Final report

September 2006
Richard Sandford, Mary Ulicsak, Keri Facer and Tim Rudd, Futurelab

This report outlines the context, objectives, methods, findings and key messages arising from the Teaching with Games project.

The full version of this report is available to download in pdf format - see box below. On this page you'll find the executive summary.

Executive summary

The Teaching with Games project was a one-year study designed to offer a broad overview of teachers' and students' use of and attitudes towards commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) computer games in schools. It aimed to identify the factors that would impact the use of these entertainment games in school and describe the processes by which teachers plan and implement games-based learning in existing curricular contexts. Finally, it aimed to provide recommendations for future games-based learning approaches in schools for teachers, developers and policy makers.

The study had two main activities:

• National surveys conducted by Ipsos MORI of primary and secondary teachers and school children aged 11-16.
• Detailed case studies of 10 teachers' approaches to developing their use of games for learning. Ten case studies were completed in four schools. The schools represented a range of urban, rural, state and private settings. Two schools offered lessons based on a competency-based curriculum derived from the RSA's Opening Minds project, in addition to lessons based on a traditional curriculum. The games used in the schools were: The Sims 2, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and Knights of Honor.

The key findings from the project were:

• A generational divide in games play is still evident, with a signifi cant majority of teachers (72%) not playing games for leisure, compared with 82% of students playing games outside lessons at least once a fortnight. Boys were also more likely to play games for leisure than girls. The majority of teachers and students surveyed reported that they thought games would motivate students to engage with learning.
• The teachers and students in the case studies generally reported that using games in lessons was motivating. However, the study suggests that student motivation might be more likely to arise 1) when students were using games familiar from their home environment, and 2) when students were able to have some degree of autonomy in playing the game.
• There were a variety of technical obstacles to be overcome when using the games in a school context. These were largely due to the copy-protection features of the games. Technical support staff play a signifi cant role in supporting teachers to overcome these diffi culties.
• Concerns over curriculum and assessment appeared to be more infl uential in selecting the age of students to use games in lessons than the age rating for the games. No teacher expressed concern about using 'teen games', ie those suitable for 13 and over, with 11 year-olds.
• Many teachers found the fixed length of lessons to be constraining in both the planning and implementation of games-based learning in schools.
• There was a range of gaming ability amongst students which had an impact on teachers' lesson plans. In general, there seemed to be an expectation that students would be more competent using the game in class than they were seen to be.
• While teachers needed a certain level of familiarity with a game to be able to use it in their teaching, achieving particular educational objectives through the use of the game was more dependent upon a teacher's knowledge of the curriculum with which they were working than it was on their ability with the game.
• Teachers followed either competence or content-based curricula. Despite initial assumptions, the particular curriculum followed by teachers did not appear to be the primary factor determining success in integrating a game into classroom teaching. Rather, the particular context in which a teacher worked - their experience, their teaching style, their familiarity with the curriculum followed and the wider culture of the institution - appeared to have more impact.
• Using games in a meaningful way within lessons depended far more on the effective use of existing teaching skills than it did on the development of any new, game-related skills. Far from being sidelined, teachers were required to take a central role in scaffolding and supporting students' learning through games.
• Where previous studies have suggested that games need to offer a fully accurate underlying model to be of benefit for formal education, this study suggests that for the game to be of benefit to teachers, it need only be accurate to a certain degree: there may be wider inaccuracies within the game model, but these do not necessarily preclude the game from being used meaningfully in a lesson.

What was clear from the study was that a number of factors were significant in influencing the process by which games can be appropriated for use in schools. These included:

• the technical infrastructure of the school (including personnel and facilities)
• institutional and professional factors (including the organisation of time and space in the school, cultures of collaboration/knowledge sharing, traditions of 'best practice' in lesson planning, and classroom rituals)
• the extent to which games can be 'disaggregated' and appropriated to meet specific needs
• the individual teachers' personal experience of games play, and their personal and professional identities as teachers
• the pervading cultural expectations of children's attitudes to and expertise in playing computer games.

While games may have potential to support learning and while many teachers and pupils expressed enthusiasm in using games in lessons (for example, one teacher said "Oh I'd love to use it again. I think there's so much potential in it"), it is clear that these factors need to be taken into account by teachers, and ideally by school leaders and games developers, before this potential can be fully realised.

top of page