Physical Response to Feedback in Game-based Learning

As we continue to reform science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, feedback is becoming an even more crucial component of STEM education. Feedback is the primary method of scaffolding student understanding in open-ended problem solving environments, including game-based learning. As game-based learning is becoming more popularized and a promising direction for more interactive online learning, it is important to establish effective methods to investigate learners' responses to game-based learning systems. This study investigates how people physically respond to various forms of feedback and identifies differences in responses. This study recorded a single students' physical response to feedback given from a gaming system. This paper describes the observed relationships between the player's physical response (trunk posture and head movements) and feedback provided during the game on the player's performance indicating whether performance is decreasing, constant, or increasing. We present a method for collecting data that could potentially test a student's level of engagement, the simplicity or complexity of the task at hand for the student, and how the student responds to the given feedback in a game-based learning systems.