First of all, I would like to thank all those who took part in this study by providing me with data without which this dissertation wouldn't have been possible.

Abstract

Jumping straight to the results, here's an adapted version of the project's abstract, which also sums up how the study was conducted (you can also jump straight to the paragraph about playfulness and happiness if you wish to):

The present study investigates the existence of a theoretical link between individuals' general level of playfulness and their “academic playfulness”, that is their learning motivational orientation in higher education.
A non-experimental fixed design was followed which involved an online questionnaire adapted from previous instruments as well as online semi-structured interviews in order to quantify that link and to try to identify mechanisms helping to explain it. Seventy undergraduate and Master's level students enrolled in one British and
several French universities answered the questionnaire and 5 students were interviewed.
A small correlation between playfulness and intrinsic motivation to learn was found (r=0.324; p=0.006). This correlation was stronger for males and learners enrolled in more qualitative courses (e.g. liberal arts and management are deemed more qualitative than economics and finance), even though the latter result is not statistically significant. Evidence suggests that playfulness is not related to either gender or age and that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation could be best understood as two separate but related constructs. Likely mechanisms playing a role in the influence of playfulness on intrinsic motivation to learn include the need for social relationships, creativity, active engagement and achievement. Evidence suggests that playfulness influences people's studies and occupations and that the reverse effect sometimes also occurs.
As a result, educators should consider encouraging playful approaches to learning for highly playful students because this can be seen as potentially supportive to their intrinsic motivation. This suggestion could be particularly relevant for male learners and students enrolled in qualitative courses, even though more research is needed to support these results.

Playfulness

Given that play and therefore playfulness are elusive concepts, it's important to note that the latter was understood in terms of Barnett's definition (2007):

"Playfulness is the predisposition to frame (or reframe) a situation in such a way as to provide oneself (and possibly others) with amusement, humor, and/or entertainment.
Individuals who have such a heightened predisposition are typically funny, humorous, spontaneous, unpredictable, impulsive, active, energetic, adventurous, sociable, outgoing, cheerful, and happy, and are likely to manifest playful behaviour by joking, teasing, clowning, and acting silly."

If you wish to learn more about this dissertation, please find it here. In particular, the Discussion (pp. 50-55) Interview results (pp. 45-49) sections are worthy of interest.

Beyond this study - Playfulness and happiness

I would like to say a few words about play, which is a fascinating and not well understood topic yet.

Play has many intrinsic benefits, including learning (this dissertation, among other works, proves it) and preparing us for the unexpected events of our world (Kane 2005).

Traditionally, play has been understood as the opposite of work but it is my belief (and that of many scholars) that play and work are much closer than we may think. In fact, according to the definition above, play can be brought to bear on any activity. For example, Gee has shown that play and formal learning can be extremely related (2003).

The misconception according to which play and work (or learning) are opposite is related to the fact that from primary school onwards, learning is formalised and compartmentalised from play (Barab et al 2005, p. 15) and thereby, an activity called "work" appears. But that doesn't mean one cannot learn in a playful way.

As Kane states, "play is an attitude before it is anything else" (2005, p. 48). Indeed, different people have different degrees of playfulness. And different people "play" in different ways. But I believe that playfulness is something that one can cultivate: I think that dedicating more time to our pastimes (reading, doing arts, sports, etc.) is one way of doing this. For instance, on a personal level, I have always found that my sense of humour was much better when I dedicated some of my free time to reading novels than when I did not.

We can all try to become more playful on our leisure time or at work. For example, writers who write books about "serious" and apparently not so fun topics (like statistics or programming for instance) can do so in a very dry and boring way or they can try and make it fun (to themselves and to their readers) by adding humour into it. I think Anglo-Americans are very good at doing that (by contrast with many French authors for instance). Playfulness really is an attitude and it can take multiple forms (not only the one cited in this example).

And beyond the scope of the study, I think we can all be much happier in life if we try hard to reframe any situations (especially our jobs) so as to make them more interesting to us (the definition of playfulness given above).

Thank you again for taking part in this study (and for having made it through to the end of this long speech )!

