Video Games – a Source of Knowledge? - an investigation amongst youths about their thoughts on their video gaming habits

Malmö University

School of Teacher Education

KSM: English

Dissertation

Video Games – a Source of Knowledge?

- an investigation amongst youths about their thoughts on their

video gaming habits

Datorspel – en källa till kunskap?

- en undersökning bland ungdomar om deras tankar om

datorspelande

Björn Vintetjärn

Abstract

This research is based on the following research question: What are the pupils’ thoughts about their gaming habits and possible learning situations in connection with their gaming? The study is based on literature on the subject and on two interviews with five youths who are between sixteen and seventeen years of age. The conclusions that can be drawn from my research question are:

- Learning could take place in different domains and be put into different contexts. Hence, language learnt from playing video games, could be applied on domains outside of the game, i.e. implicit learning in terms of using a foreign language when communicating with other players can become tacit knowledge that the learner can apply on settings outside of the game. Also, social skills learnt from the structure of a game like World of Warcraft can be used in a formal educational setting. As a video game is multimodal in its nature there are benefits from also using other multimodal material in formal education, as many of the pupils are familiar and used to the same sort of text.

- There are also problems connected to informal learning. The informants in this study describe how their interest in video games often clashes with their formal education. Another aspect is of course how the quality of the content learnt within an informal setting is being supervised, in contrast to how the formal education works with a trained teacher and a set curriculum that carefully explains how the learning should become available for the learner. Finally, one of the informants explains how his writing skills has become worse because of his informal training of English, since he wants to use smilies and abbreviations in formal text writing.

Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to all the informants who participated in this study and especially the five boys who volunteered to be interviewed. Secondly, I would like to thank Malin Glimäng who kindly supervised my work and gave me

valuable comments and ideas that inspired me in the creative process and Bo Lundahl for his support. Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to my friends and family for their support. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Cecilia for helping me with all the facts and figures and for her love and words of encouragement during the process of writing this dissertation.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction

9

Background 9

Aim 10

Concepts defined 10

ICT and learning 11

Formal and informal learning 12

Genres 12

World of Warcraft 13

2 Method

14

Data Collection 14

Selection 15

First Group of Informants: the Social Studies class 16 Second Group of Informants: Individual Program 16

Third Group of Informants: Internet Café 17

Ethical Concerns 17

Data Analysis 17

3 Literature review

19

Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning 19 Linderoth and Bennerstedt, Living in World of Warcraft -

The Thoughts and Experiences of Ten Young People 23

Heith, Texter-Medier-Kontexter 25

4 The study

27

The results of the questionnaires 27

The results of the interviews 29

5 Discussion and conclusion

37

Background and gaming habits 37

Language use and exposure during gaming sessions 37

Possible benefits from playing video games 38

Possible problems or conflicts connected to their gaming interest 40

Conclusions 41

Further studies 42

References

44

1 Introduction

Background

Start. Know your character. Know your terrain. Kill as many enemies as you possibly can. Loot their corpses of any valuables. Secure the area. Keep track of your team members. Check your weapons. Move on to the next level. Kill! Kill! Kill! Level up. Gain more experience points. Kill some more enemies. You get wounded. You die. Game Over. Start again?

In another world, this is reality. In another world, this is the reality that you have to get used to, and even learn how to survive in. This is a world in which you can start your life all over if you die. And you have to learn how to live in it if you want to

survive. This is a simplified description of a virtual world in a video game. How can it be that so many of us choose to live from a few hours and up to many days per week in such a world? We live in an era when a game like Grand Theft Auto IV can rattle the morals and ethics of what some regard as good taste and manners. At the same time, we live in a world that is to a great extent based on other, more holy, sources that are filled with gruesome murders and genocide, and that are far more widely spread, and socially accepted, than GTA IV. Can it be all bad then, that you flee the reality for a couple of hours and put your effort in a virtual counter-part? I have a strong feeling that it is not that bad. In fact, I have a hunch that you may actually learn something along the way.

In this dissertation I will investigate the possibilities of and possible benefits from informal learning through video games. During this study I will also investigate how video games add to the ever ongoing stream of popular cultural references for young people today. In this report, these two directions will merge together into one research project based on interviews with youngsters with a focus on video gaming and possible benefits gained from their gaming, as well as any problems that might be connected with their interest.

The subject of the research fascinates me, mostly because of my long time interest in the gaming world and community, and my more recent interest in the pedagogical tools and ideas available for teachers today. The importance of the gaming scene, both in the economic market and the culture that has developed through players and their social connections and communities, makes way for a study of the cultural phenomenon that is gaming in itself but also of the gamers. What impact does gaming have in general on people, and more specifically: how can we as teachers take care of the knowledge and experience that is collected through video gaming? In the discussion of learning taking place outside of the classroom, and in relation to the society in terms of democracy and values, should not media literacy, for example video gaming, also be included in that discussion, as the identity of so many pupils is defined through a virtual world?

