Research Ideas
My year as a Research Masters student in LDT at UGA has allowed me to develop my research interests and establish long-term professional goals. Considering myself first and foremost an applied linguist, and drawing on my research background in critical literacy, one of my goals as a PhD student would be to use my knowledge in LDT to facilitate learning processes and create spaces of self-expression for learners that do not generally have their voices heard, and their cultural expressions valued, by the general community, such as students of racial minorities and those who have disabilities. I believe, thus, that the use of technology can bring both educational and social gains, not only for these populations, but also for the environments that surround them. Furthermore, I would like to continue investigating the connection between literacy development and technologies, which would enable varied research options to pursue in the future.
I would like to research the linguistic benefits, as well as general cognitive gains, of game development for middle-graders with dyslexia. My main assumption, presently, is that the possibility of utilizing various types of literacy that are not limited to written words will allow these students to actively produce content in different text genres, thus using and developing language in meaningful ways. Furthermore, by making games, learners would be able to share their stories, real or fictional, with audiences beyond their classroom. This research could also have cultural implications, as it could show that students with learning disabilities are able to learn as well as those without disabilities when instruction, environment, and learning goals are adapted to their needs.
That said, my research questions are as follows:
(i) Do game creation processes in instructional environments facilitate the acquisition of narrative discourses by learners with dyslexia? If so, how?
(ii) Do game creation processes in instructional environments increase learners' motivation for acquiring new discourses other than the narrative ones? If so, how?
Relevant Literature
The following scholarly works can be valuable for my research:
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about language and literacy. New York: McMillan.
In this book, James Paul Gee discusses the contributions that video games can bring to literacy development. Published in 2003, it can be considered a seminal work related to the educational benefits of video games. Throughout the book, Gee analyzes games and identifies affordances for literacy improvement, as well as basic principles related to games and learning. This scholarly work will be particularly useful for assessing students' literacy development throughout the research process.
Barab, S. A., Gresalfi, M., & Ingram-Goble, A. (2010). Transformational play: Using games to position person, content, and context. Educational Researcher, 39(7), 525-536.
Although this article does not address the topic of game development as an activity that leads to educational gains, Barab et al. (2010) made me think of the social aspect of my research: by playing games created by the participants, others will be able to have access to their discourses, interpretations of the world.
Majgaard, G. (2014). The Playful and Reflective Game Designer. Electronic Journal of E-Learning, 12(3), 271-280.
Majgaard (2014) describes the experience of first semester engineering students in a game design course. The main aspect that I'm drawn to in this article is the research design itself, that is, how the course was organized and what needed to be done to assure the success of the process. Furthermore, the author states that one of his objectives was to make the game development process reflective, and, having that as one of my main points of consideration, Majgaard's (2014) article is certainly a reference.
Owston, R., Wideman, H., Ronda, N. S., & Brown, C. (2009). Computer game development as a literacy activity. Computers & Education, 53(3), 977-989.
Ownston et al.'s article is initially based on the premise that game making may lead to literacy development, which is also my main assumption for my future research. According to the authors, developing a video game improved learners' use of research resources, content retention, and information analysis skills.