References:

Barab, S., A. Arici and C. Jackson (2005). Eat your vegetables and do your homework: A design-based investigation of enjoyment and meaning in learning. Educational Technology 45 (1): 15-20

Barnett, L.A. (2007). The nature of playfulness in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences 43(4): 949–958. 

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York,
Palgrave Macmillan.

Kane, P. (2005). A general theory of play. In The play ethic: a manifesto for a different way of living. London, Pan

This is because I fear that my accent might not be good enough and, more likely, that others may find me a pretentious person by so doing. If French people enjoyed foreign languages and everyone was proud of their abilities, I would probably feel differently though.

Very interestingly, on the Understanding Learning in the Online Environment module, Hugh reported similar reactions about their own mother tongue, with his students being “extremely reluctant to pronounce clearly and properly” because “in the West Coast of Scotland, proper articulation - ie. beyond grunting - is viewed as effeminate”!

My cartooning moments and the role-playing they involve help me reduce my fear of others' judgement: indeed, the playful nature of the activity and the pleasure it gives me even prompts me into speaking.

That reminds me of the Ensemble c'est tout movie in which one of the characters has a speech impediment due to anxiety. Thanks to some form of music (singing) therapy, he gradually overcomes his impediment, through sessions where he speaks slowly and clearly in a slightly melodious fashion. Acting out (a form of play) this way probably shares similarities with theatre.

Likewise, it could be that to overcome the “taboos” (Papert 1996) involved in speaking a foreign language, students could be encouraged to act, by using voices like those of cartoon characters or real people. Such form of play which works very well with me out of the classroom could, hopefully, lead them to enjoy the lessons more and more.

Depending on their accent, the teacher may suggest them to take the role of a BBC reporter (for the good ones), Arsene Wenger (for the average students) or a French tourist not making much efforts to at least pronounce the “r” correctly (for the “worst” students). Perhaps this could even make up a curriculum in which learners would move through these various roles which would represent as many lessons. Theoretically, role-playing their own role may actually be quite effective.

I believe that having a good accent in a foreign language is correlated with being a good imitator (there comes the idea of the theatre again): the development of both skills involve admiration/attraction and identification and require observation and mimicry, which children are very good at whereas adults are much less so.

So, the problem is that I'm unsure whether those having a bad accent would easily enter the role-playing game.

But the good news is:

• I could be wrong

• Some may have found effective strategies to get students to actually play with that

References:

Papert, S. (1996). A word for learning. In Constructionism in practice : designing, thinking, and learning in a digital world. Y. B. Kafai and M. Resnick. Mahwah, N.J., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

As Gee's Probing Principle suggests (2003), play and activity in general are also the processes through which learning occurs. Since the beginning of this course, I've always felt that happiness and pleasure played a part in this too as would suggest the title "Games, Life and the Pursuit of Happiness" (Yee 2004). In order to be happy, we would need to be active, that is, to work/play (which is the same anyway) and therefore, to learn. Let's now turn to a couple of quotes that seem to support that view:

"I remember feeling learning like seeing a huge mountain from its foothills when I was little (few years ago :P). Too chaotic to climb, with so many paths to begin from and follow later,but also exciting like having no choise but to start climbing and exploring immediately. It doesn't matter whether we like the path and decide to follow it without seeing the crown it leads to. Or whether we already see the crown we want to reach and decide which path to follow whether it is pleasant to climb, hard or even dangerous. Learning, like climbing, always provides surprises. Like a green valley full of flowers under the sun appearing in front of you right on time when you think you have taken the wrong path, or being exhausted from climbing, assuming that the climb didn't finally worth so much effort. The trip to the crown is often difficult, but it depents on how well prepared the climbing learner is and how proof against the weather the boots are. Reaching the crown is the best relief that a learner can get. Standing there with hands raised, seeing the difficult paths and gaps from top, smaller and insignificant that get quickly deleted from his head. Climbing never ends for a learner. There will always be crowns to reach the one after the other, each one with different kind of beauty, effort and glory."

