Literature Review in Games and Learning

John Kirriemuir, Angela Mcfarlane

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Literature Review in Games and Learning

REPORT 8:

FUTURELAB SERIES

John Kirriemuir, CeangalAngela McFarlane, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol

FOREWORD

Computer games are today an importantpart of most children’s leisure lives andincreasingly an important part of ourculture as a whole. We often, as adults,watch in amazement as children dedicatehours to acting as football coaches,designers of empires, controllers ofrobots, wizards and emperors. In thepast, computer games have beendismissed as a distraction from more‘worthy’ activities, such as homework orplaying outside. Today, however,researchers, teachers and designers oflearning resources are beginning to askhow this powerful new medium might beused to support children’s learning.Rather than shutting the door of theschool against the computer game, thereis now increasing interest in askingwhether computer games might beoffering a powerful new resource tosupport learning in the information age.

This review is intended as a timelyintroduction to current thinking about therole of computer games in supportingchildren’s learning inside and out ofschool. It highlights the key areas of

research in the field, in particular theincreasing interest in pleasurablelearning, learning through doing andlearning through collaboration, thatgames seem to offer. At the same time,the review takes a measured tone inacknowledging some of the obstacles andchallenges to using games within ourcurrent education system and within ourcurrent models of learning. It goes on topropose some ways in which designers,researchers and educational policymakers might draw on the growing bodyof research in the field to create learningresources and environments that gobeyond a sugar-coating of ‘fun’ to the fullengagement that computer games seemto offer so many children today.

We are keen to receive feedback on the Futurelab reports and welcomecomments at research@futurelab.org.uk

Keri Facer Director of Learning Research Futurelab

1

CONTENTS:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2

SECTION 1INTRODUCTION 5

SECTION 2GAMES CULTURESAND PLAY 7

SECTION 3GAMES AND LEARNING 13

SECTION 4KEY ISSUES IN DEVELOPINGGAMES FOR LEARNING 19

SECTION 5FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN GAMES AND LEARNING 24

BIBLIOGRAPHY 29

END NOTES 34

Literature Review in Games and Learning

REPORT 8:

FUTURELAB SERIES

John Kirriemuir, CeangalAngela McFarlane, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

AIMS

This review provides:

• a summary of the contemporary state ofthe computer and video gamingindustry, market and culture

• an overview of the main developments inresearch into gaming and theeducational relevance of video games,and a summary of the literatureresulting from this research

• a basis for communication between theeducational research community andthe commercial sector on the subject ofthe use of games technologies in thedesign of learning resources

• a basis for discussion within educationalcommunities on the use of digitalgames within educational settings.

CONTEXT

Computer games are a growing part of ourculture; the global market is worth billionsof dollars, related activities range frompublished magazines to spontaneousinternet communities, and the impact ofgames play on young people has attractedsignificant interest from the popularmedia. Three quarters of children playregularly – is this harmful or beneficial,are they learning as they play, and if sowhat? This review considers the findings ofresearch into the relationship betweengames and players, and the theoreticaland actual implications for learning.

The research evidence is complex, andthinly spread. The study of computer

games, or game players, cannot bemapped onto one research discipline.Relevant areas of study include, but are not limited to computer science,education, psychology, youth and mediaand cultural studies. As a result, aspectsof investigation into games and gameplayers can ‘straddle’ several differentacademic disciplines.

As games have become more complex interms of graphics, complexity, interactionand narrative, so a variety of genres havecome to dominate the market. There is,however, no standard categorisation of such games; different stakeholders in the games industry eg game outlets,developers, academics, web review sites,use a taxonomy appropriate to their ownaudience. Nonetheless the differencesbetween genres, and even between gameswithin one genre, differentiate the way they are played, and their potential tosupport learning. Thus attempts togeneralise the effect of games or gaming may be unhelpful.

Perhaps as a result of the diversity andcomplexity of games themselves, and the range of perspectives taken byresearchers, there are few hard and fastfindings in the literature. In order to betterunderstand games and game play, andhow they contribute to learning, it may be necessary to distinguish more clearlythe nature of gaming and the nature oflearning and the learner.

GAMES AND GAMERS

Researchers and commentators haveattempted to understand the lure ofcomputer games. This has beencharacterised as a combination of fantasy,

2

attempts togeneralise the

effect of gamesor gaming may

be unhelpful

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

challenge and curiosity, and a level ofengagement described as ‘flow’ whereplayers become oblivious to distractions.Concern has been expressed that thisleads to a neglect of other activities, oftenassumed to be automatically more worthy.Other authors see games play asinherently valuable, leading to adevelopment of a range of skills andcompetences that may transfer to othersocial and work-related uses of digitaltechnologies.

The debate around violence and gaming is as yet unresolved. There are twoperspectives; that games increaseaggression or that games provide a releasefor pent-up aggression. In all likelihoodboth are legitimate conclusions, and theoutcomes varies with game and player.

Gender is a common subject of gamesrelated research, focusing mainly on theimage of females within games, or the roleof gender in influencing games play. Thereare few clear outcomes, but the proportionof gamers who are female seems to begrowing and this may be related to theincrease in social gaming through on and offline multiplayer options.

GAMES AND EDUCATION

Research into the use of mainstreamgames in education is relatively novel, butgrowing rapidly. Research is mainlyconcerned with the development of relatedcompetences and literacies during gameplay, or the role of games in the formationof learning communities either whilegaming or related to game play.

Use of mainstream games in schoolsremains rare, and is unlikely to be

integrated into the curriculum. Reasonsfor this include:

• it is difficult for teachers to identifyquickly how a particular game isrelevant to some component of thestatutory curriculum, as well as theaccuracy and appropriateness of thecontent within the game

• the difficulty in persuading other schoolstakeholders as to the potential/actualeducational benefits of computer games

• the lack of time available to teachers tofamiliarise themselves with the game,and methods of producing the bestresults from its use

• the amount of irrelevant content orfunctionality in a game which could notbe removed or ignored, thus wastingvaluable lesson time.

Nonetheless, teachers and parentsrecognised that games play can supportvaluable skill development, such as:

• strategic thinking

• planning

• communication

• application of numbers

• negotiating skills

• group decision-making

• data-handling.

Significantly the experience of game play seems to be affecting learners’expectations of learning activities.Preferred tasks are fast, active andexploratory, with information supplied in multiple forms in parallel. Traditionalschool-based learning may not meet these demands.

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the experience of game playseems to be affectinglearners’expectations of learningactivities

REPORT 8LITERATURE REVIEW IN GAMES AND LEARNING

JOHN KIRRIEMUIR, CEANGAL & ANGELA MCFARLANE, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

DEVELOPING GAMES FOR EDUCATION

There are two key themes common to thedevelopment of games for education,namely:

1 The desire to harness the motivationalpower of games in order to ‘makinglearning fun’.

2 A belief that ‘learning through doing’ ingames such as simulations offers apowerful learning tool.

Software designed to support youngpeople’s learning often borrows from gamedesign in an attempt to replicate the levelsof engagement and harness this tofacilitate more traditional learning. Theseattempts are not always successful andthe results do not always convince adiscerning gamer.

Most edutainment has failed to realiseexpectations, either because:

• the games have been too simplistic incomparison to competing video games

• the tasks are repetitive ie continuallydoing sums, and thus quickly becomeboring and ‘work’

• the tasks are poorly designed and donot support progressive understanding

• related to this last point, the range ofactivities is severely limited within thegame, usually concentrating on oneskill, or accumulation of homogenouscontent

• the target audience becomes aware thatit is being coerced into ‘learning’, inpossibly a patronising manner.

The debate on ‘making learning fun’ oftenassumes that children do not enjoy

learning. Yet much research evidencecontradicts this, arguing that children doenjoy learning when they have a sense oftheir own progression and where thelearning is relevant and appropriate. Thisfocus on ‘fun’ and on ‘concealing thelearning’ within educational games may, infact, be a red herring. Instead, it might beworth returning to some early analysesthat describes the pleasures of games playas a ‘flow’.

