What is Empowerment Design

Since the introduction of popular video games such as Space Invaders and Pac Man, in the 1980’s the video game industry has grown to immense proportions. However, unlike film or television in their early years, there has been very little research into the instructional applications of computer games. What is most surprising about the lack of research into the instructional use of computer games, particularly by instructional systems technology (IST) professionals, is the fact that this is traditionally a field that has always embraced cutting edge technology and pursued a wide range of research interests. It is proposed here that the IST field to give serious consideration to the educational use of computer games and establish a research agenda to provide support to those practitioners in the field attempting to utilize this new technology.