The Journal of Social Studies Research

Volume 34, Issue 1

Civilization III and Whole-Class Play in High School Social Studies1

John K. Lee
Jeffrey Probert
North Carolina State University

This study examined an 11th grade high school class as they played the game
Civilization III. Over nine class sessions students played the game in support of
other activities related to several predetermined and emergent topics in U. S.
history. Gameplay was whole-class oriented and involved students taking turns
at the computer controlling actions in the game. Qualitative methods were used
to analyze data that included observation, student work, interviews with students
and the teacher, and a journal maintained by the teacher. Findings are
presented in four areas, suggesting that Civilization III gameplay is complex
and requires creative thinking about how to use game within the constraints of
standard U. S. history curricula. Given the findings of this study, we suggest that
teachers can make effective use of Civilization III in U. S. history classes when
care is taken by the teacher to situate students’ game experiences in rich
classroom discussions and specific non-game oriented activities.

Civilization III and Whole-Class Play in High School Social Studies

As new environments for engaging in serious play have emerged from the
video gaming industry, educators have cautiously begun to consider the
educative value of these games. Social studies content is particularly well
represented in new video games, and many of these games are now the subject
of serious consideration (Brown, 2007; Rejack, 2007). Advocates of video
games in education such as James Paul Gee (2003) and Marc Prensky (2007)
suggest that computer and video gaming environments hold wide-ranging
educational potential. In response, increasing numbers of educators are
incorporating games into classrooms including social studies related games such
as Civilization, Sim City, and Making History (Holzberg, 2005; Smith, 2005;
Trotter, 2004).
In this study, high school students played the Firaxis game Civilization III
to learn geography and history content. This study builds on earlier work done
by Kurt Squire (2004) in which he investigated three groups of students who
played Civilization III in middle and high school social studies. Although Squire

Civilization III and Whole-Class Play in High School Social Studies, pages 1-28
Copyright © 2010 The Journal of Social Studies Research
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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(2004) found significant challenges to using the complex game environment of

Civilization III, he concluded that the students in his study developed various
unique and meaningful understandings in world history, geography, and politics
through Civilization III gameplay. This study explored specific teacher-directed
learning focused on curriculum-based content and conceptual understandings
that emerged while high school students played Civilization III. Specifically, our
research addressed the following questions.

1. What sorts of student learning experiences arise from whole-class

teacher-directed Civilization III gameplay?
2. How does a teacher manage specific content when directing whole-
class Civilization III gameplay?
3. What are teacher and student perceptions of Civilization III gameplay
in a United States history class?

Video Gaming in Social Studies

Learning, gaming, playing and social studies
The notion of learning in gaming environments is one that is undergoing
considerable attention in scholarly communities. In a broad sense, David
Williamson Shaffer (2007) contends that games are “epistemic” learning
activities. He argues that children in this post-industrial technological age need
new skills, mainly focused innovation, and games provide children with
opportunities to reproduce the ways of knowing of innovative professionals. As
Shaffer (2007) sees it games (both computer-based and non-computer-based)
can help children “learn the epistemologies of innovation they need to succeed
in a digital age of global competition” (p. 23).
Play is ultimately at the root of any learning that may occur through
gameplay. Psychologist such as Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner (Bruner, Jolly,
& Sylva, 1976) provide clear descriptions of how such early play influences
learning. Much less is known about later years. Play has a central role in early
childhood education, but the frequency of play as a context for learning
decreases significantly after the second grade. Those who support the continued
use of play as a context for learning in higher grades point to the structure of
play for supporting rule-based learning. In more focused terms, John Colwell
(2007) also found positive benefits to video gameplay including that children
associated gameplay with friends, that gameplay involved fun challenge and that
it involved stress relief.
Approaches to the use of games in education might also be thought of in
terms of how the gameplay interacts with specific content learning goals. While
some argue that playing games enables learning in academic content areas

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(Hutchinson, 2007a), other approaches suggest that learning to play a game is

equally or even more important. In supporting the learning to play approach,
Hans Christian Arnseth (2006) claims that playing games requires thinking that
is mirrored in other life-contexts, and enabling gameplay promotes deeper
thinking and richer understandings of process. Arnseth would put less value in
the “content” of a game or what is learned from the content in a game and more
value in the processes that the game enables and the transfer of thinking skills or
understandings from the gaming environment to other situations. Seymour
Papert (1998) calls these experiences the “hard fun” of games, arguing that
gameplay is meaningful because of the satisfaction that players get from
following rules as opposed to focusing on the accomplishments that come with
completing game tasks. Given these conditions, Papert suggests that
conversation and human interaction can be effective pedagogies for supporting
students when they play games and develop thinking skills.
Games that address central questions and content areas in social studies are
being played in all social studies disciplines (see VanFossen, Freidman, &
Hartshorne, 2008 for a recent sampling of such games). David Hutchinson
(2007) has described how place in games such as Psychonauts, Brothers in
Arms: Road to Hill 30 and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory can be used to engage
students in learning activities focused on geography skills. Dennis Charsky
(2008) similarly describes how games that incorporate historical content can be
used in social studies classrooms. Focusing on commercial off-the-shelve
games, Charsky (2008) describes pedagogical considerations for using video
games in the classroom including how teachers can support students learning the
game, how gameplay can cross over to curriculum, and how games be used as
theories of content. Although little qualitative or empirical research exists at this
point on how and what students learn while playing games in social studies, an
emerging body of descriptive literature on the uses of gaming in social studies
suggests a host of affordances and constraints (Evans & Barbour, 2007;
Hutchinson, 2007b; Rice, 2007; Schut, 2007).

Civilization III and learning in social studies

Civilization III is one social studies related game that has received the
attention of several researchers and scholars. In separate reviews and research
reports, Ken Chen (2003), Kevin Schut (2007), Aaron Whelchel (2007), and
Kurt Squire (2004, 2005a, 2005b, 2006) have all critiqued Civilization III with
regard to its critical awareness, historical accuracy, and potential as a learning
environment. In his review, Chen (2003) presents Civilization III as ironically
focused on religion and in particular a Euro-Christian perspective.