Most of us found Flery's metaphor to be the best illustration of learning during the Understanding Learning in the Online Environment module. As I previously explained, MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft (2009) are interesting in that they make this metaphor explicit. However, given the importance of challenge in making a game successful (Malone 1980) and for which the mountain may again be the perfect metaphor, that idea may be extended to all kinds of games. So here we are with a likely link between learning and work/play. Let's now look at how this matches pleasure and happiness:

"Man did not invent play. But it is play and only play that makes man complete"

(Eigen and Winkler in Kane 2005, p. 57)

The idea of 'completeness' here seems to relate somehow to 'happiness'.

"The opposite of play isn't work, it's depression"

(Sutton-Smith in Kane 2005, p. 44)

"I think happiness is not to reach the top of the mountain but to climb it"

(Arthus-Bertrand 2009)

Picture: in the view linking playing/working and learning, we initially focus on the goal but we then realise that it's not reaching it that makes us happy but rather engaging in the climb to it. In short, the role of the goal is to motivate us.

Therefore, the mountain metaphor seems to represent a solid link between:

• learning
• activity, that is playing/learning (which seems to strengthen the link which I previously tried to show)
• pleasure and happiness

References:

Arthus-Bertrand, Y. (2009). Interview for his 6 Milliards D'Autres exhibition. In Tele Star, 1-8 May 2009 issue.

Gee, J. P. (2003). Situated meaning and learning. In What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan: 73-112.

Kane, P. (2005). A general theory of play. The play ethic : a manifesto for a different way of living . London, Pan.
Introduction; Towards the Play Ethic

Malone, T.W. (1980). What makes things fun to learn? heuristics for designing instructional
computer games. Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGSMALL symposium and the first SIGPC
symposium on Small systems table of contents. Palo Alto, California, United States.

World of Warcraft (2009). MMORPG game. Blizzard Entertainment.

Yee, N. (2004). Games, Life and the Pursuit of Happiness. Daedalus Project.
Retrieved: 8 May 2009. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000776.php

Druids and bears

As a Druid, one of my quests made me teleport to Moonglade to heed the Great Bear Spirit. That teleporting ability was really rewarding, even more so that it took me to a completely different place. Further, I have been browsing the web for information about the game over the past few weeks: I knew that Druids could change into bears and therefore, I found that quest quite motivating for me (in fact, I now remember reading about that in the game's book and that capability prompted me to make my character a Druid in the first place).

I just couldn't wait to learn how to do that... Well, actually I could... I mean I had to since that was only the first quest of a series which should lead me to learn that: a perfect implementation of the Achievement Principle since this fascinating ability needs to be deserved (Gee 2003).

Developing my character

Unlike with my Mage character, I haven't forgotten to go back to the master of Druids to learn new skills: this is the perfect answer to the killing boredom which I had been feeling for the last few playing days. I chose several spells that added variety to my capabilities and made me change my approaches to fighting. I also improved the spells I commonly used which helped me kill my opponents more easily (until, I suspect, I cross harder creatures on my way).

Learning how to properly use the mini-map tracking feature also helped me improve as a herborist and made me realise that my progress could be tracked via the Character Information panel.

More importantly, my choices with regards to the way I develop as a character in the game are a very important learning principle, very well explained by Gee's tripartite play of identity (2003, pp. 51-71).

Implications for educators

Too often, teachers want students to solve a problem their way or the one they deem the best. Unfortunately, that's not necessarily the strategy that fits all students better and can potentially impede their progress in a dangerous way. On the other hand, helping students learn several strategies can strengthen their knowledge structures which I remember was very helpful when I was studying Physics and Chemistry: I could use the most appropriate strategy according to the specifics of the problem at hand and I was also more confident in my approaches since I could support my findings in several ways.

I think teachers shouldn't prevent students from using their preferred strategy or learning style but at the same time, they should still prompt them to learn better ones.

I believe assessment can play an important part into this: the use of the best approach (if any) could be awarded more marks while the use of a different one would be given less marks. Such a design illustrates Gee's Ongoing Learning and “Psychosocial Moratorium” Principles (2003) in that it would be less daunting for students than simply requiring them to quit using their preferred strategies for better ones but would still encourage them to do so.