I hope that this study will contribute to raising the awareness of video gaming as a tool for informal learning and as an important cultural reference for young people today. In this research, the following overarching question serves as my main focus: What are the youngster’s thoughts about their gaming habits and possible learning situations in connection with their gaming?

Aim

The purpose of this research is to use interviews to present five young gamers in order to describe their English language use in conjunction with their gaming. The aim of these portraits is to gain a deeper understanding of how video gaming can function as a tool for informal learning and how this particular popular text works as an important cultural reference for young people today.

Concepts defined

Summarized here are some of the concepts that will be touched upon during this study. The concepts of ICT, informal and formal learning and different genres of video games

are presented. Also included, is an extended definition of the game World of Warcraft. This game is closely linked to this study, both serving as an example of a popular video game and as being mentioned frequently during the interviews.

ICT and learning

As the study at hand focuses on alternative methods of learning in connection to video gaming, the subject of ICT (Internet Communication Technology) is important to

highlight. Within ICT in connection with learning material, various digital resources can be found and discussed, but here I will focus on digital learning resources. There are two common traditions of defining available teacher's resources, according to Myndigheten för Skolutvecklings article Digitala Lärarresurser (Jan Hylén, 2007). These include both a narrow definition, which only accounts for material produced for the purpose of

teaching, and a wider definition which is based on the learning situation, and where everything that is connected to what the learners and teachers use is viewed upon as learning material (Hylén 7). In the article, the wider definition is of interest.

Moreover, the difference between traditional learning material, including text books, and digital learning material is that the latter is multimodal, i.e. it can

communicate through sound, vision and text simultaneously (Hylén 7). The article emphasizes that digital learning material does not have to be a finished product, and instead the process of the learning is of interest rather than the result. Thus, different forms of digital resources becomes interesting for teachers to use in such environments, for example by using different web-sites focusing on bogging and forum-talk in the classroom (Hylén 7). These examples of web-sites functions as being edited by the members themselves, and therefore one can study the process of creating something within those sites.

Examples of software to use for practising group communication and co-operation is the so-called social software. This type of software includes computer games such as World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike and EverQuest (Hylén. 12). As social software focus on social skills, and give room for reflection on what has happened during it's use, the software can easily be used in conjunction with group-based work and can then be evaluated within the group (Hylén. 12).

Formal and informal learning

In this section I will briefly go through the concepts of formal and informal learning. There will be a clear focus on the informal learning. Mark K. Smith discusses informal learning in the article Informal learning published at the Encyclopaedia of Informal Education, Infed, (1999). Smith presents Michael Erauts explanation of formal learning as including:

A prescribed learning framework; An organized learning event or package; The presence of a designated teacher or trainer; The award of a qualification or credit;

The external specification of outcomes. ((Eraut 2000: 12) Smith 1999) Thus, formal learning is what takes place in a set environment, according to a set curriculum with a set trainer or teacher.

Smith presents a wide range of studies that defines informal learning, but

concludes, ”[l]earning can be seen as a product or thing – a memory or understanding; or as a process – as a form of thinking. What is sometimes described as informal learning is, thus, better described as self-education, or self directed learning” (Smith 1999). Another definition of informal learning, according to Smith, is implicit learning and this results in tacit knowledge, ‘that which we know but cannot tell’ (Smith 1999). Again, Smith refers to Eurats study and the situations Eurat exemplifies where tacit knowledge might be used or gained (Eurat 2000: 28) and (Smith 1999). These are, among others:

• knowledge acquired by implicit learning of which the knower is unaware; • knowledge that enables rapid, intuitive understanding or response;

• knowledge entailed in transferring knowledge from one situation to another;

•

Genres

In her book Texter-medier-kontexter (2006), Anne Heith includes a list of different genres of video games (Heith 242). I summarize them here, as some of these concepts

will be touched upon during this study. I have added information and examples within the parenthesis. Also included, is an extended definition of the game World of Warcraft. This game is closely linked to this study, both serving as an example of a popular video game and as being mentioned frequently during the interviews.

- Strategy games (Sid Meyer’s Civilization IV, Sim City)

- Role-playing games, RPG (Baldur´s Gate, Neverwinter Nights) - Adventure games (The game Monkey Island, for instance)

- Shoot ‘em up games (often referred to as First Person Shooters, FPS, like Doom.) - Simulator games (Microsoft Flight Simulator or racing games like GTR.)

- Sport games (Fifa 2008, NHL 1994 etc.)

- Fighting games (One-on-one fighting. Street Fighter IV, Tekken 5) - Platform games (Super Mario Bros)

- Puzzle games (For example Tetris or Sodoku.)

- MMORPG, (Massively Multiplayer On-line Role Playing Game, World of Warcraft, Everquest, Age of Conan).

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft, often abbreviated as WoW, is a MMORPG created by the company Blizzard Entertainment. It allows people from around the world to play together on-line on the same server, either fight against each other (Player versus Player, PvP) or against the computer controlled creatures (Player verus Environment, PvE) in the different realms that form the world that the game takes place in. You can also play it together with other players as a strict Role Playing game (RP), where you are supposed to behave according to the world, e.g. using old English and not talking about anything outside of the virtual world. As you become better at the game, you raise your characters level, and, as of this date, level 70 is the max level.