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In fact, for all of the game’s worship of technology, I would argue that
Civilization III’s underlying belief system isn’t science: it’s religion.
The formal rather than literal content of the game suggests Christian
baggage: you are omniscient and immortal, all mind, no body, and able
to see the entire world unroll itself beneath you (Chen, 2007, p. 104).

Critiquing the game for its representations of civilization as well as the way
civilization represents Civilization III, Chen suggests that the game is an
immersive, but ultimately boring experience. He goes further suggesting that,

Its goal is to teach you nothing and to the extent that you learn
something from it, the game has failed. This is because any new
thoughts could only have arrived by seeping through the gaps in the
work’s overwhelming hypnosis (Chen, 2007, p.104).

While Chen’s more radical critique raise philosophical questions about

Civilization III, Schut (2007) offers a more disciplinary historical analysis of the
game as one of several civilization-building games including Civilization, Age
of Empires, and Rise of Nations. Schut argues that the games are overly
masculine, systematic, but at the same time somewhat unique in that they
operate in space as opposed to the fixities of text and images.

History, in the games I examined, feels tangible (and thus objective)

and undetermined. It is less about an account of time and more about an
experience of space and people in the past. All of this changes the
meaning or the feel of what we understand as history. I am not at all
certain that this is an entirely bad thing by the standards of critical
history today, especially in the sense that digital games do a good job
of portraying the indeterminacy of history. At the same time, educators
and players would do well to be aware of the medium’s tendencies. The
feeling of being able to enter into history is quite profoundly different
from reading about it or watching it unfold as a spectator. If players do
not recognize this difference, they may not even be aware that their
notion of history will profoundly differ from perspectives formed in an
old media setting. (Schut, 2007, p. 230).

Like Shut, Whelchel (2007) uses a disciplinary lens to critique civilization-

building games. Whelchel judges these games as succeeding at emphasizing
geographic and environmental aspects of human development as well as the
notion of technological diffusion and a non-teleological view of history; all

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typically underemphasized in school-based historical narratives. Even in the

areas where the games are weak, Whelchel sees an opportunity for educative
gain by critiquing the game itself.

However, rather than lessening the value of these games as a teaching

tool, these faults can actually be used, in conjunction with more
traditional methods such as texts and lectures, as a way to not only
teach students correct historical information, but also how to
deconstruct artifacts from their own culture in order to detect biases,
factual inaccuracies, and structural flaws in the models used by the
game developers (Whelchel, 2007, para 11).

In his research on using Civilization III, Squire (2004, 2005a, 2005b, 2006)
reported on forms of student learning that occurred while playing the game. In a
study of African American ninth grade history students, Squire (2004) found
that learning took form through a series of student appropriations of specific
elements of gameplay. These appropriations occurred despite various points of
resistance by students to engaging the game. Students played the game in unique
and personal ways and made use of history and geography as tools for
gameplay. For example, one participant in Squire’s study appropriated the game
as a simulation of colonial history in which the students tried to reverse the
success of European colonial powers. This student was reluctant to play the
game until he discovered this appropriation. According to Squire, as this student
played “the game became a hypothetical colonial simulation of sorts, whereby
we examined under what conditions might have colonization played out
differently” (Squire, 2005a, p. 11). Squire described Civilization III as capable
of facilitating a wide range of thinking aimed at the same goals as more
traditional forms of historical thinking activities that involve analyzing historical
documents and constructing from these documents historical understandings.
Specifically, Squire (2004) argues that Civilization III gameplay in the
classroom offered students in his study an opportunity to “examin[e] history and
politics from other points of view, understanding relationships between
geographical systems and history, and seeing how historical narratives could be
tools for solving problems” (p. 410). Squire extended these ideas suggesting
that,

the kinds of thinking these students displayed may share more in

common with Jared Diamond’s analyses – patterns of change models of
history -- than with traditional historical methods, but they seem to be
valuable forms of thinking whereby history is mobilized to understand

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events. Learning through Civilization III dramatically repositions the

role of historical knowledge. History, geography, or economics are
tools that can be used for solving dilemmas (p. 410).

In a separate description of the experiences of students playing Civilization

III, Squire (2005b) reported that students who tended to have more success in
school had more difficulty playing the game. He found the game appealed
particularly well to students for whom traditional instruction was a problem.
Squire (2005b) extended his analysis by suggesting that if games are to be used
in schools, traditional classroom history instruction would need to be
reorganized. Such reorganization would involve 1) arranging curricula around
meaningful questions, 2) enabling student learning at multiple levels given
student abilities, 3) enabling students with a deeper interest in history to study it
for more of the school day, 4) expanding media in history classroom beyond text
and video, and 5) using more authentic forms of assessment.

Method
This study was focused on a one semester period of time during which a
group of twelve students in a high school United States history class played
Civilization III as a part of their regular course experience. The course was
designed for students who had either failed United States history or had been
identified by previous teachers through poor class performance or low scores on
standardized end-of-course tests. The course was developed by the school’s
social studies department at the request of the school administration to directly
address the needs of students for an upcoming standardized end-of course test in
United States history. The school was required, as were all in the state, to
administer a standardized end-of-course test to all students in United States
history. Students’ grade on the end-of-course test counted 25% of their final
grade. The course was taught over an 18-week semester and the curriculum
included content from the English colonization of North America through the
present day.
The class consisted of five males (three African American, one white, and
one Hispanic) and seven females (three African American and four white). Two
of the twelve students had previously failed United States history. Two students
were sophomores, eight were juniors, and two were seniors.
The computer-based game Civilization III was played once a week in a
whole-class setting over a nine week period during an 18-week semester.
Gameplay on those days ranged from 10 minutes to 60 minutes, averaging 25
minutes. The first two gameplay episodes were focused on students learning
how to play the game. The remaining seven gameplay episodes were part of a

