Designing for Disengagement: Challenges and Opportunities for Game Design to Support Children's Exit From Play

Games research and industry have developed a solid understanding of how to design engaging, playful experiences that draws players in for hours and causes them to lose their sense of time. While these designs can provide enjoyable experiences, many individuals -- especially children -- may find it challenging to regulate their playing time, and often they struggle to turn off the game. In turn, this affords external regulation of children's playing behavior by limiting playing time or encouraging alternative activities, which frequently leads to conflicts between parents and the children. Here, we see an opportunity for game design to address player disengagement through design, facilitating a timely and autonomous exit from play. Hence, while most research and practitioners design for maximizing player engagement, we argue for a perspective shift towards disengagement as a design tool that allows for unobtrusive and smooth exits from the game. We advocate that interweaving disengagement into the game design could reduce friction within families, allowing children to finish game sessions more easily, facilitate a sense of autonomy, and support an overall healthier relationship with games. In this position paper, we outline a research agenda that examines how game design can address player disengagement, what challenges exist in the specific context of games for children, and how such approaches can be reconciled with the experiential, artistic, and commercial goals of games

A Reader Response Approach to Storytelling and Tabletop Games: The Player's Experience of Dungeons and Dragons and Its Pedagogical Applications

Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is a role-playing game (RPG) that has exploded in popularity since its conception in the 1970s. This paper aims to examine how D&D, and other RPGs like it, can be utilized within an academic setting by utilizing Reader Response theory. This theory, pioneered by theorists Louise Rosenblatt and Wolfgang Iser, would serve to measure the impact that D&D has on the players. Using an IRB approved study, this paper views the emotional impact, literary experience, and individual connections that participants make while playing D&D to show the worth that D&D has as a literary tool and pedagogical device. These responses from participants would also lead to viewing D&D as a pedagogical tool by taking inspiration from Simulation Games, Devised Theatre, and the use of Reader Response within the classroom

Multiliteracies meaning-making: How four boys’ video gaming experiences influence their cultural knowledge—Two ethnographic cases

Scholars have acknowledged the potential contribution of video gaming to complex forms of learning, identifying links between gaming and engagement, experiential learning spaces, problem-solving, strategies, transliteracy reflectivity, critical literacy, and metacognitive thinking. Despite this movement toward the inclusion of video gaming in literacy teaching, concerns about certain risks raised by scholars have slowed the adoption of using video games to foster learning. Using a multiliteracies lens, this multi-case study examined the experiences of four boys engaged with video gaming in two different contexts: a community centre and an after-school video club. By drawing on Feminist Post-Structural Theory, Vygotskian, and video gaming technology, I have gained an understanding of the nature of boys’ behavior and learning in social settings while they engage in video game play. Studying the ways in which boys make meanings through multimodal ways of learning can offer insights into strategies that can potentially reinvent traditional literacy pedagogical boundaries and establish new ways and practices for building knowledge. These ethnographic cases, along with their naturalistic aspects, strengthened the authenticity of the social-contextual-cultural experiences of the four, adolescent-aged boys and allowed an understanding of their everyday experiences. Interpretations of the cultural meanings made by each of the boys, based on their individual unique experiences engaging with video games, can provide readers with insights into how to approach adolescent aged boys’ literacy development. This study describes how these four boys developed their multimodal ways of learning by engaging with visual perspectives of video games. My methodological approach documented what boys are saying, as much as possible, which is currently understudied in the literature surrounding boys and their video gaming practices. There were a number of findings emanating from this study, including the following: (i) boys use their video gaming practices for meaning-making and collaborative efforts in order to gain an understanding of several knowledge processes (such as decision-making, predicting, analyzing, strategizing, etc.), (ii) boys extend and apply their cultural knowledge as creative innovators, producing and publishing YouTube instructional videos for video game players and designing video games for a history project, (iii) boys demonstrate peer mentoring through storytelling, face-to-face interactions or in their online community of practice, (iv) boys make meanings using metacognitive literacy skills in a variety of ways, and (v) boys focus on cultural preservation and narrative storytelling. While acknowledging concerns related to video gaming, such as negative identity construction, violence, distraction, and time commitment for integration, this study seeks to contribute to the scholarly discussion about the use of video games in classrooms by explicitly considering the ways in which gaming may support boys’ meaning-making and cultural knowledge. Keywords Available designs, boys, community of practice, cultural meaning-making systems, literacy, multiliteracies, multimodal meanings, video gamin