2 Method

This study is mainly of a qualitative nature, as it is based on literature on the subject as well as on interviews. The study contains quantitative elements in the form of

questionnaires. In order to gain insight in this subject I have through the interviews collected the views and thoughts of five boys who are frequent gamers, and who are all around 16 and 17 years old. To precede the interviews, I used a questionnaire. The questionnaire was constructed and used as a tool for gaining general knowledge about young people’s gaming habits and to find interviewees. My intention with the interviews was to connect the informant’s engagement, enthusiasm and time spent on video games with any possible learning. The aim was also to try to find a connection between possible learning situations and their virtual characters in their virtual everyday gaming habits, as well as to find connections with their world outside of the game.

In Doing Qualitative Research in Education Settings (2002), Hatch describes the qualitative interview process as “special kinds of conversations or speech that are used by researchers to explore informants’ experiences and interpretations” (Hatch 91).

Furthermore, Hatch also states that the interviews are used in order for the researcher to structure and interpret the meanings of the informants’ answers from the interview, that is to “make sense of their worlds” (Hatch 91). The format for the interviews used in this research corresponds to what Hatch describes as “formal interviews”, (Hatch 92). Further more, the interviews were conducted in formal educational settings at their school. This is not the optimal setting for discussing informal learning, but was at the time the only available choice.

Data Collection

The two classes that responded to the questionnaires are from two different schools and cities in the south of Sweden. The schools are upper secondary schools, and the first class is a Social studies class while the other one is in the Individual Programme (a program for students who do not achieve a pass in all three core subjects in secondary school). I

also handed out two sets of questionnaires to an Internet Café. The first set of

questionnaires was filled out by informants at above 15 years of age, and the second was completed by informants both under and over 15 years of age. I did not hand out the questionnaires at the Internet Café personally. Instead, the kind woman who

administrates the café offered to hand them out whenever there were any customers present who played there. I was told that the number of people coming there could vary a lot. Therefore, I merely handed the papers out to her, and then collected them after a week.

The interviews were carried out on two different occasions. The first group interview with three informants was conducted on May 8 and the second group interview with two was carried out on May 9 2008. I did the interviews in Swedish. The interviews were based on an interview guide based on the following four typologies:

- Background and gaming habits

- Language use and exposure to English during gaming sessions - Possible benefits from playing video games

- Possible problems or conflict connected to gaming interest

To record the interviews, I used a Sony Mini-Disc player with a small microphone attached to it. The sound was recorded and stored on small discs capable to up to 1

gigabyte of storage, and the quality is outstanding despite the small microphone. I then transferred the sound files to a computer, where they were converted into high quality wave-files.

Selection

This study focuses on youths who are between sixteen and eighteen years of age. The decision to focus on that age group is based on my assumption that you are more capable of reflecting and analyzing yourself and your habits at this age, compared to when you attend secondary school. Also, I wanted to find persons who could reflect over a longer

span of time having played video games. For the sake of receiving as much relevant information for this study as possible from my informants during the interviews, I wanted informants that played video games on a more or less frequent basis.

First Group of Informants: the Social Studies class

In preparation for the first interview, I arranged with the teacher when I could come and do the questionnaires in her Social studies class. I had contacted this school beforehand, and asked if I could do the questionnaire in three classes from different programs at the school. I could, however, gain access to only one class due to national tests and different group work in the classes.

I gave the teacher responsible for the class a document with my contact details and the purpose of the questionnaire, in case there were to be any questions later, from students, teachers or parents, about my research. After completing the questionnaires, three student boys volunteered to participate in the proposed group interview that I had informed the class of before I handed out the papers. One boy suggested that we could all meet up two days later right after their national test in math, and the four of us agreed to do so. I explained to them that they did not need to prepare anything before the

interviews. Two days later we met up at the school cafeteria. We decided to conduct the interview outside, seated on a pair of tree benches with a table between us, as it was calmer and less noisy outside compared to the cafeteria. The interview lasted for about one hour.

Second Group of Informants: Individual Program

The procedure for conducting the interviews was basically the same as that described for the first group. This was, however, at a different school, and with students I did not know from any teaching practice. Before I had found all the informants for this study, I called and/or visited a number of upper secondary schools, except the school I had already visited, in the region nearby to where I live and explained my study and its purpose. To all schools, I carefully explained my intentions with the questionnaire and that I would take the full responsibility to administrate it. I also explained that the procedure would

not exceed ten minutes. This school that I present here was the only one that had time to help me.

I visited the school, which is a school that holds the Individual Program, the following week after I had contacted the responsible teacher for the class where I could do my questionnaire. I conducted the questionnaire in the class, and the teacher suggested that I could come on the following day and conduct the interviews with the people who had volunteered to participate. The following day, I met up with the class, and I got hold of two informants for a group interview. This time I conducted the interview indoors, in a smaller classroom. I explained the purpose and aims of the interview, as well as of my research and we started the interview. This interview lasted for about thirty minutes.