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single game session. At the conclusion of each class period when the class
played the game, the game was saved and in the next class reloaded where they
left off.
Gameplay was whole-class oriented and involved students taking turns at
the computer actually controlling actions in the game. The teacher displayed the
game on a large smart board screen, turned down the classroom lights during
game play, and students watched the screen as one student made moves on the
computer in the game. All students were invited to tell the student who was
controlling the computer what to do, but ultimately this one student made the
final decision about what actions to take. The teacher rotated students onto the
computer regularly at a rate of about one student every five to ten minutes. Over
the course of all the gameplay episodes in the semester, all of the students got
multiple opportunities to control the game.
Data sources for this study included interviews with the teacher and
students, observations of the class sessions when the game was played,
reflective artifacts from the teacher and students (including a teacher journal of
gameplay details and gameplay logs completed by students at the end of each
gameplay episode), and saved data files from each gameplay episode. Interviews
were conducted with students and the teacher. The teacher identified four
students for interviews based on their willingness to discuss their experiences
playing the game and their class grades. In order to get a representative sample
of students, the teacher selected two students with high grades and two students
with average grades for interviews.
Students were interviewed after class periods when the game was played. A
semi-structured interview protocol was used for the student interviews
(Appendix One). Students were asked what they liked about the game and about
particular gameplay activities as well as about content reviewed by the teacher
before or during gameplay. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.
The interviews were coded using an open coding system. Initial themes emerged
around three ideas; content knowledge, interest in the game, and patterns of
gameplay. These themes were incorporated with themes that emerged from the
analysis of other data.
The teacher was interviewed on two occasions also using a semi-structured
interview protocol (Appendix Two). The first teacher interview was conducted
at the beginning of the semester and focused on the teacher’s plan for instruction
with the game. The second interview was conducted at the mid-point of the
semester and focused on the extent to which the teacher’s expectations regarding
gameplay had been met. The teacher interviews were audio recorded and
transcribed. Teacher interview data was analyzed and coded. Themes emerged
from the data analysis in four categories, gameplay flow, organization of

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activities, incorporation of curricular content into gameplay, and student interest

in the game. As with the student interviews, this data was incorporated with
other data toward the development of findings.
The primary researcher in this study formally observed three of the
gameplay episodes. These observed class sessions were at the beginning,
middle, and toward the end of the gameplay episodes. Each observation was
audio recorded and transcribed. In addition, observation notes were taken that
focused on non-verbal actions and the classroom layout. Students also
completed log forms that provided details and reflections about their gameplay
after each class in which the game was played. Student log forms included a
record of the dates of each gameplay episode, a list of events that occurred, a
checklist of things that happened in the game during the class, and responses to
six open-ended questions on how they played and what they learned.
The teacher kept a journal of his thoughts about the gameplay. He wrote in
his journal after each class period when the game was played. Journal entries
were semi-structured reflections focused on class experiences given
expectations. The teacher also made an effort to write about specific areas of
subject matter that emerged during gameplay. As one of the authors of this
study, the teacher carefully considered findings as they were emerging during
the analysis of data and constructed a more deliberate reflection on the overall
process of using Civilization III in his U. S. History class. This reflection is
presented in the next section of this report along with other findings that
emerged from an analysis of all the data.
This study made use of Erickson’s (1986) method of analytic induction in
the data analysis. In analytic induction, the researcher uses evidence from
multiple sources of data to establish assertions, while continually reviewing the
data to confirm and disconfirm the validity of assertions. Findings in this study
are presented as descriptions of gameplay episodes as well as in the form of
assertions about student learning that emerged from an analysis of the data. This
analysis included recursive examinations of data sources for topical themes,
which were then confirmed or disconfirmed through additional analysis.
The analysis of data occurred over a three month period beginning after the
ninth and final game session. A process adapted from Miles and Huberman
(1994) was used to code the data by reducing data to meaningful segments and
assigning representative codes for each segment of data. Data segments took
form as sentence clauses, full sentences, and on rare occasions multiple
sentences. The development of data segments involved identifying whole ideas
from the data record that represented some specific and consistently
recognizable piece of information. As data segments were identified, they were
initially coded, and a separate record of codes was maintained. Both researchers

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wrote analytical memos based on their reviews of data. A second reading of the
data and associated codes was conducted to collapse and reduce codes based on
similarities. Following this code-reduction procedure, data was reviewed again
to note the relationships between codes and identify themes. These themes were
ultimately categorized into three areas, gameplay activities, student learning
related to the curriculum, and perceptions of gameplay. These analytical
procedures were aimed at addressing our research questions which include the
following.

1. What sorts of student learning experiences arise from whole-class

teacher-directed Civilization III gameplay?
2. How does a teacher manage specific content when directing whole-
class Civilization III gameplay?
3. What are teacher and student perceptions of Civilization III gameplay
in a United States history class?

Limitations
As with any small scale study, this research effort is limited in terms of both
the validity of the findings reported and the extent to which findings can be
generalized. To lessen the impact of these limitations, we offer rich descriptions
of the class in which this study occurred and we describe in detail specific
situations and contexts that framed findings. We also offer a reflective essay
from the teacher in this study, who is also a co-author on this report, in an effort
to further extent the context of the findings.

