wow. As in the exclamation, not the game. Who would have thought the WoW forums would be cited as support for the idea that the game is intellectual/educational...? I thought trolls (for non-WoWers, trolls are people who post on forums just to make other people angry-- more or less) would have dropped percentages like those considerably; but considering this, those stats are just all the more impressive! If you look at more technical and more heavily moderated forums, such as ElitistJerks (in my opinion), I bet those stats would be even more convincing. This shows that the time people invest in WoW isn't passive or thoughtless, in fact, one needs to be creative and actively problem solving in order to be the best player s/he can be. And if you don't do all the mathematical modeling yourself, you at least need to do some "research" on the forums to acquire this kind of information. I will be looking to both further develop the points made by these authors (the full text of their article should be available to me soon), as well as searching for a legitimate conflicting argument.

As always, comments on this are encouraged, just don't be a troll ;)

Official WoW Forums
Elitist Jerk Forums

Steinkuehler, Constance; Duncan, Sean. “Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds.” Journal of Science Education & Technology, v. 17 issue 6, 2008, p. 530-543.