Third Group of Informants: Internet Café

This group of informants was only filling in the questionnaire, and I did not conduct any interviews with anyone from the Internet café. As I was not the person handing out the questionnaire, I cannot give more specific details as to how the procedure went.

Ethical concerns

In the two classes I gave the responsible teachers a document with my contact information, as well as a summary of the purpose and aims with my research. I also informed the informants that this information was available to them through their

teachers, if there should be any questions regarding the questionnaire or the interviews at a later time. Before the interviews, I also informed the participants about the confidential nature of their information that they would give me in my research, both in the recorded material and in the written paper. I also gave the same information to the manager of the Internet café.

Data analysis

The interviews were transcribed, both by me and by my wife who kindly helped me in the process. The transcribed text from both interviews stretches over forty single-line spaced pages. The questionnaires were counted and the results were put into diagrams. The next step in the analysis was to pick out the most interesting comments and

discussions from the informants, as well as finding the appropriate diagrams to include in the dissertation. The data analysis for this research also focuses on finding other possible typologies from the discussions with the informants. The information and results gained from the questionnaires and the interviews are presented in the results chapter on page 25.

3 Literature Review

In this section, the literature that forms the theoretical background for this study is presented. The major inspiration for my study was James Paul Gee’s book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2004, 2007), and the thirty-six learning strategies that he links with playing video games. Gees’ book will form the basic theoretical foundation on which this study relies on. However, to accompany Gees’ book, and to back up some more of what I have expected to come out of the interviews, I have also used the report Living in World of Warcraft - the Thoughts and Experiences of Ten Young People (2008) written by Jonas Linderoth and Ulrika Bennerstedt. These two texts serve as the main focus for this section. Anne Heiths text Texter-medier-kontexter (2006) is also presented here, as her text is relevant to the debate on violence in video games. I have used it in this context as the violence is an inevitable part of most video games, and as I believed that the subject of violence would come up in some form during the

interviews.

James Paul Gee – What video games have to teach us about learning

James Paul Gee has written the book What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, and in the study at hand the 2004 edition of this book as well as the revised and updated edition published in 2007 are used. The references in the running text refer to the 2007 edition.

Gee, a professor of literary studies at Arizona State University, became fascinated with video games when he watched his young son playing a video game called Pajama Sam. Gee describes how intrigued he felt about how challenging the game was, even for an adult, when he was playing the game together with his son. Gee also remarks on the effort the children are willing to put into the game, and asks himself the question:

“Wouldn’t it be great if kids were willing to put in this much time on task in challenging material in school and enjoy it so much?” (Gee 2). After having this experience, he

decided to buy himself a computer game for adults. He bought The New Adventures of the Time Machine, which is a game based on the book by H.G. Wells. Having nearly no knowledge of or experience from playing computer games, Gee found himself having to rethink his ways of learning and thinking “in new ways at which I was not adept” (Gee 2). He draws parallels with his time at graduate school and when he changed area during his education, explaining that playing the game became learning that was “pleasantly frustrating” (Gee 3). Gee also wonders how the companies can sell these games that are so time-consuming and difficult, but he soon discovered that a game can sell millions of copies.1

Gee continues to briefly discuss the concepts of learning in connection with gaming and points out that you must learn how to play a game before you can play it, and the players today demand long and difficult games. Game designers must therefore make difficult games and players obviously learn how to play them (Gee 3).

Gees' definition of literacy

Gee states, “When people learn how to play a new video game, they are learning a new literacy.” (Gee 17). We are not used to use the concept “literacy” in this way, but rather as the tradition of reading and writing. Gee states that we need to think of literacy as a broader subject, because: “Language is not the only important communicational system. Images, symbols, graphs /.../ and many other visual symbols are significant, more so today than ever” (Gee 17). He continues discussing that more and more images, in for example newspapers and textbooks, take up more place “alongside with words”, and that the images carry their own meaning (Gee 17). These text forms are described as

multimodal texts – text that mix words and images, and the images in such texts often means something else apart from the text, and that the text together with the image communicates something that the two mediums do not say as separates (Gee 18). Gee states that video games is “a multimodal literacy par exxcellence”, as it combines text and images together with sounds, music, and movement etc. (Gee 18). Even print literacy

1

New York Times reports that the brand new game from Take-Two, Grand Theft Auto IV, sold 3.6 millions copy on its release day, 28th of April 2008. www.nytimes.com See reference list for full address.

is multiple, Gee continues, as there are different ways of writing and reading depending on the specific text (Gee 18).

Literacy is of no use, if you do not have any knowledge about the “social

practice” within the domain which the specific literacy is part of (Gee 18). Gee concludes his definition of literacy with: “As literacy requires more than being able to “decode” and because it requires people to /.../ at least understand certain sorts of social practices, we need to focus on not just /.../ “representations” (language, images etc.) but the domains in which these representations are used as well (Gee18).