Findings
As the data in this study (interviews, observations, teacher and student
reflections, and gameplay transcripts) were analyzed, findings emerged in three
general areas; 1) gameplay actions and experiences students engaged during
class sessions, 2) curriculum content-based student learning related to gameplay,
and 3) student and teacher perceptions of gameplay. As we analyzed the data,
we were continually reminded of the importance of the Civilization III game
context. This game context and the geographic-oriented interface that the game
uses inspired us to use a geography metaphor to present our findings. We
present findings as a topography of the gameplay by the class in the study. This
topography is presented in four layers including findings organized around the
three themes that emerged from the analysis and an introductory review of the
Civilization III game structure. We first present this overview of the Civilization
III game structure. Second, we narrow the overall gameplay structure in
presenting our first set of findings related to experiences that students had in

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their class-based gameplay. This second level of findings is sub-divided into a

description of gameplay stances taken by students, favorable gameplay
experiences and decision-making during gameplay. Third, we present a
description of content areas that framed gameplay as well as two examples of
how students learned this content while playing the game. Fourth, is an overall
consideration of the students’ and the teacher’s perceptions framed by a
reflection developed by the teacher in this study.

Overview of Civilization III gameplay

Civilization III is a single player turn-based game that involves managing a
fictitious civilization from 4,000 BC to modern times. The game allows players
to select one civilization from list of 24, all of which have some historical
characteristics. At the start of a new game players can also select geographic
world characteristics including the size of the world, the extent of water and land
coverage (i.e. Pangaea, continents, or archipelago), the type of climate (i.e. arid,
normal, or wet), the temperature (i.e. warm, temperate, or cool), and the age (i.e.
3, 4, or 5 billon years old). These selections influence gameplay to varying
degrees. For example, the more water and the larger the world, the harder it is to
explore territory. At the same time, these characteristics may make it easier for
players to defend their territory. Climate, temperature and Earth age influence
gameplay to a lesser extent, with colder, wetter, and older settings making the
management of cities more difficult. Players can also select whether they want
to have barbarians in the game and the level of their aggressiveness, from
sedentary to raging. After making these world settings, players can select a
civilization. Players can also manipulate 16 game rule settings and select a
difficulty level. The game begins at what is referred to as the “dawn of
civilization.” Each civilization has two unique characteristics and two default
accomplishments. These settings influence how the game starts and the flow of
later gameplay. In the game played in this research, students selected America.
The opening screen indicated that the Americans were industrious and
expansionist and they have learned masonry and pottery. The class assumed the
role of a leader. In the case of America, the leader is Abraham Lincoln. At the
start of the game, the class was presented with information about their
disposition and initial skills. They were also given an initial city, Washington.
No matter what civilization is selected, play begins with a small area of the
gameplay field revealed. Gameplay proceeds with each turn consuming 50 years
until play reaches 0 AD when turns are reduced to 10 year. In the 20 th century,
each turn is reduced to two years and then one year. On each turn, players can
move units (characters representing the civilization on the screen) engage in
diplomacy or mange cities. As a unit moves into areas that are in the dark on the

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map, the area is illuminated. Movement into another civilization’s territory will
result in war unless previous right of passage has been secured. The game begins
with two units that can be moved on the game board. The initial units are a
settler and a worker. The settler can build a city and workers can engage in
numerous activities that enhance a city’s wellbeing including building roads,
irrigating, and mining. All cities have historical names. For example, in the case
of America the additional city names include New York, Chicago, Los Angles,
Atlanta, and Boston.
Civilization III includes 21 other units, twenty of which are military
(warriors, archers, spearmen, etc). In addition to the settler and worker units, the
lone non-military unit is an explorer, and this unit is not available until advance
levels. Each civilization also has specialized units that are available at advanced
levels of the game. Units can be built in a fixed number of turns depending on
the status of the city where the unit is being built. The smaller and less advanced
the city, the more difficult it is to build units. Instead of building units, a given
city might instead be focused on building one of 25 resources (e.g. aqueducts,
granaries, temples, universities). As cities advance, more options for building
resources become available. Later when a city has grown, a unit can be built in
as quickly as one turn. Play also includes a hierarchical system for developing
cultural characteristics. A complex series of increasingly sophisticated cultural
accomplishments are possible as gameplay continues (e.g. bronze working,
ceremonial burial, and literature). Play includes a government feature that
defaults new civilizations into a state of anarchy and then moves through six
progressively advanced governments that include monarchy, despotism,
communism, republic, and democracy. The game ends in 2050 AD or when all
23 rival civilizations have been conquered. In addition to winning the game
through military conquest, the game includes five other ways to win including
victory through cultural or diplomatic superiority, domination victory, wining a
space race, or based on points accumulated through gameplay in four areas.

Specific gameplay experiences for class

Gameplay for students in the class featured in this study differed from the
typical gameplay described above. These differences were in part a product of
the context for this study, namely twelve students and the teacher collaborating
regarding specific moves in the game. Given that the game was being used in
class to support students as they learned specific content, the teacher did not
want students to struggle making decisions about how to proceed in gameplay.
For this reason, the teacher started his students’ play in a teacher-directed
tutorial mode. The tutorial mode involves regular gameplay supported with
explanations and guidance, tutorial screens that explain and even suggest

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specific actions a player might take including building a city, working,

exploring, and warring, among other things.
Students played an initial tutorial game that lasted two class periods. In this
tutorial gameplay, students followed an aggressive path getting into a conflict
early in the game. The class was unsuccessful in their conflict and in a second
more extended game, they pursued a non-aggressive path. In this extended
game, which was spread across seven class periods and several weeks, the class
decided to play America. They chose normal conditions and a Pangaea landform
for their game. The class also selected the easiest level of difficulty.

Gameplay experiences and stances

The initial experiences of students shaped later gameplay in important
ways. By experimenting with their gameplay stance, students were able to locate
an approach to playing the game that was particularly meaningful. In our
analysis of the data, four gameplay stances emerged, aggressive, cautious,
cooperative, and competitive. Students initially pursued an aggressive stance
and quickly determined it was not productive. In later gameplay, students were
cautious and then competitive, attempting to achieve material goals related to
building cities and outfitting the cities with resources. Later, students pursued a
cooperative stance, particularly as they encountered other civilizations. Finally,
students returned to an aggressive stance. This trajectory from aggressive to
cautious to competitive to cooperative back to aggressive is illustrated in Table 1
along with activities engaged by students on each day of gameplay.

