Project – Digital Technology, Learning and Game Formats: Computer games, motivation and gender

Project funders: The Eduserv Foundation

Research Fellow: Diane Carr 

Project duration:  February 2004-January 2007

The end of this project was marked in late January 2007 with the event ‘Computer Games: Learning, Meaning and Method’.

Project description:  The project aim was to draw on developments in the field of computer game studies, in order to arrive at a better understanding of the motivating pleasures of computer games, so that their learning and/or pedagogic potentials might be better understood.

Motivation was examined in terms of the pleasures and frustrations of computer game-play, gaming cultures, and the construction of the gaming audience (especially in relation to gender).  

The methods employed combined close textual analysis from the perspective of player-as-analyst, with the observation of play and players:

• • at home
• • in the classroom
• • and online.

Selected project outcomes: for others please refer to the ‘publications’ page.

Carr, D (2005) Contexts, Gaming Pleasures and Gendered Preferences, Simulation and Gaming Vol 36 No 4 December 2005
Carr, D. (2006) ‘Games and Gender’ in Carr, D., Buckingham, D., Burn, A., Schott G. Computer Games: Text, Narrative and Play, Cambridge: Polity Press
Carr, D (2007) ‘Computer Games in Classrooms and the Question of Cultural Baggage’ colloquium (i.e. short) article for the British Journal of Educational Technology special issue on Game Based Learning

Here is a copy of the Final Report

 

Players