To achieve this, we need to develop knowledge about what Gee calls Semiotic Domains, which translates into “an area or set of activities where people think, act, and value in certain ways”, like in first-person shooters video games, cellular biology, or rap music (Gee 19). As for the example of video games, there are different semiotic domains within them, as there are different genres of video games (Gee 20).

Gee on the view of video games as a “waste of time”

When a six year old has played, and learnt new things to do, in a video game called Pikmin, his grandfather makes a remark about the session as “While it is good for his hand-eye coordination, it’s a waste of time, because there isn’t any content he’s learning” (Gee 22). Gee calls this “the problem of content”, and exemplifies the school setting, that often focuses on the content being taught, rather than the learning process itself (Gee 22).

Gee on virtual identities

As Gee plays a fantasy role-playing game, he exemplifies himself as having three

identities while playing. The virtual identity is his identity as “the virtual characters in the virtual world” (Gee 49). The real-world identity is the non-virtual person who is playing the video game (Gee 49). The third identity Gee calls the projective identity. This is described as James Paul Gee as the virtual identity, with a stress on “as”, as this is his real-world identity that projects his “values and desires onto the virtual character” (Gee 49). The real world character can worry about what choices you as a player make for your character, and how those choices translates into your own values and ideas about

moral and ethics. You can also, through your character, be the person you desire to be in the real world – a projective identity (Gee 51).

Gee compares the relationship between the “player as virtual character” with the identification of characters in movies, and remarks on the fact that you as a player are more active in the sense that the player does things, and that you also have to make certain choices, that develop the character in a sense that the player can control (Gee 54).

Gee's learning principles

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy is built around thirty-six learning principles that Gee connects each chapter in the book with. This is helpful, as it works both as a sort of reference guide and as a summary of both the chapters, and Gees ideas about learning and video games. Regarding identities, Gee connects the above discussion with the following principles:

8. Identity Principle: Learning involves taking on and playing with identities in such a way that the learner has real choices (in developing the virtual identity) and ample opportunity to meditate on the relationship between new identities and old ones. There is a tripartite play of identities as relate, and reflect on, their multiple real-world identities, a virtual identity, and a projective identity (Gee 64).

This discussion is also connected with learning in other environments, such as in the school. As this study mainly focuses on learning taking place outside of the school, I will not go further into that discussion. However, Gee’s main arguments for video games as good examples for learning models are often connected with, or contrasted to, learning that takes place in the school environment.

The above discussion is, however, also connected to the “Committed Learning Principle”. This, Gee argues, serves as an “extended engagement of the real-world

identity”, i.e. you put a lot of effort and practice into your virtual identity, which becomes an extension of your real-world identity (Gee 222).

The “Transfer Principle” basically suggests that good video games give the player opportunities to practice what you learn in the video game, and that the knowledge your

learn, can be applied on later problems (Gee 142). The player is also referred to as the learner (Gee 142).

Gee on the rewards of playing video games

Gee argues that “computer games are designed so that they adjust to different levels of play and reward each sort of player, if the player is putting in effort, with some

appropriate degree of success” (Gee 60). Games often operate through the “amplification of input principle”, which means that games for little input, it gives lots of output (Gee 60). In other words, Gee exemplifies: “when your press some buttons in the real world /.../ a whole interactive world comes to life, and he says that for learning, amplification of input is “highly motivating” (Gee 60). This is also connected to Gee’s “achievement principle”, which translates to the available rewards in video games for players of all levels. This is also connected to how much effort you put into your gaming, and it becomes a signal of your mastery of the game (Gee 223).

Linderoth & Bennerstedt, Living in World of Warcraft

Jonas Linderoth and Ulrika Bennerstedt have written the report Living in World of Warcraft - the thoughts and experiences of ten young people (2008), which has served as great inspiration for the work conducted in conjunction with this essay. The report, originally written in Swedish, was translated into English and published on Mediarådets webpage in 2008. For this dissertation the translated version has been used.

The report starts off with the following questions: “What are children really getting up to with their computers? Why can’t they stop playing so we can eat together as a family? How will they be able to cope in school when they’ve been up playing all night?” (Media Council 2008). Those kinds of questions arise, according to the writers, because there is a tendency amongst some people to not fully understand the importance of video gaming for young people today, and what the video games actually are about (Linderoth & Bennerstedt 7). The study is based on interviews, preceded by

questionnaires handed out to youngsters between the ages 17 to 19 in the west part of Sweden.

The report itself focuses on finding out “What makes the game especially time consuming? How do the participants themselves experience their play? Which problems /conflicts crop up in playing the game, especially in terms of the amount of time it takes?” (Linderoth & Bennerstedt 17).

Time consumption

One thing that Linderoth and Bennerstedt, remarks on is the fact that the game cannot be put on hold, and that the different tasks within the game often take several hours to perform (Linderoth & Bennerstedt 42). They explain, “A recurring theme in the youngsters ’statements was that the game takes a great deal of time and demands considerable commitment. Time consumption may not be a problem in itself but problems arise because of it in relation to the player’s everyday life”(Linderoth & Bennerstedt 24). Another problem in connection with the game, according to Linderoth and Bennerstedt, is that the parents still do not regard video gaming as “acceptable leisure activity, but see it more as a waste of time, something that isn’t truly a part of their

children’s lives” (Linderoth & Bennerstedt 42).

