Values in Play Interactional Life with the Sims Studies in Applied Information Technology, Report 10, March 2011 ISBN 978-91-628-8233-4, ISSN 1652-490X;10 Values in Play Interactional Life with the Sims Louise Peterson Doctoral Dissertation Department of Applied Information Technology University of Gothenburg SE-412 96 Gothenburg Sweden © Louise Peterson, 2011 ISBN: 978-91-628-8233-4 ISSN: 1652-490X;10 Doctoral thesis in Applied Information Technology towards Sciences of Education, at the Department of Applied IT, University of Gothenburg. The thesis is available in full text online http://hdl.handle.net/2077/24118 This doctoral thesis has been prepared within the framework of the graduate school in educational science at the Centre for Educational Science and Teacher Research, University of Gothenburg. Centre for Educational Science and Teacher Research, CUL Graduate school in educational science Doctoral thesis 8 In 2004 the University of Gothenburg established the Centre for Educational Science and Teacher Research (CUL) in. CUL aims to promote and support research and third-cycle studies linked to the teaching profession and the teacher training programme. The graduate school is an interfaculty initiative carried out jointly by the Faculties involved in the teacher training programme at the University of Gothenburg and in cooperation with municipalities, school governing bodies and university colleges. www.cul.gu.se Printed in Sweden by Geson Hylte Tryck, Göteborg, 2011 To my mother and to the memory of my father ABSTRACT Title: Values in Play – Interactional Life with the Sims Author: Louise Peterson Language: English Keywords: Open-ended games; sandbox games; game play; The Sims; interaction analysis; video analysis; sociocultural theory; fantasy and creativity; role distance; learning; values. ISBN: 978-91-628-8233-4 This study arises from pedagogical discussion about learning potential with computer games – more precisely, that one game genre called open-ended (sandbox) games can make players explore the game content in such a way that they learn about a specific content or phenomenon while playing. These arguments are strong in the constructionist tradition but are seldom backed up by empirical results. This study scrutinizes the social activity of game play with OESG. Video recordings of 19 play sessions in home environments generated the empirical data. The study comprises 39 players in groups of two or three, aged 10 to 14, as they were playing The Sims or The Sims 2 for one hour. The theoretical tools in the analysis were assembled within a sociocultural perspective on learning and communication, and also by using Vygotsky’s ideas on fantasy and creativity and Goffman’s ideas on social interaction. Drawing from analyses of the video-recorded play activities, this study gives an account of how meaning and values are negotiated during actual game play. Whereas previous research indicates that this particular game genre might hold progressive potential, insofar as it challenges the players’ prevailing values and norms, this empirical study brings forth a counterargument by showing how the “freedom” in the computer game assists instead in reproducing prevailing values and norms. This is because the players proved to be using their sociocultural experiences – what they already know – as a resource in their interactions. This suggests that the educational potential of games might not be in exploring, but rather in the fact that rule-based activities make participants orientate themselves to specific topics. Hence, open-ended exploration within immersive game worlds might not be an appropriate way to challenge young people’s preconceptions and stereotypes. These findings suggest that if a concept of challenged stereotypes is desired in video games, the design must present more of a contest to prevailing norms, accentuating alternative subject positions. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is a pleasure to thank those who made this thesis possible, and I owe my deepest gratitude to all the players for sharing an hour of their game play, and to their parents for allowing them to do so. It was nice to meet you all. Even though writing a thesis has much to do with improving your authoring skills, and learning how to make the practice of writing work for you as a process deeply entwined in developing your thoughts regarding the object of your study, it is not something done in isolation. It is something done within an academic community and with clear expectations of the result. This study would not have been possible without the essential financial support from the Centre for Educational Science and Teacher Research (CUL). The study presented here was also partly supported by the IT Faculty at University of Gothenburg, and The Swedish Knowledge Foundation through their projects LearnIT and Unga nätkulturer (project Gränsöverskridande Online spel). The study is also part of the research conducted at the Linneus Center for Research on Learning Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society (LinCS, funded by the Swedish Research Council). I gratefully acknowledge the financial support and the productive collaboration. When positioning myself as a Ph.D. student within the graduate school CUL, I am thankful to all the people involved in the research program, for the organizational support they have provided, as well as for challenging me in so many ways during these years. Not only in terms of learning how to conduct a study on the topic of games and learning, but also figuring out what would become the theoretical foundation in the newly established, and inter-disciplinary, third-cycle subject area Applied Information Technology towards Sciences of Education, in which my study is written. In that sense, I am also grateful to all the authors (even those not included in the references) whose texts have intrigued and inspired me in my work. Another challenge I have encountered as a Ph.D. student within CUL graduate school, is learning how to become a full member within this inter-disciplinary community and navigate between different intellectual environments. All these challenges mentioned above would have seemed insuperable without my two supervisors Jonas Linderoth and Berner Lindström. I owe them my deepest gratitude. Thank you for believing in me! Besides their enthusiastic support of, and involvement in, this study, they have made space for me to develop, and guided me to places where I was given the opportunity to discuss my work and learn from others. The thesis was improved by conversations with a large number of people. I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following groups, all members and organizers included, to the development of my study: The seminar group MUL (New Media, Education and Learning) organized by Berner Lindström, Patrik Lilja and Johan Lundin; The seminar group NAIL (The Network for the Analysis of Interaction and Learning) organized by Oskar Lindwall; The former seminar group SCS (Sociocultural Studies) and present seminar group SDS (Sociocultural and Dialogical Studies) organized by Roger Säljö and Åsa Mäkitalo. I also wish to express my appreciation to all the fellow students, colleguagues, and administrators within the CUL, the IT Faculty, and the Department of Education, for supporting me in various ways. A special thank you to Ulrika Bennerstedt, Annika Lantz-Andersson and Marisa Ponti for letting me share all the ups and downs in my academic life, in writing as well as in dialogue. Thank you for your never ending enthusiasm when it came to reading and carefully commenting on my texts. I would also like to thank Doris Gustafson for her friendly support; Mattias von Feilitzen for his support on my work in the video lab; Margot Lundquist for her courteous and diligent proofreading; Camilla Olsson for her generously support and insights on editing and proofreading; Russel Francis for giving my cover text a ‘punchy’ tone; Lena Dafgård for checking my Swedish Summary with such a short notice. And as I already mentioned, writing a thesis is not done in isolation. Encouragments from family and friends are invaluable after long hours of work. I am grateful for all the love and support I have felt, in so many different ways, from my family during the years. My appreciation goes to my dear brother Per-Anders and the two girls in his life, Anna and Hanna. To Malin and Frida, who I think of as my sisters. To my caring mother Mary-Louise and her husband Mats, who are always there for me and my family. And last, but not least, to my love and friend in life, Marco, and our beloved son Nicola. Göteborg, January 2011 Louise Peterson CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 1 GAMES AND LEARNING ................................................................................................................. 3 CONSTRUCTIVIST IDEAS ABOUT LEARNING AND ICT................................................................ 9 ASSUMPTIONS AND EVIDENCE IS NOT THE SAME THING ....................................................... 13 OPEN-ENDED SANDBOX GAMES................................................................................................ 15 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY ........................................................................................................... 17 THESIS OUTLINE .........................................................................................................................