The Effect of Competition and Contextualized Advisement on the Transfer of Mathematics Skills in a Computer-Based Instructional Simulation Game

This study was designed to determine the effect of contextualized advisement and competition on transfer of mathematics skills in a computer-based simulation game in which participants helped their “aunt and uncle” fix up a house. Contextualized advisement referred to whether the participant had access to video-based advisement delivered by the aunt and uncle about how to solve the problem, and competition referred to whether or not the participant was playing against a computer character. A total of 123 seventhand eighth-grade students were randomly assigned to one of five conditions formed by crossing the two independent variables and adding a control group. Results indicated an interaction between competition and contextualized advisement. Participants in the noncompetitive condition had higher transfer scores when they had access to contextualized advisement, while participants in the competitive condition had higher transfer scores when they had no access to contextualized advisement. The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether transfer of learning could be promoted using a computer-based instructional simulation game with built-in advisement and what role competition and contextualized advisement would play in promoting transfer. It was hypothesized that such a module could promote transfer by relying on the principles of anchored instruction (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt [CTGV], 1992a), that is, by situating the transfer opportunities in a meaningful, authentic context, and also by including built-in advisement. Because transfer is context-dependent, (e.g., Black & Schell, 1995; Perkins & Salomon, 1989), it was further hypothesized that the advisement would be most effective in promoting transfer if it were part of that same meaningful, authentic context as the game, rather than as a separate element (e.g., a help menu) as is often done in computerbased instruction