When several strategies are available for a given task, students are usually taught the easiest ones first before learning more powerful and sophisticated ones. I remember instances of that in my scholarship when we were taught a more powerful formulae to solve a Physics problem or when we were allowed to start using scientific calculators to perform routine tasks such as drawing the graph of an equation to check our results against it. Just like my case, signs of boredom ("average boredom" among class students perhaps) may be an excellent indicator of the appropriate time to teach a new strategy.

References:

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Thinking Worlds is one of the tools that was suggested in the course discussions and I had downloaded and run version 2 until I downloaded version 3.0 a few days ago, for what was a disapointing journey

The tool consists of an authoring and a runtime environment.

I had tried the runtime environment of version 2 and it worked fine.

I was more interested in learning how to create environments from scratch and therefore tried the authoring part of the tool.

At first, it was nice to receive On-Demand and Just-in-Time information to guide me through the creation of a journey and scene. The tool proposes many environments and characters to begin with which greatly facilitates the design process (provided one of them fits our needs).

When I ran the environment as a player, I realised that my character wasn't walking but that it sort of floated above the ground instead (which didn't happen with the version 2).

After adding another character and a communication interaction with it, I received an error and couldn't run the environment as a player anymore:

Screenshot: a miserable start to 3 D authoring

Several attemps with other types of interactions didn't change thing.

Neither the videos available on tools' website nor the in-depth guides proved more useful (Thinking Worlds 2008) even though they gave me further information as to how to use the interaction editor.

I don't understand why I haven't been able to replicate the results of those tutorials.

Given the variety of interactions that the tool proposes, I'm sure it can be quite powerful if I can figure out the origin of my problem.

Unfortunately, it seems that there isn't any demo version of Mission Maker, another authoring tool Matthew tried successfully.

So for now, I'll wait for the Innovate's Online Simulations, Role Playing, and Virtual Worlds issue which will feature, among other things, information about "technologies used to create and manage virtual environments (tools, hardware, software)". If any tool stands out, I will invest more time in learning how to use it.

References:

Thinking Worlds (2008). In-depth guides.
http://www.thinkingworlds.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78&Itemid=90

A few weeks ago, I started a thread about Gee's key principles of good learning design because while reading his book, I felt that some principles lead to or were redundant with others. Other students' views reminded me that all principles are very important. Nevertheless, by reading some sections of the book again (especially the definition of each principle), I still believe that understanding properly the core ones can help reduce the list:

That's very obvious for the first principle:

Active, Critical Learning Principle is very complex and, according to pp. 39-40, encompasses Situated Meaning Principle, Affinity Group Principle, Design Principle and Metalevel Thinking about Semiotic Domain Principle.

It is also linked to Identity Principle (see pp. 43-44) and strongly related to Semiotic Principle and Semiotic Domains Principle

Similar relationships may be drawn for other principles:

• Semiotic Principle => Multimodal Principle
• Subset Principle => “Psychosocial Moratorium” Principle
• Committed Learning Principle => Practice Principle which leads to Intuitive Knowledge Principle
• Subset Principle in addition to Practice Principle => Bottom-up Basic Skills Principle
• “Regime of Competence” Principle => Ongoing Learning Principle
  It's also related to Incremental Principle
• Probing Principle => Discovery Principle
• Situated Meaning Principle => Text Principle
• Distributed Principle => “Material Intelligence” Principle

On the other hand, I find the following principles are more independant:

• Identity Principle
• Self-Knowledge Principle
• Amplification of Input Principle
• Achievement Principle
• Multiple Routes Principle
• Intertextual Principle
• Concentrated Sample Principle
• Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-in-Time Principle
• Transfer Principle
• Cultural Models about the World Principle
• Cultural Models about the Learning Principle
• Cultural Models about the Semiotic Domains Principle
• Dispersed Principle
• Insider Principle

I hope this need to summarize them hasn't lead me to make false associations. I'd be happy to know what you think and to be corrected as appropriate...

