Immune Attack players perform better on a test of cellular immunology and self confidence[…]

Immune Attack players perform better on a test of cellular immunology and self confidence than their classmates who play a control video game

As molecular scientists, we understand the fundamentals of molecular behavior that underlie evolution, infection, physiology and environmental contamination. However, the basic fundamentals of molecular behavior are considered too abstract to teach to grade school or high school students in the context of cellular biology. Analogies are used to describe the functions of cells and their organelles. Concepts such as protein production and respiration are taught from a systemic, large scale perspective, typically without presenting the role of any individual proteins in these cellular processes. The molecular behavior of say ATP and its random diffusion is not taught in context with Mitochondrial function. The Next Generation science teaching standards do not emphasize molecular behavior, and explicitly state that assessment of students should not include any information about individual proteins or a biochemical level of understanding of cellular processes.Only students who choose to take an advanced level high school course or who opt into college level biology courses are exposed to the fundamentals of molecular biology.

This lack of detail and lack of exposure through high school to the fundamentals of molecular behavior leave the general public without the basic understanding required to grasp cellular biology or to understand new data. Because this new data often pertains to personal and public health decisions, these concepts are important for non-scientists to understand. Memorizing every step of glycolysis is not necessary. However, a fundamental understanding of how cellular processes are driven by concentrations of substrates, products, allosteric inhibitors; how enzymes, products and substrates diffuse in random directions, that through random interactions specific binding occurs due to very particular aspects of shape, charge and other molecular forces and that processes require a particular enzyme for each step would serve students as a scaffold for a life time of learning. […] […] What is missing is a tool to present the complex, abstract fundamentals of molecular behavior to younger students so that by the time we teach them the specifics of respiration or photosynthesis they can understand these processes deeply. The tool would 1) present a great deal of detail, presenting many types of objects that interact and have numerous traits that dictate their activities, 2) allow for interaction and puzzle solving: allowing students to manipulate, explore and use the objects they find to affect the state of the molecular world. 3) be engaging, fun and interesting to non-scientists so that the general public and younger students will take advantage of the tool 4) attract students back to play again and again over a long period of time so that the deeper understandings do not wear off and so fundamentals used in the tool have an affect on what the students are currently learning in school.

The tool we need has already been created: the video game. A video game with a story, set in a complex molecular world, in which the players not only watch, but also interact with and listen to in-game characters may well be the best way to impart understanding of complex interactions among molecular entities. Complex games with multiple ways to achieve success often bring players back to re-play, often over many years time. A game set in a real, complex world of molecules and cells may be an ideal way to introduce molecular behavior. […] […]Immune Attack is a video game that requires players to activate specific proteins to cause specific behaviors of various white blood cells to win seven game levels. Immune Attack is a third person shooter styled video game. Players fly a microbot and a nanobot through veins, through connective tissue and over the surface of white blood cells, while receiving instructions to “shoot” various proteins at appropriate times to solve various failings of a patient’s immune system. Shooting proteins with an “EM emitter” causes the proteins to be come active and perform their task. […] […]Originally intended to teach immunology concepts to advanced high school students and beginning college students, Immune Attack teaches much more general content that immunology, rather it teaches the basics of molecular behavior. For example, Immune Attack shows players that individual proteins perform their own tasks and that proteins are not interchangeable. Additionally, Immune Attack shows that cells require a certain set of proteins in order to function and that missing a protein’s function can cause disease. Additionally, 6,000 grade school and high school teachers had registered to evaluate the game in their classrooms. Clearly, there was demand for the game fr use with younger students. Therefore, we decided to evaluate the effectiveness of Immune Attack as a teaching tool for basic cellular and molecular biology with students in 7th – 12th grades. (We present here our data from 10–12th grade students. We will present our data on 7th – 9th grade students elsewhere.)

We address the following questions.

1) Can a video game (Immune Attack) teach concepts and terms of molecular biology, cellular biology and immunology?
2) Can a video game benefit students who do not play video games or who perform poorly in the test game?
3) Can a video game impart confidence, or in other words, a feeling of self-efficacy as regards the diagrams and graphics used to represent molecular and cellular biology data?

doi: 10.1039/c4fd00014e

Read the full publication:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4489431/