The conditions likely to induce the flowstate are characterised by Malone (1980)as:

• the activity should be structured so thatthe player can increase or decrease thelevel of challenges faced, in order tomatch exactly personal skills with therequirements for action

• it should be easy to isolate the activity,at least at the perceptual level, fromother stimuli, external or internal, whichmight interfere with involvement in it

• there should be clear criteria forperformance; a player should be able toevaluate how well or how poorly (s)he isdoing at any time

• the activity should provide concretefeedback to the player, so that (s)he cantell how well (s)he is meeting thecriteria of performance

• the activity ought to have a broad rangeof challenges, and possibly severalqualitatively different ranges ofchallenge, so that the player may obtainincreasingly complex information aboutdifferent aspects of her/himself.

Another commentator, reflecting on how to design engaging learning experiences,draws on these definitions to propose eightcharacteristics as essential:

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concealing thelearning within

educationalgames may be

a red herring

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• task that we can complete

• ability to concentrate on task

• task has clear goals

• task provides immediate feedback

• deep but effortless involvement (losingawareness of worry and frustration ofeveryday activity)

• exercising a sense of control over our actions

• concern for self disappears during flow, but sense of self is stronger after flow activity

• sense of duration of time is altered.

Rather than aiming for an experience that superficially resembles leisure-based‘fun’ activities, or one which attempts toconceal the educational purpose, it mightbe argued that we should understand the deep structures of the games playexperience that contribute to ‘flow’ andbuild these into environments designed to support learning.

1 INTRODUCTION

As is widely reported across many media,computer and video games areincreasingly popular. In 2002, the worldmarket for ‘games and edutainment/reference software’ realised 16.9 billion US dollars, with 3.3 million gamesconsoles being sold in the UK alone(ELSPA 2003). People of all ages, but mostvisibly children, play these games, oftendedicating long periods of time in totalconcentration to the amazement andsometimes concern of watching adults.

Games were still a relatively newphenomenon when a wide range of people,including parents, teachers, educationalspecialists and media commentatorsbegan to ask one of two related questions:

1 Games take up large periods of time,which could be spent on more worthyactivities, such as education andlearning. Therefore, how do we ‘wean’children off games and into theseactivities?

2 Games promote levels of attention andconcentration that teachers, parentsand policy makers wished childrenapplied to learning. Therefore, what canthe education sector learn and use fromthese games in order to ‘enhance’ thelearning process?

This report examines the researchassociated with these two stances ongames and learning. Particularly, itexamines three research questions:

1 What is happening during the game-playing process, and what can the educational sector learn or use from this?

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in 2002, theworld market for ‘games andedutainment/referencesoftware’realised 16.9 billiondollars

SECTION 1

INTRODUCTION

2 Can conventional computer games beused as a vehicle for formal learning, egclassroom-based curriculum relatedcontent delivery?

3 What components or features ofconventional computer games can betaken and used in learning software orpractice?

The key focus of this report is primarily onschool age children, and the design ofgames (both for learning and for leisure)for children of these ages.

1.1 DEFINITIONS AND RESEARCHBASE FOR THE REPORT

There is a wide variety of definitions ofdigital games across the range ofacademic, internet and media writing. Theterminology also varies between authorsand over time, and is often interchangable.For example, the terms ‘computer game’and ‘video game’ used to refer to PC-based games and console-based gamesrespectively but are now usedinterchangeably.

For the purposes of this report, we willdefine a digital game as one that:

• provides some visual digital informationor substance to one or more players

• takes some input from the players

• processes the input according to a set of programmed game rules

• alters the digital information provided to the players.

We will also define games as programmesthat operate on the following platforms:

• hardware, known as video gameconsoles (examples being the SonyPlaystation series, Microsoft Xbox andNintendo GameCube), which areoperated through a television

• personal computers

• mobile devices, eg phones anddedicated gaming machines such as the Nintendo GameBoy Advance.

Digital games will include those that aremass-market products developed for theleisure or education market, includingthose with cross-over potential.

Niche digital gaming media, such as watchor LCD panel-based games, are outwiththe scope of this report since at presentthey are somewhat ephemeral andsimplistic.

1.2 RESEARCH ISSUES AND CREDIBILITY

There are three key issues surroundingresearch into games and learning thatrequire acknowledgement.

• Games and publication cycles

The time taken for peer reviewed articlesto reach publication often means thatgames described as ‘current’ may besomewhat out of date compared withcurrent market practices. This is not tosay that this research has no lessons tooffer developers and teachers, simplythat it is important to supplementconventional academic research withresearch from other sources, while atthe same time recognising that thesealternative sources are not subject tothe same degree of peer-reviewedscrutiny as academic publications .

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SECTION 1

INTRODUCTION

• Games as an interdisciplinary subject

Games have been a subject for researchin a wide range of different fields,including computer science, media andcultural studies, psychology, education,physics and youth studies. For anyoneinterested in games and learning, then,there are two challenges: first, to locateall the research across all these areasand second, to overcome the sometimesconfusing overlap and difference interminology used in respect of gamesacross these different research fields.

• Games researchers as ‘defenders’ of games

Given the many social concerns aroundcomputer games, many researchers inthis field find it necessary to defendcomputer games against attacks. Thosereading the research need to adopt abalanced perspective towards accountsthat can sometimes be read as a‘celebration’ of games in the face ofsustained social criticism. Additionally,readers need to beware of a tendencyfor some researchers to generalise frompersonal experience and to be cautiousof accounts that attempt to describe‘typical games players’.

2 GAMES CULTURES AND PLAY

2.1 CATEGORISING GAMES

As games have become more complex interms of graphics, complexity, interactionand narrative, so a variety of genres haveincreasingly come to dominate the market.There is, however, no standardcategorisation of such games; differentstakeholders in the games industry, eggame outlets, developers, academics, webreview sites, use a taxonomy appropriate totheir own audience. Such categorisationsare discussed in Orwant (2000), who alsoillustrates the system employed by Herz(1997) which closely resembles that usedby many in the contemporary gamesindustry.

The Herz system presents these major categories:

• action games - these can besubcategorised into shooting games,‘platform’ games (so called because theplayers’ characters move between on-screen platforms) and other types ofgames that are reaction-based

• adventure games - in most adventuregames, the player solves a number oflogic puzzles (with no time constraints)in order to progress through somedescribed virtual world

• fighting games - these involve fightingcomputer-controlled characters, orthose controlled by other players

• puzzle games - such as Tetris

• role-playing games - where the humanplayers assume the characteristics ofsome person or creature type, eg elf orwizard

• simulations - where the player has to succeed within some simplified

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SECTION 2

GAMES CULTURES AND PLAY

recreation of a place or situation egmayor of a city, controlling financialoutlay and building works

• sports games

• strategy games - such as commandingarmies within recreations of historicalbattles and wars.

Even with this taxonomy, there areexclusions; a small number of games willbe released every year that defycategorisation. In addition, some gamesfall into more than one category; forexample, football manager games (whereyou buy, sell, select and position players)arguably fall into the categories ofsimulation, strategy and sports games.This classification also leaves out theindividual or multiplayer contrast, which ismaking a real difference to how games canbe played.

2.2 THE PREVALENCE OF GAMES PLAY

Statistics for game hardware and softwarerevenue and the volume of players indicatea major social and entertainment culture(though the actual ‘size’ of the mainstreamvideo game industry at present is open tointerpretation). Industry commentators anddigital game researchers often quote gamestatistics in relation to other media. Forexample, Sony’s Playstation2 consolelaunched in Japan in February 2000,selling 980,000 units in its first weekendand thus becoming the biggest launch ofany electronic consumer device in history(Poole 2000). There is also the oft-quotedobservation that over the Christmas 1998period in the US, one videogame (Zelda:Ocarina of Time) grossed $160 million, farexceeding the most popular cinema film

(A Bug’s Life). However, such simplisticcomparisons are increasingly questioned;for example, the aforementionedcomparison does not take into account thecost of the game ($50) against that of thecinema ticket ($6), the demographics,release dates, or the life of the product,since it is common for up to 90% of filmrevenue to be generated from DVD andvideo rather than cinema release.

The recent transfer of characters betweencomputer game and cinema screen isevidence that computer games, once seenas a minority interest, are increasingly anestablished and powerful aspect of ourcultural landscape. Such transfer does notalways work; many of the game ‘brands’that have been turned into movies, such as Resident Evil, Mario Brothers and TombRaider, have been poorly received by bothcritics and audiences. Similarly, mostattempts to produce ‘spin-off’ video games based typically on summerblockbuster movies have been poorlyreceived by critics and have failedultimately to sell in the volume thatsuccessful games titles now do.