Why they play so much

When analyzing their interviews about why the informants played World of Warcraft so much, Linderoth and Bennerstedt found three types of answers:

• “Players talk of different types of social pressure which cause them to play more frequently.

• Furthermore they describe a social discrepancy between different players which can lead to players having to adapt to a group with a different way of life.

• Finally they say the nature of the mechanisms of the game in WoW is such that it calls for high frequency playing.” (Linderoth & Bennerstedt 43).

Social pressure in this context means that the player can feel a “need of solidarity” with other players, and that the player can fall for group pressure, which is reinforced by

wanting to establish a higher status of the identity on the server (Linderoth & Bennerstedt 43).

Reasons for wanting to quit playing World of Warcraft

In the study, they found two reasons for the informants wanting to quit playing, or change their playing habits: changes in the social network and changes in the game mechanism

(Linderoth & Bennerstedt 68). To start over at another server because of changes in the social network is very time consuming and something that the informants feel reluctant to do, as it takes a lot of work to build up a social network (Linderoth & Bennerstedt 68).

Linderoth’s and Bennerstedt’s Conclusions

Among their conclusions, Linderoth and Bennerstedt state that through listening to the informants they realize that “a major part of the problem concerning computer game playing is a lack of knowledge as to how the genre works. People close to the youngsters share neither their knowledge of the game nor their evaluation of what constitutes

meaningful leisure activity.” (Linderoth & Bennerstedt 75).

Anne Heith, Texter-medier-kontexter

The book Texter-medier-kontexter by Anne Heith (2006) briefly discusses video games. In the introduction, the game The Warriors (2005) is mentioned as possibly representing a new era of media violence discussions, as compared to the previous debate over video violence in connection with the VHS -release of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre from 1974. The game The Warriors was given four out of five stars in Aftonbladet (20051103), and was described as being extremely violent, romanticizing gang culture, and lacking moral guideline. At the same time it was described in Aftonbladet as a model for other games when it comes to variation and aesthetically pleasing environments (Heith 12). Heith also points toward Gee and mentions that he considers video games a good thing as they teach and encourage the player to solve problems. She states that other positive

pedagogical advantages with video games could be that the player trains the ability to find patterns and structures (Heith 12).

If video games can be both extremely violent and teach young people these things, Heith states that there should be room for discussions about media in schools, as media creates consumers, and that the discussion can be grounded in different forms of textual analysis on the media texts (Heith 13). Moreover, the violence in the game The Warriors, is against the values and interests of a society Heith says, and even though there are the above stated advantages with games, it does not make the games less important do discuss (Heith 242).

4 The study

Before the main study was carried out, I conducted pre-study work. The pre-study work included a field trip of my own into the game World of Warcraft, and a distant listening observation of a close relative of mine also playing World of Warcraft. The results from this pre-study can be found in the appendix.

First, a selection of the results from the questionnaires are presented and briefly discussed. In total, 44 informants answered the questionnaire. The entire questionnaire can be found in the appendix; here, I present only the three questions that are of most interest for this study. Following the questionnaires, the interviews are presented and discussed. After the results, the findings are discussed, and finally there is a conclusion of the research.

The results of the questionnaires

The following question accounts for the informants’ time spent on video games. Most informants play video games at least once a week (36 %). Fourteen informants answered that they only play occasionally. What is not shown in the overview below is that in the Social studies class, all the eight girls participating in the study answered that they only play video games on occasion, and that they only play the karaoke game Singstar on Playstation 2.

Question 1: Hur ofta spelar du dator/tv-spel?

Total

Varje dag 10 (32 %) 44 (100 %)

Några gånger i veckan 16 (36 %) 44 (100 %)

Någon gång i månaden 0 (0 %) 44 (100 %)

Sällan 14 (32 %) 44 (100 %)

Question number nine shows that most informants are exposed to English in video games during speech and text in the games, 63 % and 66 %. In this question the informants have had the possibility to choose multiple alternatives. Again, a large majority of the girls from the Social studies class say that they meet English during music in the games, and more specifically in the game Singstar.

Question 9: På vilket sätt läser och hör du engelska i samband med spelen?

Total Tal i spelet 26 (63 %) 41 (100 %) Text i spelet 27 (66 %) 41 (100 %) Text på Internet 11 (27 %) 41 (100 %) Annat 2 (5 %) 41 (100 %) TV om spel 1 (2 %) 41 (100 %) Text i manualen 6 (15 %) 41 (100 %) Musik i spelet 14 (34 %) 41 (100 %)

The results from the next question show that it is unusual for the informants to discuss the games on Internet forums in English. Only 17 % of the informants say that they always write about games in English, while 39 % say that they never write about games in English. Of course, this is also closely linked to how often the informants write about games on the Internet at all. One possible explanation can be that only the most interested gamers discuss their hobby with others on Internet forums.

