Mathematics that arises from collaborative gameplay in The Sims 3

Mathematics emerges and is used in out-of-school settings, such as workplace settings and everyday activities. An activity that many children enjoy doing in their everyday lives is playing digital games for entertainment. However, research exploring mathematics that emerges during children’s gameplay in out-of-school settings is limited. This study aims to shed light to this field of research by exploring mathematics that arises in collaborative gameplay in The Sims 3, which is a real-life simulation commercial digital game that allows players to edit a domestic onscreen environment, in out-of-school settings and without a teacher’s intervention. Following a constructionist epistemology and a socio-cultural theoretical framework that views context as paramount, the research design of this study is ‘embedded multiple case study’, with activity being the unit of analysis. This study followed eight 8-12 year-old children who, in pairs, were asked to do two open tasks which are considered integral to this digital game’s gameplay. First, they were asked to build, furnish and decorate a house without budget constraints and then a house for a selected Sims family with a budget constraint. The four groups’ onscreen gameplay activity and talk was recorded using screen recording software; analysis focused on players’ goal-directed actions and discourse during gameplay. This study argues that players underwent an instrumental genesis during gameplay and that: i. mathematics that arose in players’ gameplay activity was ‘blended’ with players’ everyday prior understandings and the game’s virtual artefacts and rules which they used as resources, ii. mathematical thinking in this game lies in players mathematicising relationships which are hidden in the game’s virtual artefacts and become mobilised during gameplay, iii. the constrained gameplay influenced players’ mathematical thinking as players experienced unexpected situations which required them to use their mathematical prior understandings and Mercer’s exploratory type of talk