That said, digital games are clearly animportant part of most young people’s lives today. Recent figures suggest thatnearly 70% of children play computergames every week, and mobile games play is increasingly common, with 68% of children playing games on their phoneevery week (Facer 2001). A growing body of research points to games currentlybeing the most frequently used ‘interactivemedia’ amongst children. Beentjes (2001)and Feierabend & Klingler (2001) showedthat playing games was the mostprominent PC-related activity of childrenbetween 6 and 13.

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GAMES CULTURES AND PLAY

2.3 WHY DO PEOPLE PLAY GAMES?

Research on the motivations for gamesplaying have been carried out byresearchers across a number ofdisciplines. One of the earliest, and mostcited, research works is by Thomas Malone(Malone 1981) who identified three mainways in which games were able to motivateplayers: fantasy, challenge and curiosity.Other research confirms these findings;for example, in research using educationalsoftware, Amory et al (1988) identifiedcuriosity (“what happens if I do this”) as a common motive in playing a game.Presumably the fact that something doeshappen encourages players to proceed,and the quality of what happens in termsof user engagement is the factor thatkeeps them playing. The TEEM datasuggests that degree of difficulty isimportant here; for children to enjoyplaying, the game must be neither toodifficult nor too hard (McFarlane et al 2002).

A key concept that frequently emerges inthe literature is that of ‘flow’, firstdiscussed by Csikszentmihalyi (1990). Thisis summarised by several researchers as“the state in which we are so involved insomething that nothing else matters”,which has clear relevance to research intogames and play. Debate on the issue of‘flow’ centres around how the ‘state’ canbe created in an individual, and measuringhow it might make a person morereceptive to receiving, comprehending andusing educational-based content and skills(we will go on to discuss in more detailhow ‘flow’ might apply to the design oflearning games in Section 4).

A 2001 survey (ESA) produced four mainreasons for gameplay, namely:

• 87% of most frequent computer andvideo game players said the number one reason they play games is becauseit’s fun

• games are challenging (72%)

• games are an interactive socialexperience that can be shared withfriends and family (42%)

• games provide a lot of entertainmentvalue for the money (36%).

Therefore, no clear consensus emerges onthe reasons why people play digital games.This is unsurprising since the gamesthemselves vary enormously and, as someresearchers point out, the individuality ofthe player provides a sometimes complexset of reasons for game play. Poole (2000)notes that:

“Videogames are powerful, but they arenothing without humans to play them. Sothe inner life of videogames - how theywork - is bound up with the inner life ofthe player.”

2.4 CONCERNS AROUND COMPUTER GAMES PLAY

2.4.1 Games displacing other activities

The impression of much of the mass-media, and some research, is often of apopulation of children playing video gamesto the exclusion of all other activities. Theimplication often being that timetraditionally dedicated to ‘better activities’such as social play and physicalrecreation, is spent on anti-social,physically unhealthy and mentally numbinggame playing, possibly leading to addictive

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for children toenjoy playing, the game mustbe neither toodifficult nor too hard

patterns of use. Though research is oftenoriented towards ‘snapshot’ results asopposed to tracking game-players overlonger periods of time, longitudinalresearch does not show a long-termsignificant commitment to games overother activities.

Creasey’s study (1986) of American 9 to 16year-olds shows an initial rise in gameplaying time at the expense of otherleisure activities when such a medium isintroduced, but this soon decreased. Someresearch evidence suggests youngerchildren (at primary or lower secondarylevels) are more likely to play gamesregularly than children in the upper yearsof secondary school (Facer 2001,McFarlane et al 2002). Durkin (1995)concludes that what appears to be game-playing addictions are:

“…actually transient phases of excessiveinvolvement rather than enduringdependencies from which the victim willfind it very difficult to escape.”

(Marsh 2001) analysed the activities of asample of English families and discoveredthat 3 to 4 year-olds watched television fortime periods far greater than involvementin any other ‘leisure pursuit’, including theplaying of video games. Other studiessupport this, such as a Europeancomparative study in 1997/1998 whichshowed that people aged between 6 and 16spent on average 32 minutes per dayplaying electronic games, but 136 minuteswatching television. Recent informalcomment indicates an increasingawareness amongst the general publicthat games offer various forms of mentalstimulation (BBC 2003), often incomparison to a perceived ‘dumbing down’in the content of television programmes.

Gender differences in game players andthe games they play have beenincreasingly discussed across a range ofresearch and media during the lastdecade, but clear conclusions remainelusive. Circumstantial/informal evidencepoints to a substantial proportion ofplayers of video games being female. It isdifficult to identify any historical trends ingendered use of digital games, or how theattitude of boys or girls towards gameschange as children grow older. Whilegames are no longer exclusively thepreserve of teenage boys, it is still the casethat the intense games players are morelikely to be boys than girls, with figuresvarying between research reportsaccording to the criteria used. Girls mayplay the same games as boys, but theymay play them differently (McFarlane et al2002). From an analysis of surveysFromme (2003) hypothesises that girlsgenerally lose interest in games as theyage and use PCs for other uses, while boysstill use PCs primarily as games machines.McFarlane (2002) surveyed Englishschoolchildren and discovered that:

“There is a tendency among girls to playgames when they are bored or havenothing more interesting to do, whereasboys are more likely to play games as afirst choice activity.”

2.4.2 The effects of violence on game players

The issue of violence within games is animportant one, as it crucially affects theacceptability of digital games in generaland especially in the educational sector.Views on violence and game players areoften polarised and entrenched, evenamongst academic researchers.

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longitudinalresearch does

not show a long-term significantcommitment to

games overother activities

SECTION 2

GAMES CULTURES AND PLAY

However, the reporting on this issue oftenfails to distinguish between separate,though related, issues:

1 Are games ‘violent’ (and what is definedas ‘violent’), and different to violencedemonstrated in other media such asTV, cinema, comic books and literature?

2 Do ‘violent’ video games attract playerswho already possess violent behaviouralattributes, or does the playing of‘violent’ games make the games playermore aggressive, or facilitate thetransfer of violent acts from the gameinto their own lives?

A large number of studies andinvestigations have been carried out on thesecond issue (considerably less on thefirst) since the early 1980s. Much of thiswork comes from psychology andsociology, and focuses on the effects ofgames on younger schoolchildren inparticular. The classical stance on thisissue takes one of two positions:

1 The General Aggression Model, where“violent media increase aggression byteaching observers how to aggress”(Anderson and Bushman 2001).

2 The Catharsis Theory, where “videogame playing may be a useful means ofcoping with (or releasing) pent-upaggression” (Emes 1997).

Reviews of the research and resultingliterature produces an unclear picture withoften contraditory conclusions on theeffects of violent games on people (Dill andDill 1998; Griffiths 1999). The underlyingmethods, results and conclusions of somestudies which produced positivecorrelations between violent games andbehaviour have been questioned in several

reviews, including a brief filed by 33scholars with the US Court of Appeals(Heins 2002).

The longevity of the effects of violent videogames on people, and especially children,is questioned by several reviewers of theliterature in this area, eg Bensley (2000). Itis pointed out that the nature of researchof this type is that results are collectedduring or shortly after the experiment,therefore not providing any data that canindicate the long-term effects of violentcontent or conduct within games.

Several researchers, such as Andersonand Dill (2000), note the increasing‘realism’ within video games and state this as a reason for ongoing research into any linkage between such media and violent or aggressive behaviour. A widely discussed example is in the game Grand Theft Auto III, where theplayer is able to engage in sexual practiceswith a prostitute, then (in a separate act)kill her to retrieve the fee. Even with this example, there are proposals that this might be used as a resource to stimulate classroom debate on morality within contemporary culture(Gillespie 2002).

In summary, it is highly unlikely that theissue of games and violence will be‘resolved’ (it should also be noted thatparallel debates surrounding other mediahave existed for much longer). As well ashaving vocal proponents on both sides, thelarge amount of research (of varyingquality, and often fragmented or out ofcontext) has failed to reach a consensus.This is arguably because more reliableresearch would require researchers tostudy significantly more players, to exploreother factors in violent behaviour and to

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it is highlyunlikely that theissue of gamesand violence willbe ‘resolved’

examine cause-and-effect relationshipsover long periods of time (years, instead of days or even hours).