Question 10: Om du skriver foruminlägg om spel, skriver du då på engelska?

Total

Alltid 7 (17 %) 41 (100 %)

Ibland 13 (32 %) 41 (100 %)

Ofta 5 (12 %) 41 (100 %)

The

results of the interviews

In this section I present the results of the interviews. In the examples below, I have used the transcribed versions of the interviews, and I have kept the original Swedish language intact. I have done so in order for the information to be kept as complete as possible. The interviews are transcribed exactly as they were recorded. In the first group interview, all three boys are seventeen years of age and attend the same class at an upper secondary school, Social Studies program, in a medium sized city in the south of Sweden. The three boys are called Adam 1, Bengt 2 and Carl 3 in the examples. In the second group

interview, the two boys are sixteen years of age and they both attend the individual program in a large city in the south of Sweden. They are called David 1 and Eric 2.

Topic 1: Background and gaming habits

I asked the boys to tell me how they first came into contact with video games, what they were playing when they were younger, and how they would describe their gaming habits today.

Interview 1

Adam and Bengt started playing when they were nine and six years old. Adam describes how his parents supervised his newly found interest:

Adam 1: Men det var väl också då mina föräldrar började ana att vi måste ha lite regler vid det, vid datorn, så att det var alltså Warcraft [Warcraft 1 anno 1994] man spelade då. Och det var, satt man där klistrad vid datorn. Och det var jävligt kul. Men ja regler får man och då spelade man mindre och mindre.

Erik cannot really remember how old he was when he started playing, but describes that he had a brother that introduced him to playing video games. This was also the case with Adam, as he was also introduced to video gaming by his older brother.

Erik 3: Ja, ja det kommer jag verkligen inte ihåg när det var, för jag var så lite då jag var, jag hade en låtsasstorebror som var en inbiten nintendofan. On the questions

and fours per day, and that he plays a game called Action Quake. Adam also plays the game World of Warcraft.

Adam 1: Jag spelar, alltså det är så här att jag har spelat med en kille i olika spel jättelänge, alltså nästan fyra år nu, jag vet inte riktigt hur vi lärde känna varandra, men vi spelar ett spel som heter Action Quake 2. Och det liknar det som Counter-Strike och det är helt enkelt ett lagspel. Men det har blivit så nu att vi har, när vi spelar med en klan så har vi spelat med den klanen vi två, och så har vi träffats förrförra året i sommar, tror jag vi har ja festat, varit ute, inte bara spelat liksom, utan vi är mer som kompisar då ju.

Bengt says that he has been playing the game Battlefield 2 since it came out in 2005, and that he plays in a community with 150 members, all from Sweden. The oldest member is 55 years of age in his community.

Carl tells me that he played on all the Nintendo consoles when he was younger, but that he switched to computer games, and Carl started playing World of Warcraft when it came out in 2004. He played the game intensely for a couple of years but then he suddenly stopped playing. The main reason for this was that his friend that he played with switched server and Carl did not want to start all over again. Another factor that caused him to stop playing WoW was that he attended a concert that changed his life. He then used the 2700 SEK he got from his WoW account to buy a Playstation Portable, which he plays on occasionally:

Carl 3: Ja, man får göra helt ny, alla dom här 150 timmarna man har suttit med den och den grejen bara försvinner.

Carl 3: Slutade spela Wow helt och hållet. (Det var svårt), några dagar innan det så hade jag varit på min första konsert som var bland det bästa jag hade någonsin varit med om, och då tänkte jag så här att, fan, jag vill inte spela längre, jag vill göra sådant här istället, så två dagar efter det så sålde mitt, min login för 2700.

Interview 2

David started playing when he was around nine years old:

1: När jag var 9, 9 och ett halvt. Då började jag spela Warcraft. Hela den serien. J: Hur kom det sig att du började spela?

1: Ja, vi hade ju en data hemma och min pappa brukade spela, så...

He used to play with his brother, as well. When I asked him about the English language use in the games during this time, David says that it was not so difficult to understand because he did not play the games online. Today David still plays computer games:

David: Ehm, egentligen alla. Mest World of Warcraft, men även Call of Duty, Crysis. Sådana spel. J: Ok, och hur mycket spelar du nu? Spelar du varje dag?

David: Ja, min dator funkar inte för tillfället, men jag brukar spela 9-10 timmar. Here, Eric, made a comment to David: Eric: Det är en vana.

Eric started playing when he was around nine years old, and back then, he mainly played together with friends. Today, Eric mainly plays a game called Diablo, with a maximum of three hours of playtime per day: Eric: Jag har ett favoritspel: Diablo. Det är så, gammalt. Och.. jag spelar inte så mycket som han där. Max tre timmar per dag. Annars sitter jag ganska mycket vid datorn och chattar.

