10 Conclusions and Recomendations

One of the primary recommendations of the committee that authored this book is that research should become more multidisciplinary. The essential need for increasing multidisciplinary cooperation is a means of connecting and centrally storing research.

As the trend toward increased use of technology proceeds, we will have an unprecedented ability to combine information into centralized databases that can be used to reach more statistically meaningful conclusions regarding the efficacy of the tools we have at our disposal. Whether this is done through an open source tool such as Moodle or some other proprietary system remains to be seen, but care must be taken to use open standards that ensure the various systems being used remain compatible as they continue to evolve. A centralized system would enable data to be compared along economic, social, geographic and stylistic lines. One of the central shortcomings of educational research, small sample sizes, would be easily overcome.

In order to accomplish this, it is necessary that a paradigm shift occur that takes thinking away from the broad categorical thinking currently plaguing the literature, and toward the consideration of more finely tuned control of variables. For example, rather than attempting to use a game to teach a certain topic and then broadly dismissing the concept of using games for education if such a study yields disappointing results, care should be take to define and control for the attributes of the game. Adjustments should be made to these attributes, as well as the environmental and demographic context in which they are used, and the attributes should be evaluated for themselves.

By combining the evaluation and control of smaller variables with the expansion of study sizes afforded by a centralized database, educational research would be in a position to quickly test and determine the efficacy of any given piece of technology that is suggested. The predictive value of pedagogical science where technology is concerned would be increased enormously as well.

And best of all an exorcism for the ghost of Richard Clark could finally be performed.