Erica Kleinman

Research Vision

I envision game-based learning as an area encompassing two parallel directions. In the first, more traditional, route, games are developed and deployed with the intention of conveying new knowledge, typically subject matter knowledge, to players. In the second route, the act of play passively leads to the development of critical skills among players. Whether it is communication, logical thinking, problem solving, or strategic planning, this second approach opens new opportunities for leveraging the kinds of entertainment games that players are already intrinsically motivated to play towards real-world impact and novel learning opportunities.

Towards the ultimate goal of scaffolding and supporting the development and retention of these skills, my research sits at the intersection of game-based learning, computational support tools, and user experience. From educational puzzle and simulation games to esports to virtual reality escape rooms, I study how user-facing digital interventions, ranging from data-visualizations to learner models to artificially intelligent agents impact the acquisition and retention of critical cognitive and metacognitive, soft, and 21st century skills among players. My prior work demonstrated how such tools impacted the acquisition of self-regulated learning ability among esports players and how these ideas could be translated and leveraged in educational gaming contexts.

As computational interventions, especially AI, become more ubiquitous alongside experiential learning, the impact these systems have on learners’ acquisition and retention of knowledge and skill becomes more critical. By studying these interactions in the context of games, especially complex and high-stakes gaming contexts, like esports, I contribute to growing knowledge on the impact of AI on human learning and performance with insights that can transfer to similarly complex high-impact domains and provide human-centered implications and guidelines for the design and deployment of games and digital scaffolds for learning and beyond.