For my engaged archaeology project I worked with Hannah Nelson. Our project consisted of a board game based on Candy Land. On the game cards we put true and false facts related to archaeology. On the true cards players were instructed to move forward to the color indicated by the reverse side of the card. The false cards provided corrections to the errors and indicted for the player to move back. Before and after playing the game, participants were administered a series of questions intended to determine what they already knew and what they learned after the game. The following questions were used:
- What is the definition of archaeology?
- What are the goals of archaeology?
- Is archaeology strictly about artifacts, why or why not?
- What is stratification in reference to archaeology?
- Does archaeology use the scientific method?
- Are archaeology and modern technology connected? Provide examples.
We scored the pre and post tests based on key words in the answers. All of the answers could be found clearly on the cards. Peoples answered greatly between pre and post tests and also varied from one another. The average pre-test score was 5.6 points and the average post-test score was 8.4 points. The average change in score was 2.9 points with a median score change of 3 and a range of 0-6 points.
Most of our participants had no experience with archaeology but those who did have answers mostly mentioned popular culture, particularly Jurassic Park. When asked the definition of archaeology more than person mentioned digging up bones. The question that people learned the most from was “what is the definition of archaeology?”. Most people mentioned material culture or artifacts and past cultures or societies or civilizations but people did not mention archaeology being a scientific study.
Our sample size was far too small to make any large conclusions regarding the efficacy of the test. Also, our participant group was pretty biased-all of the being science majors and most of them being females. To better test our project we would use a larger sample size with a greater variety of participants with a greater range of majors.
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