Digital games have traditionally been targeted at younger generations, although the proportion of older adult players is increasing. However, the design processes of digital games often do not consider the special needs of older adults. Co-design is a potential method to address this, but there is little research on co-designing games with older adults. In our study, we proposed a co-design process model that considers the intergenerational perspective. Using this model, eight older adults (two males and six females aged 47-80) and 22 sixth graders (11 males and 11 females aged 12-13) co-designed a digital game. The content of the game was based on old concepts used by the designers during their childhood. Similarly, game content involving new words and concepts were produced by the sixth graders. We collected data using semi-structured interviews and observations during the co-design process over a period of 24 months and then processed the data using grounded theory. The results indicated that the older adults identified seven game elements as essential to make games fun-appearance and aesthetics, competition, manageability of gameplay, social impact, familiarity, unpredictability, and intergenerational gameplay. Furthermore, we identified six assets that older adults have as game co-designers and five challenges that co-designing games with older adults may entail.

The purpose of this study is to find out what kind of sources are behind student teacher self-efficacy based on student teachers’ own interpretations. A key starting point for the study of sources is Bandura’s social cognitive theory. It is important to know the content of these sources because self-efficacy has been found to be an important factor in the quality of teaching. A particularly noteworthy reason to study self-efficacy sources and their nature in teacher education is that the sources are in the process of being shaped and can be consciously influenced. The research participants were 25 student teachers in a Finnish teacher education context. Data were obtained through interviews, and were analysed using theoretical thematic analysis. The student teachers highly valued the experiences they had acquired themselves, and they were often linked to the emotions that strengthen them. For example, when a teacher notices that students are learning (even though there were difficulties at first), it brings pleasure to the teacher.  Negative mastery experiences were sometimes associated with depression, but those negative experiences in the long run may also empower the teacher. Student teachers also made observations about other actors of teaching (and teacher education) and received comments from them. In practice, the source evaluation of those actors was hierarchical, with the supervising teacher and the school pupil being valued the most, and the peer teacher, i.e. the student teacher, being much less valued. The critical approach offered in teacher education and the general accompanying reflective “climate” in teaching practice will affect how feedback is – and should be – evaluated by a student teacher.

The purpose of the study was to determine student teachers’ personal self-efficacy beliefs and their views on what type of “sources” were behind self-efficacy in a lesson that they had just undertaken. Very little research-based understanding exists on how student teacher self-efficacy is formed, based on individual teaching situations. In this study, 10 student teachers’ interview data associated with the lesson, along with observation data with field notes, were collected. The interviews of four student teachers focusing on the lesson highlighted small (N=2) or somewhat larger (N=2) variations in levels of self-efficacy. Six student teachers had stable self-efficacy (N=6). The findings suggest that, in contrast to the expression of rather stable self-efficacy, a proportion of student teachers had feelings suggesting lower self-efficacy from time to time, although in general their thinking was dominated by average or high teaching efficacy.