References:

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

General findings about students' engagement in online versus face-to-face learning show that:

"distance learners generally scored higher on the student engagement and outcomes measures than their campus-based counterparts. For example, distance learners reported experiencing higher levels of academic challenge (on a scale measuring the amount of reading, writing, and higher-order thinking activities students engaged in and the amount of time spent studying) and reflective thinking (a component of deep learning that asks students how often they critically examined their own views, considered the views of others, and adapted their thinking on a topic). They also reported that they gained more in terms of practical competence (e.g., career skills, interpersonal skills, and technological proficiency) and in personal and social development (e.g., developing values and ethics, understanding people from diverse backgrounds, and self-understanding), and they were generally more satisfied with their educational experiences"

 Chen et al (2008)

Making mistakes

When I play Word of Warcraft and other games, I learn a lot by making mistakes. This is also inherent to learning through exploration. When I get killed, I can always find my corpse back and continue to play.

The problem with face-to-face learning is that learners are more afraid of making mistakes, mostly because of the social and immediate nature of this traditional mode. Not that online learning doesn't involve risks (learners are, most of the time, not anonymous) but the distance “filters” people's reactions in such a way that when someone makes a mistake, they won't feel or hear others' laughs or immediate reactions (unless a synchronous voice medium is used for example).

Often, teachers themselves make humiliating remarks about students' attempts at solving a particular problem which can harm their self-esteem and prevent them from trying and learning at later times.

In relation to that, on the Course Design module and in response to the sort of power relationships between learners described by Reynolds and Trehan (2000), Eneas suggested that participative assessment could be conducted using Second Life.

A learning network

In fact, online learning forces students to focus on learning. This is the distinction that Rovai et al 2006 make between social community and learning community. Even though the social element is crucial (particularly at the beginning), the learning aspect of the community gradually takes over (Salmon 2000).

What makes this possible is that the structure of the web itself reflects the link between the various nodes of the community: online resources and people. Learners can customize their learning experiences better and in a much more timely way than when they are attending a face-to-face lecture or a tutorial. Indeed, when students take exams online, teachers can't expect them to rely solely on their own knowledge.

This change from the traditional to the online medium may be seen as an opportunity for rethinking traditional education and transforming it into one that is more suited to today's demands.

References:

Chen, P., R. Gonyea, and G. Kuh. (2008). Learning at a distance: Engaged or not?. Innovate 4(3)
Retrieved: 8 April 2009. http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=438

Gee, J. P. (2003). The social mind. In What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Reynolds, M. and Trehan, K. (2000). Assessment: a critical perspective. Studies in Higher Education 25(3): 267-278.

Rovai, Alfred P., Mervyn J. Wightinga & Robert Lucking (2006). The Classroom and School community Inventory: Development, refinement, and validation of a self-report measure for educational research, The Internet in Higher Education 7, 263–280.

Salmon, G (2002). The five-stage framework and e-tivities. In E-tivities: the key to active online learning. (London, Kogan Page): 10-36.

Recently, my intrinsic motivation in the game has slightly decreased: the fact I have less time to play because of the various assignments probably plays a part into that since motivation in an activity needs to be sustained by practising that activity.

Nevertheless, another factor which may play a part into this is a decreased interest in fighting: as said above, in virtue of the Practice Principle underscored by Gee (2003, p. 68), I spend a lot of my playing time fighting enemies in order to achieve quests. The problem is that I feel bored with fighting and I feel that the game may sometimes make the player over-practice certain skills.

But surprisingly, I still accept, among other quests, some which directly require killing certain enemies in order to bring back specific items: I suppose the reason for this is that I want to progress in the game and I know that killing enemies while achieving quests is the best way to gain more experience points. In other words, extrinsic motivation plays an important role in my trajectory within the game. In particular, I've realised that the experience bar is a very powerful motivator: I often look at it to see how much progress I have made and how close I am to gaining one level (that's my extrinsic objective for any play session). This is a very good implementation of the Achievement Principle (Gee 2003, p. 67).

