Abstract
This chapter reflects on pre-service teacher (PST) education by bringing together two different but interconnected science education research areas: gaming and emotions. There are few studies on PSTs as game designers. In this chapter, the difficulty of balancing elements of game design with pedagogical aims in gaming activity is documented. Paralleling this paucity of research on gaming is a lack of research focusing on PST’s sense-making about their pedagogy through their emotions. From a hermeneutic phenomenological research approach, these two issues are examined by presenting an exploratory study. Qualitative analysis of three focus-group discussions with three groups of three elementary PSTs focused on the group member’s emotional experiences while designing and implementing science game activities in a teaching and learning sequence. The nature of the PST’s emotional experiences serves as the background to identify the challenges of introducing game design in pre-service teacher education. Planning moments of implementation in science education courses allow the opportunity for reflection on how PSTs react to students’ emotions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abell, S. K., Appleton, K., & Hanuscin, D. L. (2010). Designing and teaching the elementary science methods course. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203859131
Alexakos, K. (2015). Being a teacher|researcher: A primer on doing authentic inquiry research on teaching and learning. Sense Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-295-0
Alklind Taylor, A.-S. (2014). Facilitation matters: A framework for instructor-led serious gaming (PhD thesis at the school of informatics). University of Skövde.
Amat, A., & Sellas, I. (2020). Self-reflection methods to study emotional experiences in science and mathematics pre-service teacher education. In K. Tobin & K. Alexakos (Eds.), Doing authentic inquiry to improve learning and teaching (pp. 205–228). Brill|Sense. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004446885_011
Barrett, L. F. (2017). How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Bellocchi, A., Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., Sandhu, M., & Sandhu, S. (2013). Exploring emotional climate in pre-service science teacher education. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 8(3), 529–552. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-013-9526-3
Bellocchi, A., Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., King, D., Sandhu, M., & Henderson, S. (2014). Emotional climate and high-quality learning experiences in science teacher education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 1301–1325. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21170
Chmiel, M. (2009). Game design towards scientific literacy. International Journal of Cognition and Technology, 14(2)–15(1), 32–42.
Crookall, D., & Thorngate, W. (2009). Acting, knowing, learning, simulating, gaming. Simulation & Gaming, 40(1), 8–26.
Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row.
Dewey, J. (1894). The theory of emotions: Emotional attitudes. The Psychological Review, 1, 553–569.
Dewey, J. (2008). The later works vol. 13: Experience and education. In J.-A. Boydston (Ed.). Southern Illinois University Press. (First published in 1938).
Dreon, O., & McDonald, S. (2012). Being in the hot spot: A phenomenological study of two beginning teachers’ experiences enacting inquiry science pedagogy. Teachers and Teaching, 18(3), 297–313. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2012.629837
Feiman-Nemser, S. (2001). From preparation to practice: Designing a continuum to strengthen and sustain teaching. Teachers College Record, 103(6), 1013–1055. https://doi.org/10.1111/0161-4681.00141
Holmes, B., & Gee, E. (2016). A framework for understanding game-based teaching and learning. On the Horizon, 24(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1108/OTH-11-2015-0069
Honey, M. A., & Hilton, M. (Eds.). (2011). Learning science through computer games and simulations. National Academies Press.
Hufnagel, E. (2015). Pre-service elementary teachers’ emotional connections and disconnections to climate change in a science course. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 52(9), 1296–1324. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21245
Hufnagel, E. (2018). Emotional discourse as constructed in an environmental science course. In G. J. Kelly & J. L. Green (Eds.), Theory and methods for sociocultural research in science and engineering education (pp. 155–180). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351139922
Hufnagel, E. (2019). Emotional discourse as constructed in an environmental science course. In G. J. Kelly & J. L. Green (Eds.), Theory and methods for sociocultural research in science and engineering education (pp. 155–180). Routledge.
Hufnagel, E., & Kelly, G. J. (2018). Examining emotional expressions in discourse: Methodological considerations. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-017-9806-4
Jaber, L. Z., Hufnagel, E., & Radoff, J. (2019). “This is really frying my brain!”: How affect supports inquiry in an online learning environment. Research in Science Education, 1–24.
Kim, B., Park, H., & Beak, Y. (2009). Not just fun, but serious strategies: Using metacognitive strategies in game-based learning. Computers & Education, 52(4), 800–810. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2008.12.004
Linn, M. C., Chang, H. Y., Chiu, J., Zhang, H., & McElhaney, K. (2010). Can desirable difficulties overcome deception clarity in scientific visualizations? In A. S. Benjamin (Ed.), Successful remembering and successful forgetting. A Festschrift in honor of Robert A. Bjork (pp. 239–262). Routledge.
Marti, J. (2012). Aprendre ciències a l’educació primària. Editorial Graó.
Ritchie, S. M., & Beers Newlands, J. (2017). Emotional events in learning science. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics, and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 85–106). Springer.
Rivera Maulucci, M. S. (2013). Emotions and positional identity in becoming a social justice science teacher: Nicole’s story. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50, 453–478. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21081
Roth, W. M., & Jornet, R. (2013). Toward a theory of experience. Science Education, 98, 106–126. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21085
Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. MIT Press.
van Staalduinen, J. P., & de Freitas, S. (2011). A game-based learning framework: Learning game design and learning outcomes. In M. S. Khine (Ed.), Learning to play: Exploring the future education with video games. Peter Lang Publishing Inc.
Vygotskij, L. S. (2001). Lekcii po pedologii [Lectures on pedology]. Izhevsk, Russia: Udmurdskij University. (A translation of Lecture 5 to which we refer here exists as Vygotsky, L. S. (1994). The problem of the environment. In R. van der Veer & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky reader (pp. 338–354). Basil Blackwell.) (Original work published in 1935).
Weitze, C. L. (2014). Developing goals and objectives for gameplay and learning. In K. Schrier (Ed.), Learning, education and games: Volume one: Curricular and design considerations (Vol. 1, pp. 225–249). Carnegie Mellon University ETC Press.
Werbach, K., & Hunter, D. (2012). For the win: How game thinking can revolutionize your business. Wharton Digital Press.
Young, M. F., Slota, S., Cutter, A. B., Jalette, G., Mullin, G., Lai, B., Simeoni, Z., Tran, M., & Yukhymenko, M. (2012). Our princess is in another castle: A review of trends in serious gaming for education. Review of Educational Research, 82, 61–89. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.3102/0034654312436980
Zembylas, M. (2002). Constructing genealogies of teachers’ emotions in science teaching. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39, 79–103. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.10010
Zembylas, M. (2007). Emotional ecology: The intersection of emotional knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge in teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 355–367. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.12.002
Zembylas, M., & Barker, H. B. (2002). Pre-service teacher attitudes and emotions: Individual spaces, community conversations and transformations. Research in Science Education, 32(3), 329–351.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Martín-Ferrer, L., Hufnagel, E., Amat, A., Espinet, M., Bellocchi, A. (2023). Pre-service Elementary Teachers as Game Designers: Emotional Experiences from the Field. In: Thomas, G.P., Boon, H.J. (eds) Challenges in Science Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18092-7_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18092-7_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-18091-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-18092-7
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)