Impact of the feeling of knowledge explicitness in the learners' participation and performance in a collaborative game based learning activity

Despite the growing interest in the Game Based Learning (GBL) literature (Squire, 2005; Gee, 2005), only a reduced number of studies have focused on the collaborative modality in GBL (Harteveld & Bekebrede, 2011). Knowledge Group Awareness (KGA) designates the intersubjective perception of teammates' knowledge. The use of especially designed gaming interfaces allows KGA declaration and displaying support by the introduction of the KGA explicitness systems, called by some authors KGA tools (Buder, 2010). This paper aims to study whether a structured explicitness of the KGA could play a core role in facilitating and improving collaborative face to face GBL performances. The KGA is operationalized through the Feeling of Knowledge (FOK) declaration. The FOK refers to the feelings a student has regarding his/her knowledge for a specific subject (Hart, 1965), it is defined by the student using a Confidence Level (CL) based in a 3 level scale. We expect that the FOK declaration process will have a positive impact in the learning process based in the GBL task, both in individual and collaborative phases of the GBL activity proposed to the students. However, we expect better performances in collaborative settings with the explicitness of the KGA thanks to the socially shared metacognition process, developed through the displaying of the intersubjective FOK. For this purpose we designed a collaborative SG in the field of finance, introducing an ad hoc KGA explicitness system with the aim of supporting the students' FOK declaration according to the 3 CL. The first is analyzing the impact of the declaration of the FOK in individual performance when playing alone. The second one is analyzing the influence of shared visualization of the intersubjective FOK in the individual and collaborative performances, according to the symmetry of knowledge between dyad members. This environment permits researchers study different variables in order to study four hypotheses on learner's performances and changes in their Feeling of knowledge (FOK) accuracies during collaborative game experience.