2.4.3 Gender images

In Bryce and Rutter’s (2002) key review ofgender and gaming research it is notedthat much of the discussion to date hasfocused around the content of the games,as opposed to deeper analysis of gender-specific motivation to play games. In otherwords, there is a focus on analysing therepresentations within a game, rather thanon the experience of playing. Predominantin both mass-media coverage andresearch, for example, is the character ofLara Croft from the Tomb Raider series ofgames. The focal point of debate iswhether Lara presents a positive rolemodel or an unhelpful vision of the ‘perfectwoman’ (Kennedy 2002). Research in thefield that has looked across a number ofdifferent games, however, emphasises thatthere is “a general lack of female gamecharacters, and the sexualised andstereotypical representations of thoseincluded female characters” (Bryce andRutter 2002a; Dietz 1998; Greenfield 1994;Kafai 1996; Kinder 1996).

In considering the appeal of characters,there are concerns that females arealienated if they do not have identities inthe game they can relate to. This has led tocrude attempts by the gaming industry toattract female game players, by producingboth hardware and software that reinforcesclassical gender stereotypes, eg pinkgames consoles, or games based arounddolls (Cassell and Jenkins 1998).

In contrast, however, there is little debateon why males seem happy, as with the

example of Tomb Raider, to assume afemale persona or on the implications for young male players of the dominantmodels of male personality andappearance represented in games such as Grand Theft Auto.

Research into role-playing games,however, suggests that the question ofgender and character identification maynot be quite so straightforward as earliercommentators suggested. In role-playinggames where avatars are created byplayers, for example, there seems to be apattern that the first creations do indeedmimic the player’s gender and age identity,but that later characters play with gender,age, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Thisplay with identity is widely believed to be socommon that experienced players do notassume an avatar reflects the player. Inrecent research with 16 to 28 year-oldboys, they expressed no interest in youngfemale avatars in the MMORPG (MassivelyMultiplayer Online Role-Playing Game)they were playing, assuming they would bemiddle-aged men in reality (Burn et al2003). Bryce and Rutter conclude byarguing that:

“It is apparent that gaming practices areundergoing rapid social and technicalchanges and, at the same time, it isnoticeable that gendered perceptions ofgaming are changing… this is not aphenomenon unique to gaming and isconsistent with the increased participationof females in other leisure activities.”

Their conclusion is that gender relevanceto games and gaming is a complex andrapidly evolving issue, and effectively needs to be researched within a widersocial context than that of the gamingexperience alone.

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3 GAMES AND LEARNING

3.1 LEARNING THEORIES

In order to understand the potential role ofmainstream games in supporting learning,we need first to ask what we mean by‘learning’. This is harder than it looks asthere are multiple and evolving definitionsof learning, with significant areas of disagreement both as to what it means to learn, and what forms of learning arevaluable. The table below is adapted from Smith (1999) and defines key ‘battle lines’ in this debate.

These models view learning, asalternatively a process which leads tochange in behaviour, change in ways ofthinking, achievement of personal potential

or development of capacity to operatewithin particular communities. Today,however, many researchers would arguethat these processes are not mutuallyexclusive, indeed, one particularlypragmatic researcher in the field of gamesand learning argues that the model weapply to learning should depend on what itis that we are trying to ensure people learnat any given time (Prensky 2001):

“It seems to me… that there is another wayof looking at all of this… and that is: ‘Howdo they learn what?’… We must fit the ‘howdo people learn?’ question to ‘what it isthey are learning?’ “ (p80/82)

Given the state of the debate is seemsclear that the potential roles and value ofgames in education will vary depending on

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Aspect Behaviourist Cognitivist Humanist Social and situational

View of the learning process

Site of learning

Purpose in education

Changesbehaviour

Externalresources andtasks are whatmatters

Producebehaviouralchange indesireddirection

Process entirelyin the head ofthe learner (inc-luding insight,information processing,memory,perception)

Making connec-tions in learner’shead is whatreally matters

Develop capacityand skills tolearn better

A developmentof personalpotential

Emotion,attitude andthinking areimportant

Become self-reliant,autonomous

Interaction/observation in a group context,akin to anapprenticeship

Learning needsa relationshipbetween peopleand environment

Full participationin communitiesof practice, ieyou graduatefrom apprenticeto craftsman

who is learning what, where, and why. With that caveat in mind, we now attemptto summarise how researchers in this fieldhave described the role of mainstreamgames in supporting learning both inschool settings and as part of children’sleisure time.

3.2 LEARNING WITH GAMES OUTSIDE SCHOOL

In line with developments in learningtheory, research that has examinedchildren’s self-motivated computer gamesplay sees their learning as a process ofparticipation in practice rather than aprocess of acquisition of facts ordisconnected ‘pieces’ of information, ie‘doing’ rather than ‘knowing’. This takes avariety of different forms.

3.2.1 Learning ‘competencies’

Certain researchers have focused onchildren’s interactions with individualgames in order to attempt to identify ‘whatchildren have learnt’ from playing. Sincegames are often characterised by a trial-and-error approach to overcomingchallenges or obstacles, commentatorshave suggested that these games cansupport the development of logical thinkingand problem solving skills (Inkpen etal1995; Higgins 2000; Whitebread 1997).Much of this research has focused on‘strategy or adventure games’, whichencourage students in exploratory quest-like scenarios with a high degree of control over their progress (Malone 1983; Russell 1990).

To date, however, it could be argued thatmuch of this research relies on inference

from the structure of computer games andpsychological theory rather than direct andsustained empirical evidence. Recentstudies at Futurelab have raised somequestions as to whether children are in factable to move from intuitive problem solvingin the game to an understanding ofeffective processes for identifying problemsand generating hypotheses and solutions inother contexts.

Other research has identified thatchildren’s use of computer games may playa significant role in developing effective useof computer-mediated informationresources. Mackereth (1998) for example,argues that “there is evidence to suggestthat familiarity with, and interest in, videogames can influence children’s confidencewhen using computers for moreprofessional applications” and goes on to argue that children unfamiliar with video games:

“…may not develop the skills necessary to relate with electronic media, such asdealing with dynamic visual change,parallel processing of multiple streams ofinformation and the ability to experiment infree-form, ill-defined problem domains.”

Two studies of children’s use of computersin the home argue that children’s earlyinteractions with computer gamesencourage them to develop a playfulapproach to computers (Downes 1998),which develops the expectation that ‘trialand error works’, and that linearprogressive models for using computers(such as those characterised byworksheets or computer manuals) areoften the least effective way of engagingwith computer-based technologies (Faceret al 2003). This could have implications forthe way that children approach computer-

14

games cansupport the

development oflogical thinking

and problemsolving skills

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based learning tasks, making it difficult tointegrate these with other resources oractivities. Massanari (1998) also recordsteachers’ concern that gaming in schoolsmay make it harder to engage children withthe computer as a tool in moreconventional learning tasks.

3.2.2 Learning to learn – newapproaches to collaboration

Research into the wider context of gamesplay indicates that, contrary to populistmedia opinion, games are often a facilitatorto social, communication and peeractivities. This has always been the case; in the early years of computer gaming, a ‘playground culture’ of discussing,swapping, buying and selling gamesemerged.

An early study (Greenfield 1984), forexample, argued that half of all youngpeople who spent time in video gamesarcades weren’t actually playing games atall - rather they were using the arcade as asocial gathering space. Fromme (2003)describes several surveys indicating thatplaying games with others is popular withGerman children, while Tobin (1998) arguedthat boys’ gaming was not simply a processof ‘playing the game’ but embedded insocial interactions.

Examination of the culture, and marketing,of video games reveals a wealth of materialavailable to support games cultures andconversations. News and opinion on gamescomes from a number of sources, includinggames magazines, websites and onlineforums, encouraging reading anddiscussion amongst game players. The playitself may also be social; many games havea multiplayer option, with an increasing

number being developed and marketed asa ‘social experience’ or ‘party game’.Communication within games is becomingmore complex; one prime example of thisis Moto GP (Moto GP), an online (Xbox)motorbike racing game where, through amicrophone, the players can communicatewith those bikers who are close by on thetrack. The emergence of role-playing andonline gaming as predominant genres addsto this culture of playing, if not alwaysphysically together, then in communicationwith others.

