The potential of video games for exploring deconstructionist history

This thesis examines the potential of historical video games for exploring deconstructionist history. Historical video games have become one of the most popular and accessible forms of historical narratives in the 21st century, forming a key part of public engagement with history. This popularity has also placed these games under growing scrutiny, including calls for critically analysing their role in the construction and representation of historical narratives and epistemologies. For example, addressing topics like the emphasis on military history, the dominance of western perspectives and contexts, or teleological notions of progress. Such studies have become a central focus of historical video game studies, which has developed approaches for exploring how particular forms of historiographical representation and narrative arise and become embedded within historical video games. This thesis develops a unique contribution to these debates by focusing on a deconstructionist approach to history. Defined by historian Alun Munslow (2007), the deconstructionist approach presents history as a constructed narrative and aims to identify discourses behind the process of writing history. In video games, the control that players have over the narrative experience can be described as unintentionally embedding a deconstructionist perspective. Expanding on this argument, this research addressed how formal aspects of the medium exert pressure over epistemology and how historiographical ideas can consciously be shared with players. In contrast with previous approaches to the study of historical video games, this thesis goes beyond formal analysis of existing games, and includes design and reception perspectives. The arrangement of this study drew insights from several interdisciplinary fields, including the digital humanities, design and cultural studies. The result was a research through design methodology which engaged in the design, production, and evaluation of a historical video game prototype. Through the design process, the study set out to identify, implement, and test aspects of the medium that can emphasise a deconstructionist approach and allow players to reflect on their conceptualisation of history. This process involved multiple stages of data gathering and analysis. The results show that perceptions of historical video games are marked by tensions between what is seen as historical and what is seen as fictional or ludic. This thesis proposes a framework to navigate through these tensions, and uses it to develop a video game prototype, Time Historians. The evaluation of this prototype shows that players recognised the deconstructionist approach and openly discussed historiography. The findings indicate the feasibility of intentionally embedding a deconstructionist historiographical approach by relying on core aspects of the medium and navigating through the discourses surrounding it. The main contributions of the study include: a new approach for the analysis of historical video games; methodological reflections on the interdisciplinary combination of video game design and history; a set of epistemological guidelines for the design of historical video games; and new reflections on the role of video games as public history. Finally, this thesis expands on the discussions about historical video games and epistemology, offering a design-based perspective to approach this issue and unveiling further considerations on the potential of this medium

In Quest of Walter Smith: The Past, Present, and Future Impact of Visual Art in Adult Education

Walter Smith is a relatively unknown historical figure in the art world, but he is essential to defining adult education\u27s past, present, and future in the area of visual art. His artistic endeavors in America sparked facets of the way art education is practiced today. However, along the way we have lost the tenets of social change which he sought but never accomplished. In chapter one, I introduce the purpose of the research. In chapter two, I explain the position Walter Smith entered when coming to America. I also detail Smith\u27s Herculean social reform efforts for adult education and why popular appreciation of what he did was impossible. In chapter three, I analyze the changes in American adult art education inspired by Smith, and the paradigmatic changes in adult art education since Smith up to present-day. In chapter four, I assess documentation of the present situation of adult education in art in the United States. I review the thought process behind what is required in teaching adult students and its current practice. In chapter five, I discuss Paulo Freire\u27s theory of social transformation as a backbone for adult art education within some possible frameworks: CBAE, DBAE, and through the aid of Internet and computer technology. In chapter six, I address the dichotomy that is simultaneously splitting the fields of adult education and adult art education

Methods in Psychological Research

Psychologists collect empirical data with various methods for different reasons. These diverse methods have their strengths as well as weaknesses. Nonetheless, it is possible to rank them in terms of different critieria. For example, the experimental method is used to obtain the least ambiguous conclusion. Hence, it is the best suited to corroborate conceptual, explanatory hypotheses. The interview method, on the other hand, gives the research participants a kind of emphatic experience that may be important to them. It is for the reason the best method to use in a clinical setting. All non-experimental methods owe their origin to the interview method. Quasi-experiments are suited for answering practical questions when ecological validity is importa

Nodes and Arcs: Concept Map, Semiotics, and Knowledge Organization.

