Technology at play: an ethnographic study of young people's video gaming practices

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006.This study is a close ethnographic analysis of a small number of children's video gaming practices. The gamer, as the unit of analysis, was followed as competencies in the game context developed over several months. Throughout the study the question was asked: What are gamers learning as they play? The study seeks to extend everyday cognition and informal learning research into an aspect of children's lives we know little about. This in turn helps us understand how children shape their own activities and interactions towards self directed learning. The analysis is based on an ecological or distributed perspective of cognition and learning. Video recordings of in-home game playing, field-notes, interviews with children and parents about their game playing, and a collection of resources children use in their activities are used to understand how children engage in this learning process. Findings from this study are then used to develop design recommendations for learning environments