Until recently, there were few attempts tounderstand how mainstream gamesgenerate motivation, engagement and,arguably, learning experiences through thediscussions and collaborations generatedbetween players. One specific game, A Tale in the Desert (ATITD) is attractingparticular interest amongst the researchcommunity. Described as a ‘socialexperiment’, it is an online game with nocombat, only art, architecture and thought.There is also no end point to the game; themain underlying motivation to continueplaying seems to be the social interaction.

Perhaps surprisingly, this replacement of adefined end goal with social interaction isbecoming an increasingly common themein games. The acclaimed Nintendo titleAnimal Crossing (AC) (named AnimalForest in the US) is set in a series of virtualtowns, where players earn money in orderto pay off their mortgage and accumulatepossessions. However, the game opens upwhen the various communication systemsare used, through which players can send‘post’ to each other (in the game), as wellas mail items, swap access codes, and visiteach other’s towns and houses.

Interactive communities often developaround mainstream games with or without

15

games are oftena facilitator to social, com-munication andpeer activities

developers’ encouragement, as enthusiastscreate websites, discussion boards andother communication environments toexchange information, experiences andeven resources related to a game.

What these studies suggest is that one ofthe more interesting relationships betweencomputer games and learning is not simplythe interaction between the player and thegame; rather, through processes ofdiscussion, collaboration and reflection ongames embedded in peer group cultures,children are learning how to play, andperhaps learn, in collaboration with others(Williamson and Facer 2003).

3.2.3 Learning to participate in practice

James Paul Gee’s recent book (Gee 2003)‘What Video Games can Teach us AboutLearning and Literacy’, has excited debatewithin games and learning forums. His keycontention is that through informal gamesplay, children learn to participate in whathe calls ‘semiotic domains’, which areshaped by children’s interaction withgames texts and with each other. Gee usesthe term ‘semiotic domain’ to mean a setof things that can take on meaning, egwords, gestures or pictures, used tocommunicate distinctive types of meaning,for example the specialist language usedby doctors or the way graffiti artists useimage. The following extract from a recentreview of Gee’s book (Williamson 2003)highlights the key arguments:

“Gee begins by describing games as‘multimodal texts’ (texts that mix words andpictures) belonging to distinct ‘semioticdomains’ that employ a range of strategiescontributing to new forms of literacy in

which images and words, sounds, music,movement and bodily sensations arefactors, and their recognition andproduction evidence of the learning ofthese emerging literacies. For Gee, videogames are a family of semiotic domainsdefined by the characteristics of specificgenres such as first-person shooters,fantasy role-playing games, real-timestrategy games and so on, although thesegeneric domains overlap just as they mightin certain branches of science. Suchdomains are also, Gee points out, far fromstatic objects defined only by their content,but rather they are predicated on lived,historically changing sets of distinctivesocial practices in which content iscontinually renegotiated and transformed.”

Central to the argument about what videogames offer to learning is Gee’s assertionthat semiotic domains are shared bygroups of people, described as ‘affinitygroups’, sharing knowledge, skills, toolsand resources to form complex systems ofinterrelated parts. Within an affinity group,learners gain resources from fellowmembers that equip them to solveproblems within, and perhaps outside of, the specific domain - and this isevidence of ‘active learning’. For Gee,however the crucial aspect of this practice is ‘critical learning’:

“The learner needs to learn not only how tounderstand and produce meanings in aparticular semiotic domain that arerecognisable to those affiliated with thedomain, but, in addition, how to think about the domain at a ‘meta’ level…(and)how to produce meanings that, whilerecognisable, are seen as somehow novel or unpredictable.” (p23)

In other words, players must understandwhat they are doing and develop their

16

through informal games

play, childrenlearn to

participate in‘semioticdomains’

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comprehension of both a game’s ‘internaldesign grammar’, or the ways in which itscontent is presented, and its ‘externaldesign grammar’, or the ongoing socialpractices that determine the principles andpatterns through which members of thedomain recognise all the activities andpractices which comprise it. Such systemicthinking, Gee argues, allows players tothink about and critique games as systems and designed spaces rather thansimply moment-by-moment playableenvironments. Such critical thinking is notonly absent in many schooling practices,but goes unnoticed in much appreciation ofwhat games can offer in terms of learning(Williamson 2003).

3.2.4 Games play and changingexpectations of learning

What is key to most research into gamesand learning outside school, then, is asense that playing computer games isencouraging young people to learn indifferent ways from those often in evidence,or explicitly valued, in the school setting(although it should be noted that much ofthis research is often driven by a desire totransform schools and sometimes paints apessimistic picture of current practices).Marc Prensky, a leading advocate of gamesfor learning (or training) argues that youngpeople today expect different approaches tolearning. The ‘new vs old’ tensions aresummarised as:

• twitch speed vs conventional speed

• parallel processing vs linear processing

• graphics first vs text first

• random access vs step by step

• connected vs standalone

• active vs passive

• play vs work

• payoff vs patience

• fantasy vs reality

• technology as friend vs technology as foe.

These ten characteristics of new methodsof learning could be explained as youngpeople developing the ability to processinformation very quickly, determining whatis and is not of relevance to them; theability to process information in parallel atthe same time from a range of differentsources; the familiarity with exploringinformation in a non-linear fashion – ie by‘jumping’ through a range of differentinformation resources, creating links ratherthan following a ‘story’; the tendency toaccess information in the first instancethrough imagery and then use text toclarify/expand and explore; familiarity withnon-geographically bounded networks ofcommunication; a relaxed approach to‘play’, viewing this as a valid activity andconceptualising the computer as primarilya ‘play tool’; expecting intrinsic reward foractivities; and having a model of doing inorder to learn, rather than learning inorder to do. Finally, these characteristicsalso include a relaxed acceptance offantasy as a valid space of experience and aview of technology as a friend they havegrown up with (Prensky 2001).

While we would wish to raise some notes ofcaution about any attempt to define anentire generation of young people as havinga shared set of expectations and practices,this attempt to theorise new approaches tolearning raises some interesting questionsabout how we currently conduct formaleducation in schools (Facer 2003a). Inparticular, Prensky’s theories and the

17

playing computergames isencouragingyoung people tolearn in differentways from thosevalued in theschool setting

research outlined in the preceding sectionsraises key questions around the role of playin learning, the ‘purpose’ of education, therole of learning through activities perceivedas intrinsically motivating to children, andthe changing roles of children as learners.

The identification of any games as a site for‘playful’ learning is repeatedly emphasisedthrough the research literature, sometimesas an extreme opposition to children’sexperiences in school:

“Games are… the most ancient and time-honored (sic) vehicle for education. Theyare the original educational technology, thenatural one, having received the seal ofapproval of natural selection. We don’t seemother lions lecturing cubs at thechalkboard; we don’t see senior lionswriting their memoirs for posterity. In lightof this, the question, ‘Can games haveeducational value?’ becomes absurd. It isnot games but schools that are thenewfangled notion, the untested fad, theviolator of tradition. Game-playing is a vitaleducational function for any creaturecapable of learning.” (Crawford 1982)

The notion of playful learning emphasisesexperiences such as experimentation,exploration, trial and error, imagination,roleplay, and simulation of experiencesuggesting that it might be possible todevelop environments for learning basedon these activities.

Finally, observing children’s play ofmainstream games in leisure time raisesquestions about the role we ascribe tochildren as learners in schools. The reviewof literature around children’s social gamesplay, for example, repeatedly highlights theways in which children take on the role ofteachers, providing advice, support, hints,

tips and models of learning to otherchildren. Perhaps more than any otheraspect, this reconceptualisation of childrenas bearers of expertise, as capable ofacting in the role of expert, raises seriousquestions about how we currently structurelearning experiences in schools.

