I want to be a Game Maker Experiences of digital game making with eleven year olds Leonard Busuttil A thesis submitted to the University of Sheffield for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Education October 2014 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the students and teachers who volunteered to take part in this research and allowed me to share their enthusiasm towards digital games and digital game making. Thanks goes to the school who hosted this research and made the venue available after school hours throughout the workshop. Thank you to my supervisor Dr Julia Davies for her wisdom, kindness and patience throughout this research project. She managed to keep a precise balance between readily offering her advice yet prompting me to think critically and independently. Thanks to academics from the School of Education led by Professor Cathy Nutbrown for organising discussion sessions where we could present and discuss works in progress versions of our work. Thanks to fellow students for their support and friendship throughout the study weekends. The discussions that ensued helped me focus more on my research. Thank you to my family Marilyn, Martina and Louisa for the inspiration and motivation to go through this journey and for being so patient with me when study had to come first. i Abstract The purpose of this study was to empower a mixed group of eleven year old students with the skills to program digital games and then research the stages of development they go through whilst designing and authoring a game. This study also strived to identify the benefits children gained from a gaming literacy perspective. This research used a qualitative case study approach. The analysis of this study was based on multiple data sources: statistics collected from the web portal used during the workshop; informal conversations with the children and teachers helping out with the workshop; participant observation and analysis of the games created. Through the participation in this workshop the children were introduced to the Scratch programming language. The structure of the gaming workshop was influenced by pedagogic approaches to teach creatively for creativity and to introduce programming through a full system approach (Selby 2011). The stages that children go through whilst creating a digital game are similar to a number of phases discussed in previous research (Robertson 2011, Resnick, Maloney et al. 2009). However the stages of development outlined in this research highlight the importance of the social aspect in game development. Group testing not only has an effect on the game being tested but also acts as a source of cross fertilisation of ideas between the students testing the game and the students developing the game. The game making experience provided the students with a possibility to enact their systematic thinking when designing their games as a system made up of interrelated subsystems. Prior gaming experience contributed to the way the games were designed and allowed the students to engage with game making using a playful attitude. The students were competitive yet cooperative whilst making their games. All the games were complete and demonstrated that the children were savvy about multimodality. They created games that were well balanced from the difficulty point of view and that provided the game players with instructions on how to play as well as implemented appropriate feedback mechanisms. ii Contents Contents ...................................................................................................................... iii Table of Figures ........................................................................................................ xiii Table of Tables ........................................................................................................... xv Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 Digital Games and Education............................................................................ 4 1.1.1 Serious Games ........................................................................................... 5 1.1.2 Commercial off the shelf games ................................................................ 6 1.1.3 Making games ............................................................................................ 6 1.1.3.1. Digital Game development to enhance creativity .............................. 7 1.1.3.2. Switching from reading to writing games .......................................... 8 1.1.3.3. Improving engagement and motivation .............................................. 9 1.1.3.4. Problem Solving ............................................................................... 10 1.1.3.5. Teaching a subject by building an educational game ....................... 10 An overview of this project ............................................................................. 11 1.2.1 My entry into research ............................................................................. 12 A guiding learning theory ............................................................................... 13 1.3.1 Constructivist Epistemology .................................................................... 14 1.3.2 Social Learning ........................................................................................ 14 1.3.3 Exploratory learning ................................................................................ 15 1.3.4 Constructionism ....................................................................................... 15 1.3.5 Learning in a world of constant change ................................................... 16 1.3.5.1. Homo Sapiens ................................................................................... 17 1.3.5.2. Homo Faber ...................................................................................... 18 1.3.5.3. Homo Ludens ................................................................................... 18 iii 1.3.6 Designing the workshop .......................................................................... 19 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 19 2. Literature Review ............................................................................................... 21 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 22 2.1.1 Gaming amongst the Maltese children .................................................... 24 2.1.2 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 26 Play .................................................................................................................. 26 2.2.1 The diversity of play ................................................................................ 28 2.2.2 Looking at play from different angles ..................................................... 30 2.2.3 The importance of play for education – play as progress ........................ 30 2.2.4 Defining traits of digital games ............................................................... 32 2.2.5 Building capital about and through games .............................................. 36 2.2.6 Gaming Literacy ...................................................................................... 37 2.2.6.1. Systems ............................................................................................. 38 2.2.6.2. Play ................................................................................................... 40 2.2.6.3. Design ............................................................................................... 42 2.2.7 It’s not just about the game ...................................................................... 43 2.2.8 A model for working with digital games in the classroom ...................... 46 2.2.8.1. Games as Action ............................................................................... 47 2.2.8.2. Games as Text .................................................................................. 48 2.2.8.3. The model applied to game making ................................................. 48 2.2.9 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 49 Don’t be bored – Make something .................................................................. 49 2.3.1 Creativity ................................................................................................. 52 2.3.1.1. Drivers for creativity in Education ................................................... 53 2.3.2 Defining creativity ................................................................................... 54 iv 2.3.2.1. Big C and Little c views of creativity ............................................... 55 2.3.2.2. Adopting a definition of creativity ................................................... 56 2.3.3 Teaching for creativity ............................................................................. 58 2.3.3.1. The role of the teacher ...................................................................... 59 2.3.3.2. Fostering possibility thinking ........................................................... 61 2.3.4 The creative process................................................................................. 62 2.3.5 Creative process in game development