Representational-competency supports in the context of an educational video game for undergraduate astronomy

Educational video games can engage students in authentic STEM practices, which often involve visual representations. Specifically, because most interactions within video games are mediated through visual representations, video games provide opportunities for students to experience disciplinary practices with visuals. Research demonstrates, however, that learning from multiple visuals is complex. Prior research in structured environments has demonstrated that providing supports for representational competencies in terms of sense-making competencies and perceptual fluency can support learners, but such research has not been conducted in game environments. To address this gap, we investigated whether supports for representational competencies enhanced students' learning with an astronomy video game. We conducted an experiment with 115 students to investigate the effects of sense-making support (yes vs. no) and perceptual-fluency support (yes vs. no) within an astronomy game. Results showed that sense-making supports did not enhance students' content learning. Further, perceptual-fluency supports enhanced students' content learning outcomes only when they had high content pre-test scores. Hence, interventions that support representational competencies in non-game environments may work differently in the context of educational video games. This suggests that designers may need to develop new strategies to support students’ learning with disciplinary visuals in educational games.