Purpose – The purpose of the research reported here is to improve comprehension of the socially-negotiated identity of concepts in the domain of knowledge organization. Because knowledge organization as a domain has as its focus the order of concepts, both from a theoretical perspective and from an applied perspective, it is important to understand how the domain itself understands the meaning of a concept. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides an empirical demonstration of how the domain itself understands the meaning of a concept. The paper employs content analysis to demonstrate the ways in which concepts are portrayed in KO concept maps as signs, and they are subjected to evaluative semiotic analysis as a way to understand their meaning. The frame was the entire population of formal proceedings in knowledge organization – all proceedings of the International Society for Knowledge Organization’s international conferences (1990-2010) and those of the annual classification workshops of the Special Interest Group for Classification Research of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (SIG/CR). Findings – A total of 344 concept maps were analyzed. There was no discernible chronological pattern. Most concept maps were created by authors who were professors from the USA, Germany, France, or Canada. Roughly half were judged to contain semiotic content. Peirceian semiotics predominated, and tended to convey greater granularity and complexity in conceptual terminology. Nodes could be identified as anchors of conceptual clusters in the domain; the arcs were identifiable as verbal relationship indicators. Saussurian concept maps were more applied than theoretical; Peirceian concept maps had more theoretical content. Originality/value – The paper demonstrates important empirical evidence about the coherence of the domain of knowledge organization. Core values are conveyed across time through the concept maps in this population of conference paper

Teaching history in postmodern times: history teachers' thinking about the nature and purposes of their subject

This thesis investigates how secondary school history teachers at the start of their teaching careers view the nature and purposes of their subject and how they think these views impact on their practice. Data were collected through in depth individual qualitative interviews with eleven teachers completing their initial training. These focused on: how these beginning teachers conceived of the nature of their discipline; the rationale they presented for the purposes of their subject in the school curriculum; the origins of their views on the nature and purposes of history; and how they are manifest in what and how they teach. In order to maintain coherence and to represent the richness and complexity of each teacher’s own story these were written, analysed and presented as narrative accounts. A summary is given of each the accounts with three presented in full. The accounts show these beginning history teachers’ views on the nature of history as reflecting the dominant discourse that characterises history as an academic subject, being largely Constructionist and emphasising the objective analysis of historical evidence. The teachers’ rationales for the purpose of history emphasised broader educational, social and moral purposes. More postmodern perspectives are apparent in the emphasis given to the importance of historical interpretations. Family background, lived experiences, literature and the media are significant influences on the teachers’ beliefs about the nature and purposes of history. These beliefs seem to impact on classroom practice and pupil learning in the subject. They influence teaching style, choice of learning activities and the areas of historical understanding emphasised, with, for example, views of the past as an uncontested body of knowledge leading to a pedagogy dominated by the transmission of substantive knowledge; and views which emphasise the more constructed nature of history leading to more pupil centred skills based approaches. Teachers’ views on the nature and purpose of the subject are a significant influence on their mediation of the National Curriculum. The National Curriculum for History has increasingly provided opportunities for interpretations more sympathetic to the postmodern orientation but research and inspection evidence suggest that these opportunities are often poorly realised in schools. One reason for this is proposed as history teachers’ lack of engagement with postmodern perspectives on history. It is important for teachers to engage with such approaches as without further consideration of their implications history teachers are unable to teach aspects of secondary History. Teachers also need to recognise and make explicit different orientations towards history in order to facilitate pupil learning, to engage pupils and to provide them with the skills necessary to be critical consumers of the range of histories presented to them in society. The research has implications for history teaching, pupil learning and the initial training and professional development of teachers. The case is made for further consideration being given to postmodern perspectives on the nature of history in initial and continuing teacher education in order to improve teaching and learning. The initial teacher education of history teachers needs to ensure that those on programmes have the syntactical knowledge necessary to develop effective teaching strategies and approaches, to enable pupil learning, and to develop their own subject knowledge and ability to reflect on their own practice and development. This research also emphasises the need for all those involved in training to critically engage with subject orientations as where beginning teachers’ beliefs conflict with the dominant discourse of history teaching this can lead to problematic experiences of teaching and of teacher training

Reflexive Translation Studies

In the past decades, translation studies have increasingly focused on the ethical dimension of translational activity, with an emphasis on reflexivity to assert the role of the researcher in highlighting issues of visibility, creativity and ethics. In Reflexive Translation Studies, Silvia Kadiu investigates the viability of theories that seek to empower translation by making visible its transformative dimension; for example, by championing the visibility of the translating subject, the translator’s right to creativity, the supremacy of human translation or an autonomous study of translation. Inspired by Derrida’s deconstructive thinking, Kadiu presents practical ways of challenging theories that argue reflexivity is the only way of developing an ethical translation. She questions the capacity of reflexivity to counteract the power relations at play in translation (between minor and dominant languages, for example) and problematises affirmative claims about (self-)knowledge by using translation itself as a process of critical reflection

Curriculum, complexity and representation: rethinking the epistemology of schooling through complexity theory

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Users' Perceptions of Library Service Quality: A LibQUAL+ Qualitative Study

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