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Kafai, Y. B. (1995). Minds in play: Computer game design as a context for children's learning. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kafai, Y. B. (1996). Gender differences in children's constructions of video games. In Patricia M. Greenfield & Rodney R. Cocking (Eds.), Interacting with video (pp. 3966). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation. Also in Yasmin B. Kafai and Mitchel Resnick (1996) (Eds.), Constructionism in practice: Designing, thinking, and learning in a digital world (pp. 97111). Mawhaw, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Playing video games has become a common activity among American children. Many research approaches have focused on explaining why children love playing these games and what effects of video game playing have on children's social, cognitive and emotional well-being. Here I propose to discuss video games from a different perspective-when children are making their own video games instead of playing them. In designing such games, which features of commercially available video games would children choose to include in their own designs? Concerning the gender stereotyping found in many video games, what kind of games would girls choose to design? The results indicate significant gender differences in all aspects of the game design: genre, worlds, characters, interactions, and feedback. The gender-related choices and the emergence of nar-rative game forms are discussed in more detail. Conclusions address the potential of game-making environments in light of the study's results.
Kafai, Y. B. (1998). Video game designs by children: Consistency and variability of gender differences. In J. Cassell & H. Jenkins (Eds.), From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games (pp. 90114). Boston, MA: MIT Press. Also in M. Kinder (Ed.) (1999), Kids' media culture (pp.293-316). Durham: Duke University Press.
Over the past ten years interactive
technologies have become a significant part of children's culture.
Video games such as Super Mario Brothers™ or Sonic™
have found a stable place in children's playrooms, in particular
games catering to boy's interests in sports, adventure and combat
(Provenzo, 1991). Only recently has so called "pink software"
established a playground for girls promoting games and software
such as Barbie's Fashion Designer™ or the Babysitter
Club™ that draw on characters and activities popular
among girls. In many ways, the production of interactive toys
and games seems to replicate gender differences found in traditional
toys and games and the interests these generate in children (Garvey,
1990; Kinder, 1991; Singer & Singer, 1991; Sutton-Smith, 1986).
There is ample evidence in the research literature for the existence
of gender differences in children's video game interest, use and
performance (Goldstein, 1994; Provenzo, 1991). These gender differences
also appear when children are asked to make their own video games
(Kafai, 1996). But there are some indicators that these differences
are not as universal as they may appear at first: some software
such as Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?™ seem
to have equal appeal for boys and girls and some girls like to
play video games albeit with different interpretations (Gailey,
1993). Furthermore, gender differences in play performance disappear
after extended exposure (Greenfield & Cocking, 1994), a claim
which is also supported by research on girls' general use of and
interest in technology (Linn, 1985). While these are isolated
indicators, they point out that gender differences are not as
consistent as one might believe. It is possible that children
display more versatility and range in their play interests and
that particular factors such as game structures or context settings
might have an impact. Research on children's toy and play preferences
has provided evidence that structures of toys and play settings
can elicit certain behaviors from play participants (Karpoe &
Olney, 1983; Ross & Taylor, 1989). The current analysis of
video games designed by boys and girls intends to shed some light
on the discussion around gender differences by comparing and contrasting
two different game design contexts. In one context, I asked students
between the ages nine and ten to design and implement educational
video games to teach fractions to younger students. In the second
context, I asked children to design and implement educational
video games to teach younger students about the solar. The context
differences examined in this paper refer to differences between
subject matters, mathematics and science. In the following sections,
I first review pertinent research and describe the research context
in which the students produced the video games. Next, I compare
and contrast the games designed by boys and girls in the two different
contexts taking into consideration features such as genres, worlds,
character design, interactions, and narrative. In the discussion,
I address the context dependency of gender differences and what
insights these results provide for developing video game design
and play environments.
Kafai, Y. B. (1998). Play and technology: Revised realities
and potential perspectives. In D. P. Fromberg, & D. Bergen,
(Eds.), Play from birth to twelve: Contexts, perspectives,
and meanings (pp. 9399). New York: Garland Publishing.
Interactive technologies such
as video games have become an integral part of children's play
culture and living conditions. Many video games present virtual
worlds in which children can control and interact with fantasy
figures and develop mastery of complex action sequences. This
particular nature of video game playing and its impact on children's
social, cognitive, and motivational development is used as an
example for the revised realities of play. While video games in
their current form provide children with new playgrounds, the
potential of interactive technologies to provide construction
material for play has received far less attention. A study of
children making electronic games examplifies constructive aspects
of play with interactive technologies. The chapter concludes with
an outlook of the next generation of electronic building blocks
and virtual playgrounds in which children can play and interact
over long distances.
Kafai, Y. B., Franke, M., Ching, C., & Shih, J. (1998). Games as interactive learning environments fostering teachers' and students' mathematical thinking. International Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning, 3(2), 149-193.
Many learning environments, computer-based
or not, have been developed for either students or teachers alone
to engage them in mathematical inquiry. While some headway has
been made in both directions, few efforts have concentrated on
creating learning environments that bring both teachers and students
together in their teaching and learning. In the following paper,
we propose game design as such a learning environment for students
and teachers to build on and challenge their existing understandings
of mathematics, engage in relevant and mean-ingful learning contexts,
and develop connections among their mathematical ideas and their
real world contexts. To examine the potential of this approach,
we conducted and analyzed two studies: Study I focused on a team
of four elementary school students designing games to teach fractions
to younger students, Study II focused on teams of pre-service
teachers engaged in the same task. We analyzed the various games
designed by the different teams to understand how teachers and
students conceptualize the task of creating virtual game learning
environment for others, in which ways they integrate their understanding
of fractions and develop notions about students' thinking in fractions,
and how conceptual design tools can provide a common platform
to develop meaningful fraction contexts. In our analysis, we found
that most teachers and students, when left to their own devices,
create instructional games to teach fractions that incorporate
little of their knowledge. We found that when we provided teachers
and students with conceptual design tools such as game screens
and design directives that facilitated an in-tegration of content
and game context, the games as well as teachers' and students'
thinking increased in their sophistication. In the discussion,
we elaborate on how the design activities helped to integrate
rarely used informal knowledge of students and teachers, how the
conceptual design tools improved the instructional design process,
and how students and teachers benefit in their mathematical inquiry
from each others' perspectives. In the outlook, we discuss features
for computational design learning environments.