Tests that look like video games (features Daniel Schwartz)

This week, NPR Ed is focusing on questions about why people play and how play relates to learning.

Imagine you're playing a computer game that asks you to design a poster for the school fair. You're fiddling with fonts, changing background colors and deciding what activity to feature: Will a basketball toss appeal to more people than a pie bake-off?

Then, animal characters — maybe a panda or an ostrich — offer feedback on your design. You can choose whether to hear a compliment or a complaint: "The words are overlapping too much," or, "I like that you put in the dates."

You can use their critiques as guides to help you revise your poster. Finally, you get to see how many tickets your poster sold.

This little Web-based game isn't just a game. It's a test, too.

"In our assessments we make little fun games, and to do well at the games you need to learn something," says Dan Schwartz, the director of the . "So they're not just measures of what the student already knows, but attempts to measure whether they are prepared to continue learning when they're no longer told exactly what to do."

Schwartz is among a new breed of researchers who are applying the mechanics of games to the science of psychometrics — the measurement of the mind.

Read the full story at NPR.

Daniel Schwartz is a professor in the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the director of the AAALAB.