Students’ framing of a digital physics videogame as seen in student discourse and post-gameplay data

Abstract

A qualitative and quantitative study that give insight into students’ framing of digital physics video game environments is presented in this thesis. A qualitative pilot study is explained followed by a follow-up interview study. Analysis of post-interview video data showed evidence of discourse-differences in students’ framing of gaming environments as being game-like, or physics like. A secondary quantitative study analyzed the detail of students’ post gameplay artwork to see if there were statistically significant difference in the artwork due to the frequency and duration of gameplay. Analysis using a hierarchical linear model split across class sessions was not able to explain the variance in students’ performance.