Informal learning and wellbeing outcomes of gameplay and their associations with gameplay motivation

Educational functions of digital games are often seen only in the light of the serious and purposeful activities that aim for learning outcomes, in contrast with non-educational games that are designed for entertainment. The focus of this paper is in studying players' learning outcomes from playing non-educational games, and how these relate to wellbeing outcomes of playing, and gaming motivation. The data for this study was collected via a survey (N = 1,202) in the United Kingdom and the United States. The survey respondents answered the question regarding what players perceive they have learnt by playing digital games. A generic data-driven qualitative content analysis of the responses to this question yielded 11 categories representing different types of game-based learning outcomes. A consequent cluster analysis suggested three groups of informal game-based learning, which differed in their emphasis on (1) learning persistence, (2) learning practices and community, and (3) learning to perform. Our analyses indicated substantial connections between the learning outcomes and gameplay motives and gameplay activity preferences. Such connections point out how gameplay activity has an inherently close relationship with learning. Moreover, the results yielded significant association between learning outcomes, wellbeing measures, and eudaimonic motives to play digital games. These results indicate that playing games because gaming is aligned with players' core values and need for self-realization are clear precedents for both wellbeing and learning outcomes.

Exploring Gameful Motivation of Autonomous Learners

In this explorative study, we investigated motives of autonomous learners to participate in an online course, and how these motives are related to gameplay motivations, engagement in the course experience, and learning outcomes. The guiding premise for the study has been the idea that learning and game playing carry phenomenal similarities that could be revealed by scrutinizing motives for participating in a massive open online course that does not involve any intentionally game-like features. The research was conducted by analyzing survey data (N = 705) collected from individuals who had voluntarily participated in an open online course about artificial intelligence and its societal impact. The survey included an explorative Motives for Autonomous Learning (MAL) inventory. Exploratory factor analysis suggested that the MAL inventory consisted of six dimensions out of which four were consistent with factors that earlier research has associated with motives to engage with video games. Of the identified factors, the dimension that most clearly described autonomous and playful predispositions was found to be a main precedent for both experienced gamefulness of the learning experience and positive learning outcomes. In all, the results of this study demonstrated that playfulness and autonomy were both prominent and significant factors across the whole learning process.

Understanding Human-Technology Relations Within Technologization and Appification of Musicality

In this paper, we outline a theoretical account of the relationship between technology and human musicality. An enactive and biocultural position is adopted that assumes a close coevolutionary relationship between the two. From this position, we aim at clarifying how the present and emerging technologies, becoming embedded and embodied in our lifeworld, inevitably co-constitute and transform musical practices, skills, and ways of making sense of music. Therefore, as a premise of our scrutiny, we take it as a necessity to more deeply understand the ways that humans become affiliated to the ever-changing instruments of music technology, in order to better understand the coevolutionary impact on learning and other aspects of musicality being constituted together with these instruments. This investigation is particularly motivated by the rapid and diverse development of mobile applications and their potential impact, as musical instruments, on learning and cognizing music. The term appification refers to enactive processes in which applications (i.e., apps) and their user interfaces, developed for various ecosystems of mobile smart technology, partake in reorganizing our ways of musical acting and thinking. On the basis of the theoretical analysis, we argue that understanding the phenomenon of the human-technology relationship, and its implications for our embodied musical minds, requires acknowledging (1) how apps contribute to conceptual constructing of musical activities, (2) how apps can be designed or utilized in a way that reinforces the epistemological continuum between embodied and abstract sense-making, and (3) how apps become merged with musical instruments.