1. This document discusses developmental and game-based approaches to STEM education for all students. It highlights the need to attract students to STEM fields earlier, address gender imbalances, and take a holistic, compulsory approach to technology education from preschool through professional education. 2. Games are discussed as a way to motivate students and help them acquire knowledge and understand scientific concepts. Both commercial games and learning games designed for educational purposes are addressed. Gamification techniques that incorporate game elements are also presented as a way to engage students in typically non-game activities. 3. The document proposes future work exploring science and technology interest in early years, creativity in technology education, and the effects of game-based ped

1. STEM for All:
Developmental and
Game-based Approaches
Tuula Nousiainen
Päivi Fadjukoff
Mikko Vesisenaho
Agora Center, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
2nd SCIENTIX Conference, Brussels, October 24-26, 2014

2. Contents
1. A developmental and holistic perspective to
technology education
• UPDATE (Understanding and Providing a Developmental Approach
to Technology Education), 2007-2009
( UPDATE2: technoscientific approach)
2. The potential of digital games for promoting
children’s competences and interests

3. • Attempts to attract young people
to science and technology often
happen too late
• Gender imbalance
– Medical, physical, and life
sciences vs. technology and
engineering
(Beede et al., 2011; European
Commission, 2013)
– Culminates in fields that
innovate solutions for our
everyday lives
Boys Girls
Preschool,
Kindergarten
Primary School
Lower Secondary
School
Upper Secondary
School
Professional
Education
Challenge
(UPDATE Final Report, 2009, p. 10)
Technology education

4. What the path should look like
(based on: UPDATE Final Report, 2009, p. 11; Virtanen, 2012; Dakers et al., 2009)
INTEREST
immediate
environment
everyday life,
innovations
global issues,
"wicked problems”

5. Principles for technology education
(UPDATE Final Report, 2009)
Technology (or technoscience) should be…
1) studied at all educational stages
2) as a compulsory subject, and
3) taught to both genders.
The curriculum should…
4) be more precise,
5) be developed towards gender-sensitive and gender-aware directions,
6) encourage pupils to creativity, problem solving, inventing, and constructing, and
7) address the ethics of technology and different aspects pertaining to sustainable future.
This could be better achieved with the aid of…
8) information campaigns to decision makers, parents, teachers, and teacher educators;,
9) better facilities for studying technology (laboratories, workshops, tools and equipment,
computers, various materials); and
10) stronger cooperation with the outside society (enterprises, museums, factories).

6. How do games fit in the picture?
• Two main benefits of games (Connolly et al., 2012)
– Motivation, engagement
• E.g., motivating students to keep practicing (Shin et al.,
2012)
– Knowledge acquisition, content understanding
• E.g., more dynamic mental models of scientific
phenomena (Corredor et al., 2014)
– cf. Interest, Exploration, Application, Understanding

7. Making games
Commercial games
Different ways of using games
Learning
games
Gamification (or “ludification”)+
• Using elements from games
• At its worst: “pointification”
• Arbitrary rewards for doing
“boring” things
• At its best: way of thinking
• Roles, characters, stories,
goals, achievements, prizes,
trading, mysteries, problem-
solving, competition,
collaboration, continuity (long-
term, across subjects, different
grade levels), …
• Plenty of room for creativity and for
addressing individual differences
(girls/boys, visual/verbal,
competition/collaboration, etc.)
• Not designed for learning purposes
• No pre-defined ways of use
• Exciting setting / story for problem-
solving
• Critical thinking: “faults” in games
vs. reality
• Teaching peers:
• Motivating for “teachers”
and “students”
• Critical thinking: relevant vs.
irrelevant information
• Motivating for both girls and boys
• Merges technology, content, visual
design, storytelling, etc.
• E.g., enhancing boys’ interest
in creative writing and girls’
interest in technology
(Robertson, 2012)
• Clear didactic purpose, easy to take
into use
• Fixed goals, tasks, assessment
• Potential for creative use is
often quite limited
• Open-ended tasks
• Ability to set personal goals
(Nousiainen & Vesisenaho, 2014)

8. Future
• UPDATE2 – Updating Science and Technology Education to
Meet the Needs of the Technoscientific World (submitted H2020
proposal)
– Integrating holistic technoscientific understanding into formal
curricula and teaching practices on different educational levels
• Motivational factors
• Alternative approaches on curriculum/policy level
• Technoscientific practices
• “Education for all” (gender, ethnic, and sociocultural aspects)
• Further exploration and deepening of understanding of…
– Science and technology interest in early years
– Creativity and technology education
– Effects of game-based pedagogy

9. Thank you!
tuula.j.nousiainen@jyu.fi
UPDATE project reports available via
SCIENTIX Resource Repository

10. References
Beede, D., Julian, T., Langdon, D., McKittrick, G., Khan, B. & Doms, M. (2011). Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to
Innovation. ESA Issue Brief #04-11. US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration.
Connolly, T. M., Boyle, E. A., MacArthur, E., Hainey, T., & Boyle, J. M. (2012). A systematic literature review of
empirical evidence on computer games and serious games. Computers & Education, 59 (2), 661-686.
Corredor, J., Gaydos, M., & Squire, K. (2014). Seeing Change in Time: Video Games to Teach about Temporal Change
in Scientific Phenomena. Journal of Science Education and Technology 23 (3), 324-343.
Dakers, J. R., Dow, W. & McNamee, L. (2009). De-Constructing Technology's Masculinity. International Journal of
Technology and Design Education 19 (4), 381–391.
European Commission. (2013). She Figures 2012 - Gender in Research and Innovation. Luxembourg: Publications
Office of the European Union.
Nousiainen, T. & Vesisenaho, M. (2014). Cross-cultural Expert Evaluation of Two STEM Learning Games for Children.
In Proceedings of the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications
(EDMEDIA 2014), Chesapeake: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, 350-355.
Robertson, J. (2012). Making games in the classroom: benefits and gender concerns. Computers & Education 59 (2),
385–398.
Shin, N., Sutherland, L. M., Norris, C. A., & Soloway, E. (2012). Effects of game technology on elementary student
learning in mathematics. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43 (4), 540-560.
UPDATE Final Report. (2009). UPDATE - Understanding and Providing a Developmental Approach to Technology
Education. A final, publishable activity report.
Virtanen, S. (2012). Searching for ways to encourage and enable equal access for girls to study technology. In C.
Quaiser-Pohl & M. Endepohls-Ulpe (Eds.) Women’s Choices in Europe. Influence of Gender on Education,
Occupational Career and Family Development. Münster: Waxmann, 95–106.