Starting the journey

Today was the first day working from home. It consisted of searching the web for suitable relevant literature, and trying to write the research plan. My task was to come to some clarification about my research topic. The problem is that I am very aware of the importance of getting the research question right... and I feel the weight of it. I am also aware that I am unfamiliar with a huge body of knowledge and research on educational learning theory. My interests in game research also varies extensively, but predominantly lie in measuring effective learning through game play. It is also my desire that the results from my years project, not just be of interest, but of real use. Mmmmm The research question I left thinking about last week was "Does the level of immersion in a 3d game affect effective learning?" On delving into the definition of immersion, it seems that there is no consenus. However my loose interpretation would be along the lines of: immersion is the degree to which the player relates the game experience to a real world experience. Thinking about this it would be possible to adjust the level of immersion by varying the level of graphics, game logic, audio etc etc. However I think there is an arguement to be made that levels of immersion lead to levels of engagement and engagement creates one condition for learning. There has been much research into engagement of video games in education -and for this reason I am rethinking the research question. Today I have read a little more about Blooms taxonomy. I am interested in considering whether this could be used as an effective measure of learning in video gameplay. Or possibly looking at Alexanders "deep learning" theory... More reading and "deep" thinking required...