This reminds me of a paper which, unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the reference of: it suggested that when an activity is really not interesting, extrinsic motivation can be helpful. Even though WoW cannot be said to be uninteresting, the relative boredom that I recently feel and the event which were just described support that idea. I think that in such cases, making any amount of progress obvious to the student or game player can be particularly effective. However, it should not be over-used so as not to undermine intrinsic motivation (Barab et al  2005).

References:

Barab, S., A. Arici and C. Jackson (2005). Eat your vegetables and do your homework: a design-based investigation of enjoyment and meaning in learning. Educational Technology 45 (1): 15-20.

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Greenfield states that “there is evidence that violent video games breed violent behaviours, just as violent television shows do” (1984, p. 92) before explaining why “It may be that the most harmful aspect of video games is that they are solitary in nature” (p. 93).

Reflecting on this idea that violence exists in all sorts of media, I still felt that the fact video games are played in an active way results in an important difference, which is encompassed by Gee's Identity Principle (2003, pp. 51-58). I thought that even though all media can potentially generate violence, video games could probably do so more strongly.

But then, Gee's talk about cultural models helped me revise my point of view: I think he's right in saying that violent “group models” are most of the time counter-balanced by “general models” of good which exist in the players' other social groups and in society at large.

So again, it may only be when violent “group models” take too much importance in a player's life that violence becomes a central source of concern. This is more likely to happen with emotionally weak populations such as some teenagers or people having serious personal problems but then, those players don't represent the majority of video game players. With such at-risk groups, parents and friends have a major role to play.

Finally, I found Gee particularly insightful (as usual in his book) when he discusses how locking people into their own conceptions is not necessarily less dangerous than enabling them to experience various perspectives, including bad ones.

References:

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Greenfield, P. M. (1984). Video games. In Mind and media: the effects of television, video games, and computers. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.

After reading about it, I was disappointed that the game Flower wasn't available on PC. But fortunately, someone on the discussion boards drew our attention to Cloud, which is similar and is freely available. Actually, the game's Wikipedia entry links to ThatGameCompany, the company that created Flower.

What is Cloud exactly?

This videogame transports the player in another dimension: it's as if he/she is acting in his/her own dreams: the artwork of the introduction to the various levels, the colours, the music, clouds - the object themselves, everything reminds someone of their best dreams. As such, this kind of videogame is likely to stimulate the players' imagination.

With that in mind, the word experience, which Fiona used to describe this particular kind of videogame, seems quite appropriate.

Guiding the clouds to shower the land

A particular kind of game

A closer look at its feature and design reveals that it is nevertheless a game or ludus, to reuse Frasca's proposed modified meaning of Caillois' word (in Newman 2004). In effect, Cloud:

• has goals such as gathering the clouds, drawing a lollipop, preventing dark clouds (smoke?) from reaching virgin lands, showering the lands

• is made of several levels of increasing difficulty

• contains other scaffolding features such as:

  - a training module as an illustration of the Subset Principle (Gee 2003, pp. 121-122) which teaches players the basic skills they will need later in the game

  - feedback tips

• requires the player to adapt his strategy. Even though I haven't played enough to succeed in the third level yet, one approach that worked better was to divide the bright clouds in several parts and with each of them, pushing light grey clouds towards the dark clouds. This is a good example of the Ongoing Learning principle (Gee 2003, pp. 69-70)

We may further categorise Cloud by saying it is a form of mimicry game (Caillois 2001): the player is an illusory character that one might call the “Guard of the clouds”. As we said above, what gives it this experience-like nature is its design in terms of graphics, music, interactions. But thinking about it, the word experience may be yet another way to talk about mimicry and role-play: the player experiences being in someone else's shoes, using special powers, etc.

References:

Caillois, R. (2001). The classification of games. In Man, play and games. Urbana, Ill., University of Illinois Press; Wantage: University Presses Marketing.

Cloud (2005). Role-playing videogame. USC EA Game Innovation Lab.
http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Newman, J. (2004). What is a video game? Rules, puzzles and simulations. Videogames. London, Routledge.