3.3 LEARNING WITH MAINSTREAMGAMES IN SCHOOLS

While the majority of research discussed sofar has been concerned with what and howchildren learn in their informal playing ofcomputer games, in recent years therehave been a number of studies of the useof mainstream computer games in schools,intended to explore whether these gamescan have any role in supporting currenteducational objectives. Given the researchabove on the potential of games to supportlearning of competencies, collaborationand participation in practice, however,there are some significant tensions inevidence when introducing mainstreamgames into the school setting.

Three recent studies in the UK attemptedto understand how mainstream gamescould be used in school. Each includedsurveys of predominantly UK teachers who had attempted, or wanted, to usemainstream games in the classroom(Becta 2001; McFarlane et al 2002;Kirriemuir 2002). The most frequentlyencountered perceived or actual obstacles were:

• it was difficult for teachers to identifyquickly how a particular game wasrelevant to some component of thestatutory curriculum, as well as theaccuracy and appropriateness of thecontent within the game

18

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GAMES AND LEARNING

• the difficulty in persuading other schoolstakeholders as to the potential/actualeducational benefits of computer games

• the lack of time available to teachers tofamiliarise themselves with the game,and methods of producing the bestresults from its use

• the amount of irrelevant content orfunctionality in a game which could notbe removed or ignored, thus wastingvaluable lesson time.

The key disadvantage with mainstreamgames used ‘cold’ in the classroom wasthe amount of time taken for both thestudent and teacher to orient themselveswithin the game. Squire (2003) describesseveral sessions where historical strategysimulation games are used in a classroom,showing the considerable effort needed bythe teaching staff to keep the students ‘ontrack’ within the game. This extra-topicplay may or may not be valuable to learninggenerally but in either event the schoolcurriculum has clear boundaries andobjectives related to high stakes assessment– wandering beyond these boundaries isseen as wasting valuable time.

It is not only extraneous content that takesgaming outside the boundaries of the setcurriculum. In the TEEM report (McFarlaneet al 2002), teachers and parentsrecognised that games play can supportvaluable skill development such as:

• strategic thinking

• planning

• communication

• application of numbers

• negotiating skills

• group decision-making

• data-handling.

However, neither teachers nor parentswere happy with the notion of playinggames in lesson time since such skilldevelopment did not match the criteriaassessed in high stakes national tests.

4 KEY ISSUES IN DEVELOPINGGAMES FOR LEARNING

As far back as 1979, it was envisaged that the motivational aspects of digitalgames play might be used to support the acquisition of knowledge outside the game itself. Some of the distinctionsbetween the resulting ‘learning games’and ‘mainstream games’ are shown in Fig 1.

There are two key themes common to the development of games foreducation, namely:

• the desire to harness the motivationalpower of games in order to ‘makinglearning fun’

• a belief that ‘learning through doing’ ingames such as simulations, offers apowerful learning tool.

This section of the report will examineboth these aspects of the design of gamesfor learning, and ask whether they arewell-founded objectives for design anddevelopment of digital game-basedlearning resources.

4.1 ‘MAKING LEARNING FUN’

The central ethos of traditional‘edutainment’ software has been to makelearning ‘fun’ although this is usuallyshorthand for the encouragement ofengagement. One strategy is to introduce

19

children take on the role of teachers,providing advice,support, hints,tips and modelsof learning toother children

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KEY ISSUES IN DEVELOPING GAMES FOR LEARNING

content into a game-like scenario bystealth. In theory this is an attractivearrangement (Ahuja 1994):

“In conventional education, the learner is usually aware of the objectives of theactivity he or she is engaged in. Forchildren, such learning objectives oftenhave little meaning… In interactiveedutainment, on the other hand, theobjective can be hidden while the activityappears driven by exploration, discovery

and adventure. Children are attracted tosuch activity easily and will quite willinglygo through a session, indeed, sometimesask for it. A good example of this is thegame Where in the World is Carmen San Diego, where the child learns historyand geography in the process of being a detective.”

Where in the World is Carmen San Diegohas indeed been a successful exemplar of this concept, focusing on providing

20

the debate on‘making learning

fun’ also oftenassumes that

children do notenjoy learning

SECTION 4

KEY ISSUES IN DEVELOPING GAMES FOR LEARNING

Fig 1: comparison between mainstream and ‘learning’ games

• widely known as computer and/or video games

• developed solely for fun for the user and to maximise profit for the publisher

• typically developed for PCs and videogames consoles. Contemporary titlesusually require the most powerfulhardware currently available

• increasingly developed in relativelysimplistic format for mobiletelephones

• typically sophisticated in terms ofgraphics, interface and complexity;production budgets similar to small to medium sized film budgets

• marketed directly to games players as being fun and exciting, graphicallysuperb, the best game of its particular genre

• uses high review scores in gamesmagazines and tie-ins with othermedia as marketing aids

• historically known as ‘edutainment’,though negative associations with thisword mean it is largely avoided bycontemporary games publishers

• almost exclusively produced for thePC; very few titles for the Mac ordedicated games consoles

• games are more simplistic, areproduced in a range of formats, egFlash, Shockwave, Java, Visual Basic

• most titles are designed for sole-user,offline play.

• development costs are typically a fractionof those of major pure digital games

• not typically marketed to users,instead marketed mainly to parentsand teachers

• marketed as being accurate, relevantto formal curriculum, developingspecific skills/knowledge

• uses recommendations from teacher,parent and educational organisationsas marketing aids

Mainstream digital games Learning-oriented games

elementary school reading, maths,geography, word, and critical thinkingskills. Other educational games that have been shown to be successful inresearch studies focus on increasing arange of skills; for example, a piano tutorsoftware package with overtones of videogame elements requires concentration, a sense of timing, accuracy and rhythm(Sims 2001).

There are, however, some researchers whoexpress disquiet at the amount of focuspurely on motivation as a reason forplaying games. For example, the authorsof Project KID DESIGNER (Rieber et al1998) write:

“…limiting the discussion to motivation isapt to designate the role of games as aform of educational ‘sugar coating’ -making the hard work of mathematics orlanguage arts easier to ‘swallow’. We takegames much more seriously as weconsider both their motivational andcognitive elements. Whereas most childrenplay prepackaged games in school given tothem by teachers, we are interestedinstead on the process of game designitself and how it can enhance learning.”

And indeed today it seems that there are other concerns about the notion of‘sugar coating’ education as a game, both in terms of motivation and in termsof the extent to which these resourcesactually achieve their educationalobjectives. To date, arguably, attempts to create truly engaging and effectivelearning games have foundered for the following reasons:

• the games have been too simplistic incomparison to competing video games

• the tasks are repetitive, eg continually

doing sums, and thus quickly becomeboring and ‘work’

• the tasks are poorly designed and donot support progressive understanding

• related to this last point, the range ofactivities is severely limited within thegame, usually concentrating on oneskill, or accumulation of homogenouscontent

• the target audience becomes aware thatit is being coerced into ‘learning’,possibly in a patronising manner.

Finally, the debate on ‘making learningfun’ also often assumes that children donot enjoy learning. Yet much researchevidence contradicts this, arguing thatchildren do enjoy learning when they havea sense of their own progression andwhere the learning is relevant andappropriate for them. The ‘learning bystealth’ approach suggests that learningcan only be enjoyable when it isunconscious. This is a significant area ofcontention, with some researchers arguingthat reflection is an important part of thelearning process, and others pointing outthat we don’t necessarily reflect on ourown actions in day to day life, and yet stillmanage to learn from them (Prensky2001). There seems less doubt however,that learning is at its most vibrant when ithas relevance to the learner and istherefore truly authentic, regardless of thedegree of consciousness (McFarlane 1997).

