This article introduces this special issue of the journal, dedicated to research into the psychology of playing computer games. The interdisciplinary character of gaming-activity research is emphasized by the example of ethnographic, culturological and psychological works. The characteristic view of ethnographic science, which sees gaming as entertainment and a way of spending spare time, is dominant in research practice, including psychological and pedagogical practice. This is connected with studies on gaming activity and the psychological qualities of computer gamers. 25 years of psychological research in computer game-related activity in Russia are reviewed. The article refers to such lines of conducted research as the study of personality traits and cognitive characteristics of gamers, their implicit beliefs, and the psychological addictions of gamers. However, the frontline of foreign research is significantly wider and some trends of these works are insufficiently represented in home scientific literature. Among them is the disputed issue about whether or not aggressive computer games cause an escalation in aggression among gamers, as well as about the specifics of cognitive processes in gamers. Contemporary approaches to finding solutions for these questions are explored on both analytical and empirical levels in the articles that constitute this special issue. In one analytical article the argument is put forward that contemporary multi-user games encourage not only gaming activity, but communicative activity as well, and to some extent represent something like a “club”.

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Les jeux et les hommes

On the psychology of computer gaming

Originally puzzles were not for recreation, but serious questions you might be killed if you couldn’t solve them. But in modern times, puzzles had become a sort of recreation, decreasing the seriousness and religiousness gradually. Now, the ‘rule creators’ of puzzles began to attract notice. I, as a rule creator, published a book, Kyoto University Student, Higashida’s Puzzles. I’ll show several puzzle examples from my inventions. In the puzzle world, the importance of not only making problems but also inventing rules has been insisted. But, unless the mass-producing system of the new rule puzzle is constituted, the rule will disappear at once. It is usually hard to remake puzzles into computer games or videogames. But the puzzle world, where new rules are created in succession, shouldn’t be left behind the times.

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Machine-Made Puzzles and Hand-Made Puzzles

Gamified lectures are defined as lectures formatted as games, for the purposes of this research. This paper presents an example of a traditional instruction-based lecture that was redesigned using a game-like design. First, confrontations specific to gaming situations were considered, to derive goals for students in a classroom. Students fought using a game system in these experiments. The teacher acted as a game administrator, and controlled all the game materials. He also became an interface between the game system and students. Redesigned lectures were compared with traditional instruction-based lectures for their effects on relieving student dissatisfaction with the classroom. The achievement levels of students showed no improvement in the gamified design compared to the traditional instruction-based format.

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/pdf/gamified-lecture-courses-improve-student-evaluations-but-not-20b8t1tj0e.pdf

Gamified Lecture Courses Improve Student Evaluations but Not Exam Scores

En Suisse Romande, les enseignants du primaire disposent d'un ensemble officiel et unique de manuels avec des commentaires didactiques, connu sous le nom de moyens COROME. Ceux-ci sont constitues d'activites classees en domaines, mais sans ordre preetabli a l'interieur d'un meme domaine. Beaucoup de ces activites, surtout pour les petits degres, se presentent sous la forme de jeux. Apres une rapide presentation du contexte, et une courte reflexion sur l'utilisation didactique des jeux, nous proposons dans cet article une analyse a priori d'une activite de premiere annee primaire. Il s'agit d'un jeu de de, pour faire travailler des additions. Notre analyse fait apparaitre que le but didactique suppose du jeu n'est pas conforme a l'enjeu du jeu. Nous avons experimente cette activite dans une classe d'une commune du canton de Geneve. L'analyse a posteriori confirme les hypotheses de notre analyse a priori. Une experimentation avec deux binomes isoles, nous permet de faire des hypotheses pour adapter le dispositif didactique.

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Les jeux et les hommes

Citations

On the psychology of computer gaming

Machine-Made Puzzles and Hand-Made Puzzles

Gamified Lecture Courses Improve Student Evaluations but Not Exam Scores

Analyse didactique d'une activité sous forme de jeu en lien avec l'addition

Journal of the Short Story in English

Related Papers (5)

Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy

Beyond boredom and anxiety