Favorable gameplay experiences

Certain experiences playing the game were more favorable in terms of their
educative potential. Many of these favorable experience resulted from decisions
that the class had to make regarding specific moves in the game and activities or
projects the class chose to pursue. Although the class built fewer cities than
might occur in more expert play, they were able to complete several specific
projects including the following.

Mined for gold/wealth

Defended cities with walls
Fortified military forces
Road construction
Established embassies
Constructed a palace
Built a colossus
Built a granary

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Table 1: Civilization III gameplay

Time on Historic Stance Major game activities
gameplay time
elapsed

Day 1 30 minutes 4000 – Aggressive Built a city

Tutorial 3000 BC

Day 2 30 minutes 3000 – Aggressive Engaged in conflict

Tutorial 1500 BC

Day 3 10 minutes 4000 – Cautious Explored

Full 3250 BC
game

Day 4 20 minutes 3250 – Cautious Explored

Full 1830 BC
game

Day 5 25 minutes 1830 – Competitive Built city (Washington);

Full 630 BC built roads; starting a
game mining operation

Day 6 60 minutes 630 BC – Competitive Built a second city (New

690 AD and York); engaged in trade;
Full Cooperative open diplomatic relations;
game built roads

Day 7 15 minutes 690 – 830 Cooperative Built a third city

Full AD (Pinktown)
game

Day 8 25 minutes 830 – Aggressive War against Zulus,

Full 1070 AD Incans, Germans
game

Day 9 10 minutes 1070 - Aggressive War against Dutch; lost

Full 1200 AD cities, game ended
game

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Each of these projects was completed as a result of specific decisions made

by the class during the gameplay. Most decisions reflected a cooperative effort
that marked a good bit of the gameplay experiences. Although students general
cooperated with one another, they were often quite conflicted when specific
decisions about how to proceed had to be made. These points of conflict
presented the teacher with opportunities to engage students on substantive
content. Students were essentially entering a favorable learning zone when these
conflicts emerged, and the teacher was quick to exploit such opportunities. For
example, students disagreed about how much time and effort to put into road
building. In taking advantage of this conflict during one of the early gameplay
session when students had just obtained a worker unit, the teacher immediately
recommended that the worker begin building roads.

You will need roads when you build cities. All cities in history have
built roads to connect themselves to others. Think about Rome and
their famous roads and trails westward in the United States in the 19 th
century. Think about how important they were.
-Teacher comments to class, 10/10/07

Although the student at the controls did put the unit to work on road
building, some students were not satisfied that the class was doing enough road
building. As one student put it in an interview, “I wanted to build more roads
and connect our cities, but I couldn’t get everyone to do it. I just thought we
would be able to do more with roads connecting” (Student #3, Interview
10/10/07). Gameplay experiences related to road building tended to support this
student’s contention that roads would benefit their city. During two later
gameplay episodes other students in the class comment that they needed a road
to move materials or people from one city to another. In both of these cases, the
students’ concerns arose as a result of the class’s inability to move units from
one city to another.
Students were also able to achieve numerous cultural advancements
including the following accomplishments.

Wheel
Bronze and iron working
Ceremonial burial
Horseback riding
Alphabet
Code of laws
Mathematics

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Each of these accomplishments resulted from students proceeding through

gameplay and making decisions regarding what they wanted to pursue. At all
times during the game, players were working toward some cultural achievement.
The game refers to these cultural achievements as “advances.” Some advances
are more linear, for example after the class achieved bronze working they
moved directly to iron working and then construction. In contrast to this linear
progression, during one gameplay episode after achieving the alphabet students
were asked by the game whether they wanted to pursue writing or mathematics.
The class selected mathematics and the class discussion about this decision was
important to the teacher. He asked students directly what they thought would be
best course of action. The class argued that mathematics was more important
because it could lead to currency as opposed to writing which lead to either
literature, map making, code of laws, or philosophy. The teacher presented
alternative outcomes for the decision while attempting to maintain a neutral
position on which decision would be best.

Gameplay experiences and decision-making

Decisions such as the one described above regarding whether to pursue
writing or mathematics occurred frequently during gameplay. During the class’s
gameplay three primary forms of decision-making were prevalent. First,
students had to make decisions about cultural advances. These decisions
involved the class weighing options about the short and long term benefits of
acquiring certain cultural attributes. A second decision-making area involved
students deciding what types of units to build. Each city was able to build new
units, although Washington was disabled due to the city’s disadvantaged
location in a low-lying area and the resulting inability to maintain stable growth.
The other two cities built by students, New York and Pinktown (originally
named Los Angeles and renamed Pinktown by the students) did grow and the
class had to make decisions about whether to build new settlers, workers,
military units or to develop infrastructure such as aqueducts, walls, and libraries.
Players were also able to develop what the game calls Great Wonders, which are
features such as a colossus, pyramids, the Hoover Dam, and the Internet. The
students in this class did not proceed far enough into the game to develop much,
but they did build a colossus, granary, and palace. The third area of decision-
making related to movement. Students in the class had to decide where to move
existing units and what to have those units to do after they moved. Since the
class had decided to take a non-militaristic approach to gameplay, they were
primarily focused on moving settlers and workers to open new territory and
building infrastructure. The teacher provided close guidance on all these
decision-making tasks and used specific decision points as opportunities to

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relate gameplay to curriculum content. The following section describes how the
teacher developed specific content frames to manage this curriculum content
integration as well as more detailed examples of content that students had an
opportunity to learn about during gameplay.

