Wk3 - AR Abstract

ABSTRACT

In order to compete in the 21st century workforce it is necessary for people to gain the required  teamwork and leadership skills that are currently being highly sought after.   MMORPGs are highly social environments that provide the opportunity to teach these needed skills.  This action research project shows how this type of social learning highly motivates players to communicate effectively, work together as a team in order to coordinate and cooperate with one another, and lead their guild members through key quests and missions using the MMORPG, Guild Wars.  The findings of this research showed that participants felt communication and teamwork skills were learned using this method.  However, the finding showed leadership skills needed to be researched in more depth.

Research in Guild Wars

I began my Action Research project in Guild Wars last week, but with the holidays we are a bit behind schedule and trying to get everyone situated.  We had some problems with participants and the Moodle interface I was trying to use, so I have setup a forums to use instead.  Last week we completed the pre-searing quests in Guild Wars getting everyone to about level 7, so that we were able to enter post-searing this week.  We are basically following the Guild Wars storyline completing the various quests and missions that lead us through them.  


Pre-searing only allowed us to work in groups of 2/2, then the first several quests/missions of post-searing only allowed for groups of 4/4, we have now entered an area where we can work in groups of 6/6 and will eventually come to the point where we can work in the max group of 8/8 that Guild Wars allows.  This causes us to have to split up in groups, but I feel this is a good test of leadership and teamwork skills because it allows different people to work together and share their skills with the group.  


I have noticed that so far there isn't a whole lot of teamwork going on as everyone is trying to adjust to the members in their group and excited about the various quests/missions.  There is more solo work going on within the groups than actual teamwork, which unfortunately results in several deaths/revives that would be necessary if they worked together.  My goal with this project is that they will eventually realize that they can accomplish more when working well together than they could alone or by running ahead without their team members.  We are coming to the close of week 2, so we shall see how it turns out.

VirtuGuild.com/forums

FV_AR Pitch

This is my final video for the ETC course at Full Sail University online. It is a pitch for my Action Research project on using Guild Wars to teach Social Skills.

I invite you to participate in this research project with me if you are interested by visiting: http://www.virtuguild.com/invitation.html.