TY - JOUR
T1 - Transformational play
T2 - Using games to position person, content, and context
AU - Barab, Sasha A.
AU - Gresalfi, Melissa
AU - Ingram-Goble, Adam
N1 - Funding Information:
The work reported in this article was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grants No. 9980081 and No. 0092831) and by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (Grant No. 06-88658-000-HCD).
PY - 2011/12
Y1 - 2011/12
N2 - Videogames are a powerful medium that curriculum designers can use to create narratively rich worlds for achieving educational goals. In these worlds, youth can become scientists, doctors, writers, and mathematicians who critically engage complex disciplinary content to transform a virtual world. Toward illuminating this potential, the authors advance the theory of transformational play. Such play involves taking on the role of a protagonist who must employ conceptual understandings to transform a problem-based fictional context and transform the player as well. The authors first survey the theory and then ground their discussion in two units that, as part of their design-based research methodology, have simultaneously given rise to and been informed by their theory of transformational play. They close with a discussion of research and design challenges.
AB - Videogames are a powerful medium that curriculum designers can use to create narratively rich worlds for achieving educational goals. In these worlds, youth can become scientists, doctors, writers, and mathematicians who critically engage complex disciplinary content to transform a virtual world. Toward illuminating this potential, the authors advance the theory of transformational play. Such play involves taking on the role of a protagonist who must employ conceptual understandings to transform a problem-based fictional context and transform the player as well. The authors first survey the theory and then ground their discussion in two units that, as part of their design-based research methodology, have simultaneously given rise to and been informed by their theory of transformational play. They close with a discussion of research and design challenges.
KW - computers and learning
KW - development
KW - instructional design
KW - instructional technologies
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U2 - 10.3102/0013189X10386593
DO - 10.3102/0013189X10386593
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:78651427845
SN - 0013-189X
VL - 39
SP - 525
EP - 536
JO - Educational Researcher
JF - Educational Researcher
IS - 7
ER -