4.2 FROM ‘FUN’ TO ‘FLOW’

This focus on ‘fun’ and on ‘concealing thelearning’ within educational games may, infact, be a red herring. Instead, it might beworth returning to some early analysesthat describes the pleasures of games play

21

learning is at its most vibrantwhen it hasrelevance to the learner

as a ‘flow’ experience (Malone 1980;Csikszentmihalyi 1990). Prenskysummarises this as:

“In the flow state, the challengespresented and your ability to solve themare almost perfectly matched, and youoften accomplish things that you didn’tthink you could, along with a great deal ofpleasure. There can be flow in work,sports, and even learning, such as whenconcepts become clear and how to solveproblems obvious.” (p124)

The conditions likely to induce the flowstate are characterised by Malone as:

• the activity should be structured so thatthe player can increase or decrease thelevel of challenges faced, in order tomatch exactly personal skills with therequirements for action

• it should be easy to isolate the activity,at least at the perceptual level, fromother stimuli, external or internal, whichmight interfere with involvement in it

• there should be clear criteria forperformance; a player should be able toevaluate how well or how poorly (s)he isdoing at any time

• the activity should provide concretefeedback to the player, so that (s)he cantell how well (s)he is meeting thecriteria of performance

• the activity ought to have a broad rangeof challenges, and possibly severalqualitatively different ranges ofchallenge, so that the player may obtainincreasingly complex information aboutdifferent aspects of her/himself. (p14)

Another commentator, reflecting on how todesign engaging learning experiences,draws on these definitions to propose eight

characteristics as essential (Jones 1998):

• task that we can complete

• ability to concentrate on task

• task has clear goals

• task provides immediate feedback

• deep but effortless involvement (losingawareness of worry and frustration ofeveryday activity)

• exercising a sense of control over ouractions

• concern for self disappears during flow,but sense of self is stronger after flowactivity

• sense of duration of time is altered.

Rather than aiming for an experience thatsuperficially resembles leisure-based ‘fun’ activities, or one which attempts toconceal the educational purpose, it mightbe argued that we should understand thedeep structures of the games playexperience that contribute to ‘flow’ andbuild these into environments designed tosupport learning.

4.3 LEARNING THROUGH DOING

Simulations are one of the most populartypes of games. Cruickshank (1980, p76)defined a simulation game as one “…inwhich participants are provided with asimulated environment in which to play”,while defining simulations in their ownright as (p75) “the products that resultwhen one creates the appearance or effect of something else”. Laurel (1991)claims that:

“Educational simulations (as opposed totutorial and drill-and-practice forms) excelin that they represent experience as

22

we shouldunderstand the

deep structuresof the games

play experiencethat contribute

to ‘flow’

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KEY ISSUES IN DEVELOPING GAMES FOR LEARNING

opposed to information. Learning throughdirect experience has, in many contexts,been demonstrated to be more effectiveand enjoyable than learning through‘information communicated as facts’.Direct, multi-sensory representations havethe capacity to engage people intellectuallyas well as emotionally, to enhance thecontextual aspects of information, and toencourage integrated, holistic responses.”

In other sectors of society, simulations are a recognised part of training. In thebusiness and economic sectors,simulations are used heavily, as it isobviously better to lose ‘virtual money’when a novice than a company’s actualmoney. In medicine, simulations are usedto test various treatments and to trainmedical staff without the need to cut openpeople, and in the military, simulations areextensively used (and increasinglyconverging with contemporary gamestechnology) for quick and safe combatscenario training. The simulation field hasits own long-established researchcommunity, grounded in a range ofdisciplines including mathematics, logic,philosophy and engineering.

Simulation games possess severalattractive properties:

• they can be designed so the playerreceives instant feedback regarding theconsequences of their actions

• the game controller or designer canadd, remove or adjust various factorswithin the game

• compared to real-world training wherematerials and resources are used, asimulation is often a much cheaper option

• they enable dangerous actions to beundertaken in a safe virtual

environment. For example, many peoplein the nuclear power industry trainextensively on PC-based simulations.

However, this last example is pertinent toone drawback of simulations, in that theycan rarely simulate every nuance of a real-world situation, and therefore (especially incritical industries) cannot totally replacereal-world training. In the nuclearindustry, it would be worrying if workershad no experience of a real nuclearreactor, and only simulated experience,before dealing with a crisis involving one.

In theory, as more powerful gamingtechnology and graphics capabilitiesbecome standard, so simulation gamescan become more realistic in terms ofappearance and plausibility. However, thisis not necessarily the case; real-worldsituations often involve long periods ofinactivity, punctuated by periods of action,which does not map well onto the‘continuous flow’ and engagement of agame. For example, Shenmue, a recentgame for the Dreamcast, attempted toprovide a realistic impression of living.However, the player spends some of thegame at a bus stop, waiting for a bus toarrive (or not). Even though the game clockuses a speeded up version of real time, thegame was still criticised in some quartersfor being ‘boring’ during these sequences.

Simulation games are used increasingly inschools, though their take-up so far hasbeen patchy. The Sim City game, wherepeople design complex cities against ametropolitan budget, is used possibly morethan any other mainstream game acrossthe educational system and has beenevaluated within classroom settings (SimCity 2002). Various research projects haveanalysed the use of this game in the

23

simulationgames are usedincreasingly in schools

classroom and consistently reportfavourably, showing that this (and similar)games enable group discussion andexperimentation, and often facilitate awider range of skills than immediatelyapparent from the game (in the case ofSim City, these include mathematicalskills, urban planning, economics,engineering, environmental awareness anda host of others that can be mappeddirectly onto academic subjects).

Many other games on the market havesimulation potential. For example, SuperMonkey Ball, which involves rolling amonkey around a maze without falling offthe sides, demonstrates (and allowsexperimentation with) the concepts ofvelocity, friction, acceleration and gravity.The increasingly popular genre of fishingsimulation, in games such as Sega BassFishing, allows players to fish in a varietyof locations. To be successful, the playerneeds to acquire various information(either from the manual or through trialand error), such as where the fish lies(deep or shallow, shaded or sunlit water)and which bait is most effective for whichsituation. Here the player, to besuccessful, has to learn of the ‘ways of thefish’; this knowledge accumulation iscontinually examined/tested by playing thegame itself.

However, titles involving monkeys andfishing are rarely if ever used in theclassroom, possibly because thesimulation and ‘learning’ possibilitiesseem less obvious (and the game appearsto be more frivolous). One promising areafor the use of simulation is science, butmany products with apparent potential forthis subject are inaccurate or simplisticand therefore not widely used (McFarlaneand Sakellariou 2002). It remains difficult

to predict how widespread simulationgames will become in education at schoollevel, but until simulations can reliably re-create real world contexts using explicitmodels that reflect those being taught,widespread adoption remains unlikely.

5 FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN GAMESAND LEARNING

5.1 WHERE NEXT FOR RESEARCHINTO GAMES AND LEARNING?

In this report we have examined researchbeing carried out into the relationshipbetween computer and video games andlearning. There has, since the turn of thedecade, been a much wider acceptance ofthe potential for such games in education.Traditional agencies are increasinglyfunding research for a number of reasons,including a desire to keep up withcontemporary technologies; the hope oftapping in to the large commercial rewardsof the gaming industry; and a small butincreasing number of games-in-educationsuccess stories. This research is beginningto provide insights into how games might support learning both in children’sday-to-day lives and in school.

In order to continue to develop under-standing in this field, the followingchallenges now need to be acknowledgedand met:

• developments with technologies thathost computer and video games aremoving at a rapid rate, in oftenunpredictable directions. This createsproblems with even short-termresearch, where the nature ofcontemporary games can changesignificantly during the life of a research

24

until simulationscan reliably

re-create realworld contexts,

widespreadadoption

remains unlikely

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FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN GAMES AND LEARNING

project. Researchers and publishers ofresearch will need to develop new andflexible approaches to conducting andcommunicating research rapidly

• the underlying and historical researchcovers a very wide arena of subjects,often containing competing, complextheories and positions. Educationaliststhemselves cannot agree on theconcepts of education and learning;games researchers often have to learnabout educational theory from thebasics. To carry out rigorous researchwithout making conscious or accidentalassumptions in this field will requireresearchers to develop a good - andupdated - working knowledge of games,learning and education (all rapidlyevolving fields).

Despite these obstacles, researchattention to the educational uses ofmainstream games is both growing andgaining momentum, as evidenced by thenumber of publications, new academicresearch groups, and conferencesdedicated solely to this field. It isincreasingly obvious that a key element inmaintaining this momentum will be anincrease in the rigorous investigation ofexamples where computer and videogames have been used in educationalsettings (both the school and home), inorder to add to models of how people learnthrough gaming, and to provide justifiablecases for others to examine and follow.

