Using Computer Game Software in a First-Year Seminar and its Effects on Students’ Creative Self-Efficacy, Creative Personal Identity, and Insight Problem Solving Abilities

This article presents an experimental first-year seminar that uses game-based learning to develop the creative problem-solving abilities of first-year college students at a mid-sized university. A discussion on how the computer game, The Witness, was incorporated into the first-year seminar is given along with an overview of teaching practices. An exploratory study was conducted that tracked students’ personal beliefs about their creative abilities and identities along with their performance completing a series of insight problems that have unexpected solutions. The quantitative data that was collected indicates that students’ confidence in their creative problem-solving abilities increased during the course of the semester, while their beliefs regarding their creative personal identity decreased slightly. The results of this initial investigation are analyzed and discussed and future research directions for conducting a more significant study are proposed.