Student learning and Civilization III gameplay

Student learning during Civilization III gameplay episodes was driven by
specific subject matter contexts selected by the teacher. Each class session had a
particular content frame that shaped student experiences during the class period.
These content frames reflected the U.S. history curriculum for the class and
were implemented using varying strategies. For each of the seven class sessions
when the regular Civilization III game was played, the teacher developed
specific content-based frames within which students engaged the game. These
frames were developed through advanced planning and given emerging
circumstances as the game unfolded in specific class sessions. Table 2 list the
specific content frames for each day of gameplay. Each of the content frames
took form in a unique way. The teacher planned in advance to use the content
frames of Manifest Destiny, U. S. western expansion, Imperialism, and the
Spanish American War. Other content frames such as the settlement of
Jamestown, U. S. relations with Native Americans, and Colonial America
emerged during gameplay.
The content frames functioned as opportunities for students to learn specific
content with the teacher shaping events in the game to specific curriculum
content featured in the course. Since the teacher was not able to predict all the
opportunities that gameplay would afford given the complex nature of the game,
several content frames emerged during play. For example, at the beginning of
the full game students had to select a land mass type. The teacher used the
opportunity to explain earth’s physical history with a focus on Pangaea. The
explanation was brief, but given the context of decision-making and active
involvement, potentially quite powerful. The following descriptions of how
students learned specific content expand on other content frames that the teacher
used to guide student learning.

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Table 2: Civilization III gameplay content frames

Time on Historic Content frames Major game
gameplay time activities

Day 1 30 minutes 4000 – Lewis and Clark Built a city

Tutorial 3000 BC Expedition

Day 2 30 minutes 3000 – Pangaea; geographic Engaged in conflict

Tutorial 1500 BC features

Day 3 10 minutes 4000 – Site location for cities; Explored

Full 3250 BC Colonial America
game

Day 4 20 minutes 3250 – U. S. western expansion; Explored

Full 1830 BC US relations with Native
game Americans; Mexican War

Day 5 25 minutes 1830 – U. S. Western expansion; Built city

Full 630 BC 19th century mining (Washington); built
game industry in US West roads; starting a
mining operation

Day 6 60 minutes 630 BC Jamestown; Trade Built a second city

Full – 690 (New York);
game AD engaged in trade,
open diplomatic
relations; built
roads

Day 7 15 minutes 690 – Manifest destiny; Built a third city

Full 830 AD Imperialism; Spanish (Pinktown)
game American War

Day 8 25 minutes 830 - Diplomacy/Embassies War against Zulus,

Full 1070 AD Incans, Germans
game

Day 9 10 minutes 1070 - World War I; Alliances War against Dutch;

Full 1200 AD lost cities; game
game ended

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Learning about embassies

In Civilization III one set of game actions relates to diplomacy. These
actions enable players to engage in a range of activities related to trade,
espionage, and making military alliances. Diplomacy becomes possible after a
player develops writing, which is one of the first in a series of skills a
civilization can develop. With the skill of writing, civilizations can build an
embassy in another civilization’s city. Embassies in turn allow for more
complicated diplomatic activities. The following information from Civilopedia
(the Civilization III game help menu) describes how embassies work in the
game.

When a civilization learns Writing, it can begin to build its

intelligence network. The first step is to build embassies in
rival capital cities. That done, you can sign Right of Passage
agreements and Military Alliances against third parties.
When your empire has developed a sense of Nationalism,
you can engage in Mutual Protection Pacts and Trade
Embargoes against third parties.
Embassies cost gold from your treasury to build, and
diplomatic missions cost gold to execute.
Build an embassy by double-clicking the capital city icon
after you have learned Writing.

During the fifth day of the full game, the class established embassies in
three rival cities. These actions enabled students in the class to have an extended
opportunity to learn about the embassy concept. At the beginning of this
gameplay episode, the teacher asked students if they knew what an embassy was
and no one was able to answer the question. The class spent almost five minutes
discussing their embassy building ideas. The following gameplay narrative
recounts the class activities over this five-minute period of time.

During the game, the teacher suggested to students that they click on
the diplomacy button on the bottom right control panel. The diplomacy
screen displayed a wide range of options. The teacher explained to
students that they could start espionage or build an embassy (the two
primary options on the screen), but they only had enough money to
build an embassy. Several students indicated that they wanted to build
an embassy. The student controlling the game selected embassy and a
list of countries where they could build an embassy was activated on
the left of the screen. The teacher asked which country should be first

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to get an embassy and several students responded that Zululand should

be first. A student then asked; What is an embassy? The teacher posed
the question to the class and no one had an answer. The teacher then
offered an answer to the question saying that an embassy is an office
one country builds in another country so that the two countries can
have relations. Another student asked the teacher what he meant by
relations. The teacher replied that relations might include trade,
communications about problems between the countries, negotiations to
prevent a conflict, and even talks about exchanging ideas or resources.
-Gameplay transcript 10/24/07

After the class, students were asked to describe their personal experiences
learning about the embassy concept. On a simple level, one student explained
what an embassy was by describing the actions associated with embassies. “It’s
like dealing with a different country,” he said (Student #1, Interview 10/24/07).
This student understood that embassies enable interaction between countries, but
did not offer much on how that interaction took place. Another student described
embassies with detail about what embassies enabled for a country.

We could have communication with them and trade with them and be
friends with them. That’s what I think it is about. But, I don’t think we
should put them everywhere. We were trying to put them everywhere. I
think we should have kept it to a certain amount.
-Student #4, Interview 10/24/07

Although the depth of understanding of the embassy concept ranged from

simple to more complex, as these two examples illustrated, students in this study
were at minimum able offer an explanation of the concept of embassy that
reflected an understanding of the basic operational purposes of embassies. These
student understandings differed greatly from the inability of anyone in the class
to answer the teacher’s initial query on the meaning of embassy.

Reasons why not to build a city in a flood plain

One of the most consistently frustrating things for students in this study was
the location of Washington, which was the first city they built and which they
built in a low-lying area. Throughout the gameplay, the city was hampered by
disease and slow growth. On their log sheets one of the questions asked
students; “If you could do something different, what would it be?” All twelve
students listed at some point that they wished they had not built the city of

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Washington in a low-lying area. The following gameplay narrative describes a

learning experience related to the location of Washington.

