An open-ended serious game can engage students' scientific problem-solving processes. However, understanding how students learn higher-order thinking skills through solving a problem in an open-ended game system is a challenge. The complex game systems may make learning more difficult for students with different characteristics such as an at-risk…

Collaborative problem-solving (CPS) as a key competency required in the 21st century. There has been an increasing need to understand CPS since it involves not only cognitive but also social processes, and thus its process is difficult to examine. Recent research has highlighted that computer-based learning environments provide an opportunity for…

This paper describes the design and development process used to create Alien Rescue, a multimedia-enhanced learning environment that supports problem-based learning (PBL) in middle school science. The goal of the project is to further our understandings of technology, pedagogy, and instructional theories as they relate to the application of PBL…