Chapter 16: Cost Analysis in Assessing Games for Learning

In conversation, Richard Snow once described educational research as a random walk through a garden of panaceas. Many approaches in education have arisen, received vigorous promotion, and were then abandoned for reasons almost as capricious as those that prompted their introduction. Even so, researchers have developed approaches—supported by findings reported in reputable sources—that offer substantial promise for improving learning. In promoting these new approaches, researchers commonly emphasize effectiveness—the superiority of something new in producing measureable improvements in learning over whatever is in place. They may even report “dosage” findings that indicate how much knowledge, skills, and/or abilities different exposures to a new approach will produce. This is essential, significant, useful work. Unfortunately, decision makers need more.