Place for video games : a theoretical and pedagogical framework for multiliteracies learning in English studies

Students are now involved in a vastly different textual landscape than many English scholars, one that relies on the “reading” and interpretation of multiple channels of simultaneous information. As a response to these new kinds of literate practices, my dissertation adds to the growing body of research on multimodal literacies, narratology in new media, and rhetoric through an examination of the place of video games in English teaching and research. I describe in this dissertation a hybridized theoretical basis for incorporating video games in English classrooms. This framework for textual analysis includes elements from narrative theory in literary study, rhetorical theory, and literacy theory, and when combined to account for the multiple modalities and complexities of gaming, can provide new insights about those theories and practices across all kinds of media, whether in written texts, films, or video games. In creating this framework, I hope to encourage students to view texts from a meta-level perspective, encompassing textual construction, use, and interpretation. In order to foster meta-level learning in an English course, I use specific theoretical frameworks from the fields of literary studies, narratology, film theory, aural theory, reader-response criticism, game studies, and multiliteracies theory to analyze a particular video game: World of Goo. These theoretical frameworks inform pedagogical practices used in the classroom for textual analysis of multiple media. Examining a video game from these perspectives, I use analytical methods from each, including close reading, explication, textual analysis, and individual elements of multiliteracies theory and pedagogy. In undertaking an in-depth analysis of World of Goo, I demonstrate the possibilities for classroom instruction with a complex blend of theories and pedagogies in English courses. This blend of theories and practices is meant to foster literacy learning across media, helping students develop metaknowledge of their own literate practices in multiple modes. Finally, I outline a design for a multiliteracies course that would allow English scholars to use video games along with other texts to interrogate texts as systems of information. In doing so, students can hopefully view and transform systems in their own lives as audiences, citizens, and workers

Virtual Reality as a Vehicle for Reimagining Creative Literacies, Research and Pedagogical Space

In recent years, virtual reality technologies have become increasingly accessible; and in educational contexts, this technology has the potential to expand the literacy of creativity and provide re-orientations for pedagogical thinking and meaning making. Using the Parallaxic Praxis methodology (Sameshima et al., 2019) to generate data understandings in a research project exploring teacher creativity, artistresearchers used Google Tilt Brush to investigate: How do entanglements of language, literacy and VR alter the pedagogical space of creativity? How is creativity enabled in VR? And, what does this dynamic pedagogical space offer to educators? Pedagogical sites of learning from the virtual renderings generated new perspectives to examine the intersections of creative agency, literacy and expression, learning spaces and research design—all of which are increasingly important as educational practises evolve in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

Preservice Teacher Perceptions of Coding in Literacy Instruction

Coding is a language with many similarities to what is traditionally thought of as literacy. Preservice teachers are familiar with literacy instruction, but were not exposed to computer science during their K-12 education nor in their teacher education course work. Yet, they are responsible for preparing children for future careers, including the growing field of computer science, which should be integrated as early as possible into the general education curriculum to build awareness, interest, and ultimately, skills. In this study, preservice teachers in a K-6 reading interventions class were trained in Scratch and provided a template to use with children struggling in various aspects of literacy. This article examines how preservice teachers perceive the relationship between coding and literacy through the theoretical framework of gaming, and whether they would include coding in literacy instruction. Results indicate preservice teachers do not feel confident enough in their teaching abilities to feel comfortable integrating coding into literacy instruction. Lack of prior knowledge and time constraints contributed to those that chose not to participate. Success occurred as Scratch was found to be motivating and individualized when using self-selected pictures and voice to connect to the written word, supporting children’s literacy learning