As he reloaded the Civilization III game on the fourth day of gameplay,

the teacher asked students if they remembered why they were having
problems with their city. A couple of students quickly replied that the
people in their city were getting sick. As the game loaded, the city of
Washington was in the center on display. A pillar of smoke was rising
from the city indicating that the city was in what the game refers to as
civil disorder. The teacher asked students what was going on in
Washington. One student said that the city was in disorder because the
people were not happy and were dying. Another student echoed this
explanation adding that the city was in the wrong place. Can we move
it, asked still another student? The teacher was unsure about whether
the city could be moved as was the student who was actually sitting at
the control. Given their uncertainty, the class took no action, but the
teacher did take the opportunity to ask why the problem was occurring.
He reminded students that they built their city in a flood plain and that
caused unhealthy circumstances. As he had mentioned during the last
class period when they played the game, the teacher reminded students
of Jamestown, which was also built in a low-lying swampy area. He
repeated his description of the problems the settlers of Jamestown had
with disease and reminded students that several of the Jamestown
settlers left to build better situated settlements up the James River to
counter the problems that existed in the initial settlement.
-Gameplay transcript 10/10/07

After this class, students were asked about their experiences in the game.
Several mentioned the problem with locating Washington in a low-lying area.

The first day I didn’t understand why we had to build a city there and
[the teacher] was kind of diagramming why it wouldn’t be good to
build a city there, but we wanted to build a city. But, now I understand
why we shouldn’t have built our city there because of the water and
stuff. But, you missed it. I was saying why can’t we move our city
because everyone is getting sick in that city and this one is not.
-Student #4, Interview 10/10/07

Students vacillated between efforts at trying to improve the situation in

Washington and a more disinterested stance toward the city. While students

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seemed constantly concerned about the status of Washington, the inability of the
city to grow after the fourth gameplay episode led to students mostly
disregarding Washington.
In later gameplay episodes (specifically episodes 4-9), students acted on
their mistake with the settlement of Washington by more carefully selecting the
location of New York, which was their next city, and later their third city of
Pinktown. The settlement of these two cities resulted after students discussed the
problems with their earlier efforts in Washington. The class chose a site for New
York that was in a grassy plain close to a body of water. One student described
the class’s thinking about Washington in the settlement of New York. “Yeah,
[Washington’s] in a flood plain and everything and now they’re having this
period where we have to keep a warrior there and New York has no flood plains
and they are staying all together” (Student #3, Interview 11/02/07).

Teacher reflection
In this section, we offer a reflection from the teacher of the class in this
study (also an author on this paper). This reflection is offered to provide
additional context as well as to broaden the perspective of the gameplay
experiences in this study.
The purpose of this activity was to assist low performing students in
comprehending several major concepts identified by the state standards for
United States History. The course was designated as introduction to United
States History. The goal of playing Civilization III was to foster student learning
through transfer of gameplay experience to factual knowledge. Student
knowledge was evaluated through a variety of assessment methods. The primary
assessment was the individual data collection log sheets, which were collected
and evaluated by me after each gaming session. Other assessment tools
included my observations, classroom discussion, and bi-weekly tests.
In my observations of student interaction during gameplay, it was apparent
that a core group of students began to dominate the game. This core group
consisted of three males and two females. These students became very vocal in
making suggestions to the student controlling the units. The students, when
chosen to control the units, rarely made a decision on their own. Instead, they
deferred to their classmates for guidance prior to moving a unit or selecting a
cultural advancement to pursue. Discussions ranged from type of unit to create
to decisions such as trade, construction projects, relations with other nations, and
movement of units.
Students in my class grasped the concept of geography and its importance
to city location and development. Students learned about the importance of
geography in human settlement. I was able to use the mistake the class made

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with the settlement of their first city, Washington, as a way to teach about
several American colonial settlements including Jamestown. Both Jamestown
and the class’s city of Washington were built on a flood plain. Neither city
prospered, at least at first, and both were in a constant civil unrest. Students
realized they selected a poor geographic site for this city, and their next two
cities, New York and Pinktown, were built on grasslands near water. Both cities
grew rapidly and prospered.
Another concept students grasped during the gameplay was the idea and
resulting consequences of making an incursion or trespassing into another
nation’s territory. Students learned that such actions could lead to war. I used
this idea to relate gameplay to U. S. Western Expansion, specifically the
Mexican War and the Indian Wars throughout the 1700s and 1800s. Students
made a concerted effort to avoid war during regular gameplay. The class
apologized for transgressions, paid bribes to avoid war, and established
embassies in foreign nations to foster better relations with rival nations.
A third concept students learned about was the impact of alliances and how
alliances can lead to a larger, more deadly conflict. Students decided to go to
war against the Zulu nation in order to acquire wealth and territory and I was
able to relate the historical concepts of U. S. imperialism and Manifest Destiny
to this decision. Part of the class’s decision making related to a consideration of
the risk incurred when going to war. For example, when the game informed the
class that the Zulu feared their spearmen, the class took this into consideration
along with the other issues such as their overall goal in gameplay, their relations
with other nations, and what was to be gained from the conflict. After attacking
Zululand, the class learned about the concept of alliances when the German and
Incan nations joined the Zulu and declared war on their nation. During the final
gameplay session, the only trade ally that students had, the Dutch, joined the
Zulu alliance against them. The end result was the conquest of their cities and
the end of the game. I was able to relate this disaster to the alliance system and
World War I.
One concern I have for future game play is the lack of participation by all
students. The gameplay was conducted as a whole class activity utilizing one
computer, a data projector and an interactive whiteboard. Five students who
remained actively engaged throughout the semester tended to dominate
gameplay. Although the remaining students were engaged, they remained more
passive and rarely offered suggestions to the student game controller. These
students may have been more involved if I had three groups of four students
playing the game at different computers. Another concern was the lack of
information on the data collection sheets. Some students wrote a considerable
amount of information on the sheets, while others had few comments. Students