5.2 WHERE NEXT FOR DEVELOPMENTOF GAMES FOR LEARNING?

There are three main directions we cannow take to the development of computerand video games for learning:

5.2.1 The development of educational games

Traditional edutainment titles of therepetitive drill form embedded withingames are still being produced andmarketed to both schools and parents.While such ‘drill and practice’ is a provenprinciple of education and learning(McFarlane 1996), it is questionablewhether such activities should occupy asignificant part of the school day, wherechildren have access to teachers,resources and more demanding andcreative learning tasks.

There are, however, a growing number ofexamples of more imaginative softwarewhose design is informed by educationaltheory, practice and research; Kar2ouche,the product of a collaboration betweenacademic and industry partners usinggaming technology, is one such example.The high profile successes of morerigorously researched and innovativesoftware may well result in a greaterproportion of educational games beingdeveloped which are based on higher orderprinciples of education and learning. Key to success in this area is likely to bethe development of effective collaborationsbetween both educators and those with an in-depth understanding of games. At present there are a number of barriersto the games industry’s involvement insuch development, including:

• an awareness that producing softwarefor this market will require differentstandards and requirements of contentand game

• developing and mass-marketing just oneproduct to a country or even a continentis relatively cheap; more localisedrequirements would push up the costs

25

researchattention to theeducational usesof mainstreamgames isgainingmomentum

• ‘conflicts of image’ may occur, where agames developer or producer would beproducing both ‘fun’ or ‘cool’ games,and ‘learning games’

• the almost total lack of video gamingequipment in schools, as opposed tohomes, would require a massiveinvestment in hardware for producers ofconsole-based games.

5.2.2 Using mainstream games in schools

The use of mainstream computer andvideo games is both potentially veryinteresting and very challenging for formaleducational settings. Numerouschallenges surround the use of thesegames in a classroom setting; while sometitles offer more scope for learning in theless constrained home context.

The key issues concerning the use ofmainstream games in schools are:

• the many roles and requirements of theteacher in terms of training,understanding of the game, keeping thestudents ‘on track’ and troubleshooting.It is arguable that the role of theteacher, or mediator, is often asimportant as the game itself in terms ofwhether useful learning has taken place(Birmingham 2001)

• identifying games that may besuccessful or useful in a classroomsituation. Here, educational fundingbodies need to ensure that a ‘chickenand egg’ situation does not develop,where schools wait to view the results ofthe successful deployment of games inother schools before introducing thetechnology themselves. It is of

increasing concern amongst the gamesresearch community that the use ofsuch games in schools has now beenwidely discussed for a number of years,but has still failed to take place in anycoherent manner

• cultural acceptance of games as mediathrough which learning can take place.This is to a degree outside of the controlof the educational sector, which mustcontest or deal with wider publicperceptions of games

• compatibility with school hardware,licencing agreements, and arguablyother software, eg allowing theplayer/user to easily port the financialresults of a session on a businesssimulation game into Excel

• there is a need for developers of games(and other software) aimed at the formaleducation sector to consider the variousstakeholders involved, and to considerboth their needs (and how these may befulfilled by the game) and their reactionto such a device .

Nevertheless, there is sufficient interest inthe use of these games in the classroomto encourage further exploration in this area.

5.2.3 Using ‘lite’ versions ofmainstream games

It is perhaps in a compromise betweenedutainment and mainstream games thatthe greatest potential to classroom-useable games lies. These would:

• have all unnecessary content removed(thus providing ‘immediacy of learning’)

• have their content and underlying rulebase verified and tested by educationalorganisations

26

it is in acompromise

betweenedutainment

and mainstreamgames that

the greatestpotential lies

SECTION 5

FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN GAMES AND LEARNING

• include background/help/trainingmaterials for both the teacher/motivator, and for students

• include curriculum-relevant tasks and content

• allow users to save at regular intervals

• be compatible with the original ‘full’versions, so students could continueusing the game at home

• be offered to schools on an attractivelicensing system.

There is potential here for the gamesindustry to develop an attractive, and low-cost, solution. As the code already existsfor the games, development costs for the‘lite’ versions should be very low.Marketing of the games would both openup new revenue streams, and extend thelongevity of the original title, as studentskeen on the game purchase it for their ownuse. This does however assume that thereare enough existing or planned games withsufficient content relevant to school-basedlearning to form a ‘lite’ version.

5.2.4 Developing game-basedlearning communities

The role of online communities associatedwith games in education is in its infancyand little related research or evaluationexists. The evidence from trials of gamesplay in school does point to the importanceof children’s wider gaming culture.Discussion, reflection and planning are allcollaborative activities that go on aschildren talk about their gaming, and plottheir next session. Moreover they see thistalk as a vital part of the fun of gaming. In recent years educational softwaredevelopers have begun to pay more

attention to the role of such interaction bycreating online communities within whichvarious ‘educational games’ can be found.Examples of this include the SparkIslandsite, Grid Club and others. To date,however, these tend to be restricted toonline communities ‘surrounding’educational resources, rather thancommunities within which the gamesactivities generate discussion and debate.Trends indicate that such virtualcommunities could contribute significantlyto learning related to games play and, assuch, this activity warrants research andevaluation.

The value of collaborative learning, and therole of computers in promoting suchactivity have been thoroughly researched.Whilst such collaboration cannot beassumed, and children have to learn towork together, computer-based activitiescan help in this process. How thiscollaboration translates into a multiplayergaming environment and how theseenvironments might be used to supportlearning, remain some of the mostinteresting areas for potential furtherresearch and development.

5.3 FINAL CHALLENGES

The central theme of this report has beena consideration of the case for developing,and using, computer and video games foreducational purposes. In variousidiosyncratic ways, and mainly isolatedinstances, such games and technologiesare already being used in someclassrooms (mainly in western countries).However, various issues relating toperceptions of games, relevance tocurriculum, accuracy of content andsuitability for use in timetabled classroom

27

virtualcommunitiescould contributesignificantly tolearning relatedto games play

environments have so far prevented thisbecoming a mainstream activity in schools.

Before games can take on a meaningfulrole in formal or informal education, theeducation sector and the wider public andmedia need to better understand thepotential and diversity of such ‘tools’. Inaddition, the games development industryneeds to understand the constraints onschools, teachers, parents and above allchildren of time, resources, and therequirements of curriculum andexamination if games with more directeducational value are to emerge. Though arapidly growing and maturing body ofresearch is helping to develop a clearerunderstanding of the educational potentialof games, there are as yet a small numberof games that have a clear contribution tomake to the educational agenda.

28

SECTION 5

FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN GAMES AND LEARNING

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END NOTES

(i) Various web-only publications containstimulating and detailed research of highquality; for example, Fromme’s paper oncomputer games as a part of children’sculture (Fromme 2003). The archives of themailing forums populated by postings fromthe key researchers in the field, such asthe GamesNetwork (GamesNetwork) list,provide pointers to where contemporarythought, debate and research are heading. The problem, especially to researchersused to traditional information-seekingprocedures, is of tracking down andvalidating such information.

For those interested in identifying suchinformation, the following indexes areparticularly relevant:

• The Game Culture website providesreferences to online and journal articles,

and game books:www.gameculture.com/index.html

• The Digiplay website contains asearchable database of computergaming books:www.digiplay.org.uk/books.php

• One particular site contains an extensivelisting of publications concerningstudies of role-playing games:www.rpgstudies.net/

In addition, several online journals (some peer-reviewed, and some not)dedicated to the study of computer andvideo games have recently started offering articles and references solely in this particular research domain. Three in particular appear to be good‘starting points’ for further investigation:Computers in Entertainment (Computersin Entertainment), IJIGS (IJIGS) and Game Studies (Game Studies).

34

END NOTES

35

School child Plays the game

Friends of school child Peer pressure and group social behaviour can alter a school child’s perception or use of the game

Teacher Needs to know how to use the game to best effect. Will examine the game critically

Parent Keen to see that their child receives the best and most appropriate education and teaching

Governor Approves or oversees teaching practice within the school

Head teacher Approves financial spending on items such as technology and software within the school

Technician Can determine, or enable, what technologies and software can work within the classroom

Local funding body Affects funds that the school receives

National educational body Indirectly affects funds that the school receives; prescribes curriculum that the school follows

Media Reports on school and education matters, which can affect the attitude of the various actors

Actor Affect

(ii) Fig 2: Stakeholders to consider in the development of games for use in schools

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