Constructionist Gaming: Understanding the Benefits of Making Games for Learning

Kafai, Yasmin B.; Burke, Quinn

doi:10.1080/00461520.2015.1124022

Cited by 258 publications

(202 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…Specifically, during this period, children's interactions with digital media are largely investigated with regard to their acquisition of content knowledge and general skills. These learning objectives are frequently based in activities that entail designing or playing digital games or engaging with simulations based in formal school settings, and to some extent, informal educational settings such as museums (see Allsop, ; Crowley, Pierroux, & Knutson, ; Evans, Norton, Chang, Deater‐Deckard, & Balci, ; Kafai & Burke, ; Kafai, Quintero, & Feldon, ; Ketelhut, Nelson, Clarke, & Dede, ). Although few studies have focused specifically on middle childhood, a meta‐analysis of studies involving K‐16 students documented benefits of digital games for learning when compared to nongame conditions (Clark et al., ).…”

Section: Media Use During Middle Childhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Games as a Context for Children's Cognitive Development: Research Recommendations and Policy Considerations

Blumberg

Deater‐Deckard

Calvert

et al. 2019

Social Policy Report

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We document the need to examine digital game play and app use as a context for cognitive development, particularly during middle childhood. We highlight this developmental period as 6‐ through 12‐year olds comprise a large swath of the preadult population that plays and uses these media forms. Surprisingly, this age range remains understudied with regard to the impact of their interactive media use as compared to young children and adolescents. This gap in knowledge about middle childhood may reflect strong and widely held concerns about the effects of digital games and apps before and after this period. These concerns include concurrent and subsequent influences of game use on very young children's and adolescents’ cognitive and socioemotional functioning. We highlight here what is currently known about the impact of media on young children and adolescents and what is not known about this impact in middle childhood. We then offer recommendations for the types of research that developmental scientists can undertake to examine the efficacy of digital games within the rapidly changing media ecology in which children live. We conclude with a discussion of media policies that we believe can help children benefit from their media use. Our hope is that this review will foster greater investigation of the cognitive socialization, as raised over 20 years ago by developmental psychologist and early games researcher Patricia Greenfield, that digital games serve during the middle childhood period, and childhood more generally.

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Section: Media Use During Middle Childhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Games as a Context for Children's Cognitive Development: Research Recommendations and Policy Considerations

Blumberg

Deater‐Deckard

Calvert

et al. 2019

Social Policy Report

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The second case study, the Minecraft game environment, showed how a commercial game was further designed and implemented in a primary school after school club. This was an example of a constructivist game approach where learners played but also modified their own games (Kafai and Burke, 2015). This study showed how game experience prompted students' knowledge acquisition as well as supported students' learning skills in terms of programming and collaboration.…”

Section: Discussion-how To Design Cognitively Effortful and Affectivementioning

confidence: 88%

“…I am pretty sure I won't speak to half of the players anymore." To conclude, Minecraft is an example of a constructivist gaming experience in which players can play, modify the game, or even create their own games for learning (Kafai and Burke, 2015). In this case study, the students modified the game.…”

Section: Case 2: Games For Learning As Supporting Students' Creativitmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affective Learning in Digital Education—Case Studies of Social Networking Systems, Games for Learning, and Digital Fabrication

et al. 2019

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Technological innovations, such as social networking systems, games for learning, and digital fabrication, are extending learning and interaction opportunities of people in educational and professional contexts. These technological transformations have the ability to deepen, enrich, and adaptively guide learning and interaction, but they also hold potential risks for neglecting people's affective learning processes-that is, learners' emotional experiences and expressions in learning. We argue that technologies and their usage in particular should be designed with the goal of enhancing learning and interaction that acknowledges both fundamental aspects of learning: cognitive and affective. In our empirical research, we have explored the possibility of using various types of emerging digital tools as individual and group support for cognitively effortful and affectively meaningful learning. We present four case studies of experiments dealing with social networking systems, programming with computer games, and "makers culture" and digital fabrication as examples of digital education. All these experiments investigate novel ways of technological integration in learning by focusing on their affective potential. In the first study, a social networking system was used in a higher education context for providing a forum for online learning. The second study demonstrates a Minecraft experiment as game-based learning in primary school education. Finally, the third and the fourth case study showcases examples of "maker" contexts and digital fabrication in early education and in secondary school. It is concluded that digital systems and tools can provide multiple opportunities for affective learning in different contexts within different age groups. As a pedagogical implication, scaffolding in both cognitive and affective learning processes is necessary in order to make the learning experience with emerging digital tools meaningful and engaging.

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“…Formal and informal learning researchers have found that skills practice is important to many aspects of STEM learning, such as inquiry, spatial reasoning, and computational thinking (Allen et al. ; Ansbacher ; Gutwill and Allen ; Humphrey and Gutwill ; Kafai and Burke ; National Research Council ; Newcombe et al. in press).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Straight From the Girls: The Importance of Incorporating the EDGE Design Attributes at Exhibits

Garcia‐Luis¹,

Dancstep²

2019

Curator The Museum Journal

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This paper describes a follow‐up focus group study for the larger Exhibit Designs for Girls’ Engagement (EDGE) project. Grounded in Culturally Responsive Pedagogical theory (CRP), the project aimed to understand the relationship between female responsive designs and girls’ engagement at STEM exhibits. After developing a Female‐Responsive Design (FRD) Framework and conducting a large‐scale study to determine the most important design attributes for engaging girls at exhibits, the final step involved a qualitative investigation into those design attributes. Four focus groups with 22 girls aged 8–13 explored their exhibit experiences and discourse. Participants were videotaped while using four exhibits, half of which incorporated the EDGE Design Attributes. Focus group results replicate the previous quantitative study: participants had a largely positive response to the EDGE Design Attributes and evinced greater engagement when the attributes were present at exhibits. As expected, girls’ responsiveness to the design attributes varied— aligning with the CRP approach and highlighting the important fact that not all attributes will work for all girls. To share girls’ voices more broadly with practitioners we provide direct quotes for each design attribute. Finally, of the kinds of learning expressed, girls more often practiced scientific skills by repeating or varying activities at the EDGE exhibits. The results of this study, and the larger project, provide evidence that CRP works well when designing for females and serves as a valuable theory for creating museums that are truly inclusive.

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Constructionist Gaming: Understanding the Benefits of Making Games for Learning

Cited by 258 publications

References 79 publications

Digital Games as a Context for Children's Cognitive Development: Research Recommendations and Policy Considerations

Digital Games as a Context for Children's Cognitive Development: Research Recommendations and Policy Considerations

Affective Learning in Digital Education—Case Studies of Social Networking Systems, Games for Learning, and Digital Fabrication

Straight From the Girls: The Importance of Incorporating the EDGE Design Attributes at Exhibits

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