3) Design a study that examines the ways in which communication and collaboration take place during MMORPG gaming. Start by describing the research topic and then briefly considering the trade-offs between pursuing this research topic experimentally versus ethnographically. After doing so, frame the research question(s) associated with an ethnographic approach. Finally, develop a design for an ethnographic study of this topic. Be sure to address how and why you will select specific sites of study (e.g. the game, specific raid groups, guilds, etc.), what conceptual themes organize and bound the work, how you will gain entry / establish rapport with participants, what criteria would you use to recruit participants, what primary data you would anticipate wanting to collect using specific methodologies, how will you know when you can end your fieldwork successfully, and how might you intend to analyze these data to answer your research question(s). (In designing the study, please consider the option of collecting data from within the game experience as well as what occurs in the physical contexts of the participants.)

Research Topic

My research serves two major functions: 1) to study how certain gamers learn to cooperate with each other in shared activities and 2) to ask how gamers can be empowered and mobilized in both on and off-screen life by gaining an understanding of their relationships to a broader social context. Related agendas include making cross-setting comparisons with regards to teamwork and the design and implementation of tools or processes to enable more effective group work. Many businesses and community organizations depend on teams of people to work on joint projects. Understanding how certain teams learn to work together in games could be a powerful way of understanding how teams could be structured and managed in non-game settings. Furthermore, I believe many social problems in general exist because not enough people are carefully reflecting on their actions and consequences. Looking at specific groups of gamers and their socio-political contexts can help us understand how they learn teamwork and how they understand their positions within the gaming sub-culture.

I say “certain gamers,” “certain teams,” and “specific groups” because I believe the management and structural work for any team should be done through an “organic” (Gramsci, 1971) understanding of the group. The process of implementing new ways of working should emerge from the group itself. Gaining a deep understanding of how this “authentic” work is done has to be done through ethnographic means (Freire, 1970/2000, esp. chapter 3, and Porter, 2001, for a great justification of ethnography). While survey research allows broad generalizations to be made about whole populations, survey conclusions only help researchers superficially understand player and group behavior. The results paint a hypothetical portrait of an unrealized entity and do not speak to what researchers would see in specific contexts. Likewise, findings from experimental research with the intent to find generalizations would be too limiting because these findings would not be authentically situated for other groups of players. It may be true that certain conditions as demonstrated by experimental research are more likely to encourage cooperative behavior in most groups, but implementing changes based on site-specific research can have larger benefits to the specific sites under study. Furthermore, enacting broad changes across whole populations based on survey or experimental research may perpetuate and exacerbate existing marginalization for some groups of people. In some cases, in fact, the simple act of normalizing demographics does certain groups of people a disservice because a snapshot of a population cannot help us understand the history and position of specific groups. Findings from broad research (c.f., Yee, ongoing) are not specific to my experiences. I’m always left saying, “that’s interesting, but it’s not what I see.” To effectively enact social change requires deeper pockets of understanding because each social group must be affected in an organic, authentic fashion that respects the group’s lived experience (c.f., hooks, 1994, and Ransby, 2002). The task for me then is not to find generalizable, top-level policies or guidelines for how to structure a group nor to paint a general portrait of what gamers are like, but rather to find generalizable processes for discovering the guidelines to use in micro settings and speak about specific gamers within my personal social circle (c.f., Vargas, 2006, on how he wrote about the people and events around him).

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Mark’s PhD exams, question 3

2) Review and describe the primary theoretical perspectives that have been used to study human learning and development in conjunction with game play (e.g., general problem solving, “new literacies”, adaptive expertise, distributed cognition) as well as what sorts of learning phenomena they allow you to better understand. Then identify the range of theoretical perspectives that map onto your research interests and describe those connections. (Note: This may involve considering theoretical perspectives that have not been pursued previously.) Finally, select one of these theoretical perspectives to explore in more depth and describe what sort of empirical study should be done to further develop our theoretical understanding of learning and gaming.

Introduction
The use of games for learning resonates with me personally.  I have a lengthy history with games of all types including both table-top and digital games.  My life as a gamer affects the lens through which I see games and through which I interpret learning theories applied to games, therefore I have difficulty writing academically about games without it becoming deeply personal.  In this essay I use a personal narrative of specific games I’ve played to illustrate different views of how people learn.  I then define a way in which to classify games using two dimensions—story narrative and embodied metaphor.  Finally, I relate these dimensions to Ian Bogost’s concept of “unit operations” (2006) as a way of looking at patterns within games and across games and games culture.  Coupled with a new literacies approach to community participation, this may provide a way in which to think about games and learning for social mobility.

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Mark’s PhD exams, question 2

1)  Discuss the benefits and controversies related to using games for learning. Identify and describe what you see as three primary benefits of games (e.g. experience problem solving, communicating and collaborating with others, etc.).  Also, describe and respond to three controversies about games (e.g. violence, antisocial behavior, etc.).  Ground each of these discussions in relevant theoretical, research, and media literature.

The benefits and drawbacks to digital games are actually two sides of the same coin.  Or, in this case since I’ll be listing three of each, all sides of the same 6-sided die.  The first benefit games represent is the fact that games are social activities and are subsumed by a larger gaming culture where players learn social skills and collaborate on meaning-making.  A second benefit is that games let players role-play certain identities while playing.  By doing so, players experience different ways of being and could learn, for example, what it means to be a scientist.  The third benefit is that games engage players like no other medium and that this comes from the very definition of “game.”
Digital games mean different things to different people.  If we believe everything we read, games offer the greatest potential to engage learners of all ages (Prensky, 2001).  At the same time, games present the most alarming cause of gun violence, misogyny, and antisocial behavior (Wikipedia, 2007).  A close examination of the reasons behind this huge disparity in how games are viewed exposes misconceptions about games held by both proponents and detractors of digital games.  First, popular culture generalizes in a way that suggests the whole myriad of games and game genres can be understood as a single entity.  Secondly, some research studies and conclusions are framed on a simplistic view of games limited to player-game interactions.  These are problematic in that they over-simplify the meaning behind engaging in gaming practice, as if players exist in a lab (or dark basement) until they happen upon the outside world to either transfer their new-gained knowledge or shoot someone.  Of the three controversies related to games I will discuss, two of them—violence and addiction—stem from these simplistic conceptions of the player-game relationship, limiting games to merely entertainment products.  The third controversy, related to the culture around games, is the most sinister in that it is subtle and more difficult to recognize.  Gaming culture may be considered a reflection of a dominant, oppressive culture (Freire, 1970/2000) that propagates gender inequalities and marginalizes minority voices (Galarneau & Chen, in print).

I will first define digital games and problematize the way in which games have traditionally been categorized in general culture and for research.  Many of the contradictions in findings about games’ effect on violence, for example, can be attributed to researchers’ assumptions about the kinds of games they use in their studies (Squire, 2003).  I will then discuss three benefits related to games for learning.  The benefits have been mapped onto three different views of how people learn—in a social world, through situated experience, and by practicing skills—and follow a general narrowing of the activities around game-play where the first view treats games at a macro level and the last view at a micro level.  These levels are not discrete, however, and there is quite a bit of overlap between the three.  Finally, I will cover three controversies related to gaming: violence, addiction, and the propagation of social oppression from off-screen life to gaming life.

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Mark’s PhD exams, question 1

Huzzah!

I turned in my general exams today.  I betcha lots of people feel the way I do right now which is a combination of relief for being done and anxiety about how little I know…

A friend imagines that every morning for the next three weeks I’ll wake up thinking, I shoulda added *this* guy to my references…  ah well…

Anyway, thought people might want to read em, so I’ll post them up.