Melinda Máthé Teaching Assistant

The popularity of gaming among children and adolescents have been growing in the past decades and has sparked strong interest in the use of digital games in education. Well-designed digital games can be powerful learning tools with the capacity to support a range of increased motivational, cognitive, behavioral, affective, physiological and social outcomes. However, solid empirical evidence for digital games as effective teaching-learning tools has been mixed. There are distinct approaches to digital game designs that make such generalization difficult and research has so far payed little attention to the important role of teachers.

In my research, I am especially interested in practice-based use of digital games. While a variety of digital games and gamification tools have found foothold in Swedish schools, their implementation is hampered by the lack of access to relevant and good-quality digital games, financial resources, preparation time and adequate technology, as well as the lack of continuous professional development opportunities for teachers.

I propose research, should have a twofold focus in this area: the design of adequate games relevant to the needs of education, and contextualized, flexible competence development solutions for teachers. I am especially interested in educational transformation through the use of user-centric, co-creative design processes that involves educational stakeholders and game designers.