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who did not write extensive comments on the data sheets did participate in the
gameplay discussions before and after each gaming session.
In summary, playing Civilization III does appear to reinforce concepts
learned in class and evidence does exist that transfer of knowledge from
gameplay did occur among the students. This became evident during the teacher
led discourse before and after the gaming sessions. Whether or not this transfer
of knowledge would have occurred on a standardized test such as the state
mandated end of course test for United States History is uncertain. Additional
studies and gameplay with Civilization III need to be conducted. There is
evidence from the sessions of Civilization III gameplay that the students utilized
information skills. The class engaged in collaborative problem solving,
respected each other’s suggestions, and learned several key concepts such as
geography and its influence on economic development.

Conclusions and Implications

Using games such as Civilization III in social studies is complex and
requires a willingness to think creatively and expansively about the curriculum.
In this study, we found that effective use of Civilization III entailed taking
advantage of specific game contexts to expand on curricular content. Given that
much of gameplay described in this study emerged in ways that could not be
predicted, the teacher had to be flexible and willing to adapt. Teachers can make
connections between Civilization III and a typical United States history
curriculum but they are tentative and much less direct than some teachers may
be used to in their everyday instruction. In this study, the teacher made
connections between the game and curriculum-based content in U. S. history
through combination of planned actions (e.g. Manifest Destiny and Imperialism)
and more opportunistic actions (e.g. Pangaea and the concept of embassy). Such
teaching requires a mix of foresight and a willingness to adapt. The teacher in
this study was willing to look across the curriculum for opportunities to
reinforce previous learning. He also took opportunities to make more specific
connections to content being studied outside of the game.
Looking for evidence of student learning is equally complicated. Factual
knowledge outcomes might result from Civilization III gameplay and anecdotal
evidence from this study suggests that students did develop factual knowledge.
For example, students we able to define embassy and were able to articulate at
least one problem that beset Jamestown settlers. However, this study did not
include a systematic measure of student knowledge pre and post gameplay.
Instead, the focus of this study was on the context and conditions of gameplay
and how they might facilitate a variety of teacher and student activities. Given
the findings of this study, we can suggest that traditional measures in the form of

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standardized tests might not be a productive way to measure student learning

that occurs while students play Civilization III. Instead of traditional assessment
methods, which typically involve multiple choice or short answer questions that
draw from wide ranging mostly low-level content, measures of student learning
in this study had to focus on targeted conceptual knowledge linked to curricular
content. Although this study did not seek to determine the extent to which the
content presented in the learning assertions were a product of gameplay and the
supporting teacher directed dialogue, such an assessment could easily be
developed.
In his study of Civilization III, Squire (2004) recommended a five part 18
day curricular outline for using the game involving students appropriating the
game by, mastering game basics, engaging in purposeful play in learning
communities, examining the game as a simulation of history, and concluding
activities through synthesis and presentations. This study involved a whole class
engaging in teacher-directed gameplay. The teacher functioned to ease the
complexities of gameplay by providing direction for students and serving as a
constant source of information when problems arose. In addition to gameplay
support, the teacher injected specific learning opportunities into the experience.
These experiences with regard to the content were not unlike topics that might
have emerged in a teacher-directed discussion or even a lecture. We might even
image a lecture series support by Civilization III gameplay. Given this study,
teachers might want to consider using games such as Civilization III in whole
class learning activities. Such activities might involve lecture, directed whole
class discussion, small group gameplay or gameplay targeted to highlight some
relevant concept or topic.
As a learning resource, we think that Civilization III should be used in
combination with other activities including teacher lecture, background
readings, class discussion and critical analysis. The findings reported here
suggest that a level of direct teacher involvement can result in focused
opportunities for students to engage curricular content. Going forward, we
would like to see more research on how other approaches to gameplay using
Civilization III and other civilization-building games might be organized in the
social studies classroom.

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Brown, J. (2007). Teaching about genocide in a new millennium. Social

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Appendix One

Semi-structured student interview protocol

1. What did you like about the game?
2. What did you learn while playing the game? (Focus specific follow up
questions on content items from the actual gameplay episode that
preceded the interview)
3. Where there any things that happened in the game that you did not
agree with and why?
4. Did you get to take a turn controlling the gameplay? If so, describe that
experience?
5. How would you describe the classes decision to
___________________(content here is specific to the actual gameplay
episode)?
6. Do you remember learning or hearing about any of the things that came
up in the game in your regular class, maybe during another activity or a
lecture or in reading in the book? If so, please describe.
7. Describe _________________(use a specific activity in the game)?
8. Can you explain __________________ (use a specific concept from the
game)?

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Appendix Two

Semi-structured teacher interview protocol

First interview
1. What were initial ideas for using the game in your teaching?
2. How have do you plan to integrate your regular teaching activities with
gameplay?
3. What are your expectations for how things will go?
4. Do you have any specific content that you would like to emphasize in
your teaching?
5. How do you plan to manage the gameplay in your class?

Second interview
1. What are some of the things that worked in your classes when the game
was played?
2. What were some things that did not work?
3. What were some of the content topics that emerged in class sessions?
4. Did you have any problems the management of the activities?
5. Describe some of the things that you observed over several gameplay
sessions?
6. How do you think students responded to the game?
7. If you could change anything about the gameplay, what would it be?
8. What are some lessons learned from your experiences?

About the Authors

John K. Lee is an associate professor of social studies education at North
Carolina State University. He teaches methods and courses in social studies
theory. His research is focused on digital history.

Jeffery Probert is a teacher at the Beaufort County Early College High School in
Beaufort County, North Carolina. He is a doctoral student at North Carolina
State University in social studies education where his research is focused on
gaming in social studies.

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