Composing a Gamer: A Case Study of One Gamer\u27s Experience of Symbiotic Flow

Built upon symbiotic flow, that is a merging of flow theory (Csikzentmihalyi, 1975) and situated cognition (Gee, 2007) this dissertation presents the findings from a 6-month qualitative study of an elite gamer and his practices and experiences with video games. The study used mediated discourse analysis and case study methods to answer the following question: What does it mean to be an elite gamer, to one life-long player of video games? In addition, the following sub-questions were considered: a) What aspects of elite gaming are important and meaningful to one particular gamer? b) What moments of play does this gamer identify as significant? c) What does sustained play look like for one him? Data sources included interviews, observations of significant gaming (that is gaming in heightened states of enjoyment and success), observation de-briefs, co-analysis interview, and a research journal. The researcher coded observational data for elements of symbiotic flow and in response to interview data. Data are presented in narrative, expository, and graphic forms across the study. This inquiry has resulted in the creation of the Model of Nested Transaction in order to articulate and understand the nature of significant gaming experiences. Additional significant findings include: a) Time is the primary resource and commodity in this particular player\u27s elite gaming world, because it represents a level of dedication and insider status; b) this gamer values particular affordances in his gaming, namely experiences that develop knowledge and skills that can then be applied instantaneously in gaming contexts and be harnessed for longitudinal participation; c) video games provide the participant, and gamers like him, with possibilities for greatness, an aspect of his identity that is both critically important to him and often strikingly absent outside of games. The study argues for productive consideration of video games as a mediational tool of both meaningful learning and powerful identity exploration

Predicting Teacher Usage of Learning Games in Classrooms

This study addresses a problem of ambiguity in academic writing regarding whether learning games are underutilized in educational settings, what type of educators use learning games, and what factors are the most important in predicting educator usage. The purpose of the study is to clarify and explain the current state of educator usage of learning games in these areas in order to inform designers of educator professional development. There are two well-known frameworks that can be used to understand learning game integration by educators: the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. This study uses a modified version of each framework designed specifically for learning games. There are also additional factors that may have a significant impact on the decision to use learning games, including (a) experience with digital games, and (b) external barriers to usage. This research has three goals: (a) investigate learning game usage, (b) evaluate which framework better predicts educator usage of learning games, and (c) examine additional factors outside of these frameworks that may influence integration. Data was gathered from currently-practicing educators using an online survey and the results were analyzed using SPSS and several statistical methods, including multiple linear regression. The results show that the TPACK framework is slightly better than TAM at predicting teacher usage, experience with games is not a statistically significant factor, and perceived barriers are significant, but their effect can be mediated by game pedagogical knowledge

Teacher Perceptions of the Digital Badge in Kindergarten Reading Attainment

Educators are consistently seeking appropriate measures of assessment and guidance tools in the 21st century. Tools in classrooms today are lacking the needs relevant to digital natives. Digital badges are a form of assessment, achievement, and accomplishment that show competencies and growth. This phenomenological research study was conducted to examine the experiences of seven teachers and three principals in a suburban school in a Northeastern state regarding the implementation of the digital badge in early literacy. The analysis of the data showed digital badges as intrinsically engaging, preferred over report cards, with a strong impact on instruction and relationships, validating, visual, and creating equitable and opportunity-based learning. Digital badges in their infancy may create challenges in continuation toward carry through to future grades and immature software hardships. The study was guided by a constructivist framework. Using a phenomenological approach, participants completed semistructured interviews, and provided artifacts. Findings revealed the digital badge creates strong partnerships among families, students, teachers and administration. The digital badge serves to engage students and increase academic achievement based on nationally normed tests. Teachers’ perceptions of digital badging were favorable; the digital badging process serves student and learner-centered preferences

Gamification of Education and Learning: Heuristic Elements, Player Types, and Learning Outcomes for Art History Games

The technology of virtual reality (VR) and the gamification of education and learning has had proven educational benefits, especially in secondary education. However, there remains little to no research on the heuristic elements and mechanics that contribute to learning at the postsecondary level of education. Most research conducted has been refined to science programs, but even in these instances, a study of the effects and interests of different demographics has yet to be considered. Given the visual nature of how the discipline of art history has traditionally been taught, there are a number of virtual reality (VR) applications to assist instructors in the field better engage students in immersive environments to provide a more accurate understanding of subjects covered. In order to capitalize on the strengths of the new digital medium, including immersion, engagement, and presence, the end user needs to be considered. This heuristic study investigates the different experiences, preferences, learning styles, and expectations relating to educational gaming of art history students at a private, Midwestern college. Results demonstrate that effective game design and development need consider the target audience to optimize user experience and learning outcomes