The Puzzle Tanks Test is intended to assess students' skill in comprehending verbal directions and learning a new computer game. In learning to play a new computer game, students must strive to understand and apply the verbal directions. In the Fifth Dimension, students gain experience in similar tasks receiving verbal instructions for a game and then trying to learn how to play the game. We suggest using a game that is challenging but learnable within a short time. In the Puzzle Tanks Test we used learning tasks that required increasingly sophisticated solution strategies.

More information about the use of the Puzzle Tanks Test in research may be found in:

Mayer, R.E., Schustack, M., & Blanton, W. (1999, March-April). What do children learn from using computers in an informal collaborative environment? Educational Technology, 39, 215-227.

Mayer, R. E., Quilici, J. H., & Moreno, R. (1999). What do Students learn in an after-school computer club? Journal of Educational Computing Research, 20, 215-227.

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