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The current in-situ, descriptive case study explored in-service teachers’ contributions and perspectives in the participatory design of an educational game for enhancing middle school students’ computational thinking skills. The informant design technique was adopted, involving specific stakeholders at the stage of conceptualization. Data were collected from 8 in-service teachers at 9 middle schools through observation, a series of individual interviews, and focus-group interviews. The study results indicated that in-service teachers made contributions to the content design at the stage of conceptualization.
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This content will become publicly available on April 30, 2026
Teachers as participatory design for game-based learning
The current in-situ, descriptive case study demonstrated how we involved in-service teachers as informants in designing an educational game to enhance middle school students’ computational thinking through participatory design. Data were collected from eight in-service teachers at middle schools through individual interviews, focus groups, and field notes. The study results indicated that in-service teachers made 82% of contributions to the Learning facet, followed by 14% of the Gameplay facet, at the early stage of conceptualization. Additionally, participants provided insights on intrinsically embedding content in game design processes by offering valuable and relevant pedagogical content knowledge, including knowledge of content and students, knowledge of content and teaching, and knowledge of content and curriculum.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1933848
- PAR ID:
- 10656506
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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