“Fun, Fun, Fun”: Types of Fun, Attitudes to Fun, and their Relation to Personality and Biographical Factors

McManus, I. C.; Furnham, Adrian

doi:10.4236/psych.2010.13021

Cited by 36 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…McManus and Furnham (2010) acknowledge research into fun as very limited and neglected; at the expense of their psychometrically-based report, we felt the experience of 'fun' in our data appeared to be better encapsulated by, and to epitomise, what Csikszentmihalyi (2000) has theorised as 'flow'. This term, with its metaphorical association with liquids, typifies the fluid, changeable and somewhat elusive sense that we found in the present findings.…”

Section: The Flow Of Funmentioning

confidence: 80%

Kids just wanna have fun: Children's experiences of a weight management programme

Watson

Baker

Chadwick

2015

British J Health Psychol

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Objectives To explore children's accounts of their experiences of the UK‘s largest childhood obesity programme, MEND (Mind, Exercise, Nutrition…Do it!) (See http://www.mendprogramme.org). Design Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with children who had completed the MEND obesity programme. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Method Fourteen children spanning diverse areas of London comprised this study (eight male, six female), aged between 11 and 14 years and in secondary school. Participants were interviewed a year after completing one of the London‐based MEND obesity programmes. Results This article focuses on the most common and striking theme to emerge from the original dataset (The complete analysis may be found in L. Watson, Unpublished doctoral thesis): Fun. Subthemes were: ‘going with the flow’; active participation in activities that led to new experiences (‘actually doing it’ – seeing the fun side); the importance of others in the experience of fun (‘you do games in unity’ – ‘it's not as fun on your own’). Conclusion Children have fun when engaged in interactive and varied activities with opportunity for individual feedback and improvement. When designing childhood obesity programmes, conditions that optimise children's experience of fun should be emphasised over didactic and risk‐heavy information pertaining to childhood obesity. What is already known on this subject? Continued growth in childhood obesity and its associated health problems, psychological effects, and economic burden make tackling childhood obesity a public health priority. Multicomponent lifestyle interventions to treat childhood obesity within the community have been shown to reduce overweight and obesity from pre‐ to post‐treatment, increase self‐esteem, and are found to be acceptable by parents. MEND is the most widely disseminated evidence‐based programme of this kind in the United Kingdom. What does this study add? This study is the first qualitative study to explore the child's experience of attending MEND. The post‐treatment maintenance period, where most behaviour change is consolidated (or not), is also captured in this study, with children interviewed at least 1 year post‐treatment. Findings unearthed an unexpected and strong theme – that of ‘fun’ – integral to their experience during their time at MEND. Optimizing conditions for fun is imperative to children's (and adults’?) engagement with, and maintenance of, healthy lifestyle activities.

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Section: The Flow Of Funmentioning

confidence: 80%

Kids just wanna have fun: Children's experiences of a weight management programme

Watson

Baker

Chadwick

2015

British J Health Psychol

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“…An exploratory factor analysis revealed five fun experience factors: Sociability, contentment, achievement, sensual, and ecstatic. 13 This multiple characterization of the fun experience opens the possibility that fun is not a unitary experience. Different design features and game mechanics may influence the various types of fun.…”

Section: ''Fun'' Videogame Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Different design features and game mechanics may influence the various types of fun. 13 Each construct may be a separate type of fun or indicators of some composite, latent fun experience.…”

Section: ''Fun'' Videogame Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling Fun and Enjoyment in Exergames Using an Expanded Design, Play, Experience Framework: A Narrative Review

Mellecker

Lyons

Baranowski

2013

Games for Health Journal

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With exergames (as with physical activity in general), more intense and longer-duration game play should accrue more health benefits. Exergames, however, appear to be played for relatively short durations, often at medium or lower intensities. Ostensibly games are played for fun or enjoyment. Enhancing the fun or enjoyment experienced during exergame play should enhance the intensity and duration of physical activity, and thereby the health benefits. Research, reviewed herein, indicates fun and/or enjoyment in games are inherently laden with psychosocial, physiological, and embodiment substrates. Physical activity may also have separate or closely related psychosocial, physiological, and embodiment enjoyment substrates. Research is needed to integrate these levels of experience and to identify the game mechanics that enhance, and even maximize, the fun or enjoyment experienced in exergames, to thereby increase the health benefit.

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“…As McManus and Furnham (2010) note: "Conceptualising fun is not straightforward, in part because of the number of synonyms for fun such as amusement, enjoyment and entertainment….Fun is therefore a complex word with multiple meanings referring to affective and motivational properties….fun can be an activity, a state, or a trait" (p. 160). Jarrett and Burnley (2010) add that fun has both activity and emotion components and that research on fun has often focused on whether activities designed to be fun by educators are actually viewed as fun by the participants.…”

Section: Towards Conceptualizing Funmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Fun in the Statistics Classroom: An Exploratory Study of College Instructors' Hesitations and Motivations

Lesser

Wall

Carver

et al. 2013

Journal of Statistics Education

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This study examines statistics instructors' use of fun as well as their motivations, hesitations, and awareness of resources. In 2011, a survey was administered to attendees at a national statistics education conference, and follow-up qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 of those (N = 249) surveyed to provide further context for interpreting the quantitative results. Motivations were similar for men and women, but female instructors admitted more hesitations in many areas. While many instructors are using or are open to using fun in the statistics classroom, the findings suggest that not having available resources at hand and not being aware of resources such as the CAUSEweb collection are major hesitations. Methods of alleviating hesitations are discussed.

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“Fun, Fun, Fun”: Types of Fun, Attitudes to Fun, and their Relation to Personality and Biographical Factors

Cited by 36 publications

References 29 publications

Kids just wanna have fun: Children's experiences of a weight management programme

Kids just wanna have fun: Children's experiences of a weight management programme

Disentangling Fun and Enjoyment in Exergames Using an Expanded Design, Play, Experience Framework: A Narrative Review

Using Fun in the Statistics Classroom: An Exploratory Study of College Instructors' Hesitations and Motivations

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