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Spotlighting spectatorship: elevating observation-based learning in the design and evaluation of body-scale learning environments

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Abstract

Research on the educational value of play tends to focus on active players, especially when evaluating novel interaction technologies. However, a long history of scholarship underscores observing communal practice as a primary means of enculturation and learning. This paper demonstrates learning opportunities available within a range of participation forms—from spectator to player and some in between—that emerge around Geometris, a collaborative, body-scale geometry game, as installed in a children’s science museum. Considering learning as participation in communal practice, I present frequency analysis of roughly 350 participants followed by thick narrative descriptions of 3 focal groups to characterize the learning opportunities available within diverse forms of participation in this technologically enabled gameplay. I also identify particular design elements—namely the user-agnostic input mechanism and certain crowd control measures—that inadvertently enabled these participation forms. Theoretical implications include the pedagogically relevant range of action–perception possibilities available across participation forms. Additionally, proposed design heuristics could facilitate these diverse forms of participation in other educational designs.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are not publically available so as to protect the identity of the participants involved.

Notes

  1. This is not to say that a complete shift to large-scale, body movement-based systems is inevitable. Rather, as these systems become more accessible and integrated into recreational and educational spaces (e.g., the varieties of VR, AR, and MR for education), the observation-based learning opportunities they offer are distinct from smaller scale, table-top or screen-based games and merit study.

  2. This work is not intended to contradict findings on the value of active participation in learning activities (Cunningham, 2011). Rather, I propose that when educational technologies attract an audience, the forms of learning available to that audience merit study.

  3. Researchers were only counted as participants if they engaged in either cross-talk or ratified play.

  4. I use this geographically based taxonomy as opposed to a body-based one (e.g., Downs et al., 2015) due to the clearly demarcated physical regions within the game space, as has been done in other museum-based research (e.g., Shapiro et al., 2017).

  5. All names are pseudonyms.

  6. Participants’ actions and perceptions are, of course, also shaped by myriad social influences, which, though crucial, are outside the scope of this current study.

  7. I respect Tekin and Reeves’ (2017) distinction between “being a spectator” and “doing spectating” and acknowledge that the existence of this participation ecosystem does not mean that all participants will leverage it.

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Acknowledgements

The ideas presented in this paper were refined with Professors Dor Abrahamson and Michelle Wilkerson and with members of their Embodied Design Research Laboratory and Computational Representations Writing Group. Jake Cha and SreeVidya Ganga contributed to the qualitative coding presented herein. Geometris was collaboratively designed and created by Elena Durán-López, Ganesh V. Iyer, and Leah F. Rosenbaum, with significant guidance from Professors Kimiko Ryokai and Noura Howell.

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    Leah F. Rosenbaum

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Correspondence to Leah F. Rosenbaum.

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Rosenbaum, L.F. Spotlighting spectatorship: elevating observation-based learning in the design and evaluation of body-scale learning environments. Education Tech Research Dev (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-024-10373-x

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