Topic 2: Language use and exposure to English during gaming sessions

Next topic describes how the informants come into contact with the English language when they are playing video games. In both interviews, many of the informants usually use or used a form of voice chat through a microphone connected to the computer. They could use the built in chat program within in the game, but they seemed to prefer an external application called Ventrilo. It is also worth mentioning that Adam and Carl, who both play WoW, play different forms of WoW. Adam plays Player vs. Player (PvP), and Carl played in forms of raids, which is a form of Player vs. Environment (PvE), where you fight against computer controlled creatures in large groups of players.

Interview 1

Adam discusses how he uses English, even though many of his friends on the server are from Scandinavia:

Adam: Dom jag spelar med är både svenskar, och det är finskar och det är danskar och det är folk från Polen, och det är lite överallt i världen. Och jo, jag använder engelska när jag ska prata, även med dom som är danskar för annars så skulle vi inte fatta nånting. Det är ganska logiskt.

Carl, who played a different form of WoW, says that he also used English when

preparing for the great battles. He played in groups of forty players, a few days per week, but he did not meet his group until the evening. Until then he played together with

Carl: Så fram till då, så var vi nästan inte alls tillsammans, och då letade man upp någon annan, någon helt, random, engelsk, norsk eller var det kan ha varit, och då pratar man engelska, och då kan vi gå ut vi två och vi kan slåss mot någon fiende, för att hitta guld eller vapen och så här, och då kommunicarar man bara på engelska. Så i mitt fall var det inte förräns på kvällen, på de här sena timmarna som jag började prata svenska.

Here, Bengt added to the discussion that it would feel awkward to meet Swedish in the video games. This came to be a large part of this interview, as all three had much to say about it. This was not something that I saw coming, nor was prepared to handle, during the interview. Nevertheless, the discussion was very interesting, and its subject could very well serve as a standalone research in itself. Here is a short excerpt from the discussion that Bengt initiated:

Bengt: Men det är också det alltså det är också som sagt ett motstånd till svenska inom spel för det anses vara lite fjantigt, för att det ser inte lika häftigt ut när det står liksom på svenska, om det står på engelska typ: you crached men på svenskan: du kraschade, nej det bara, det betyder ju samma sak men det känns inte lika…

Interview 2

Eric, who mainly plays the game Diablo online, describes how he plays the game and how he uses English when playing:

2: Ja, man hjälper varandra mot någon stor boss. Man är flera stycken. Typ som team. J: Och det kan vara folk från hela världen? J: Och då skriver du på engelska?

2: Ja, man kan inte prata med varandra så.. det är lite fattigt.

David, who mainly plays WoW, tells me that he is part of guild, a group of people in a community within the game, which consists of people from around the world, but mostly from England:

J: Ok, snackar ni ihop er med varandra i ert guild?

1: Oh ja. Vanligt snack också liksom, socialt. Behöver inte bara vara om spelet. J: Ok, pratar ni genom mikrofon då?

1: Ja, vi pratar genom Ventrilo också, men mest så skriver vi.

Like Carl in the other interview, David mainly does raids together with other participants of his guild:

1: Jaja, ibland flera veckor innan. Vi har en sån kalender så skriver man upp sig där om man vill komma eller inte. Så pratar vi taktik och så. Och vår ledare, han började invita alla så man kommer in i samma grupp. Så sticker man dit och så gör man det.

David also describes how he uses the chat program Ventrilo to communicate with other players when they are playing together:

J: Ok. Men när ni väl spelar – snackar ni då med?

1: Ja, mest då genom Ventrilo, eftersom det blir svårt att skriva [i spelet] när man spelar. Man måste vara väldigt fokuserad ibland.

J: Ok. Då pratar ni om själva spelet och hur ni ska gå tillväga, eller? 1: Ja.

Topic 3: Possible benefits from playing video games

In connection to their language use and exposure to English during their gaming sessions, I was also curious about their thoughts on any possible benefits from playing video games.

Interview 1

Without explicitly asking for any language-connected benefits, all three agreed that their English has been improved because of their gaming. Carl mentions his time playing WoW as one benefactor for improving his English.

Carl: Det tycker jag absolut, jag har lärt mig jätte, jättemycket bättre muntlig engelska än innan, alltså verkligen jättemycket bättre, eftersom jag pratar så mycket muntligt engelska när jag inte spelar med min guild. /…/ alltså även om jag inte märker det så himla mycket så lär man sig väl ändå på något sätt att samarbeta och kommunicera, alltså folk får förstå en, eftersom det är mycket det som krävs att man ska nå ett bra resultat när man spelar.

Both Adam and Bengt agree with what Carl says, but argues that, even though you may get better at speaking and listening, your English writing skills can be negatively affected as well:

Adam: Men det kan ju påverka en negativt också jag menar, du skriver gärna förkortningar på engelska, vilket gör att du kanske gör det i skolan också.

Bengt: Smilys tycker jag, jag vill alltid använda smilys när jag skriver, jag skriver en uppsats så där jag tycker jag, det är störigt, man måste tänka liksom, det är mycket jobbigare att beskriva en känsla som utan, utan det som ironi man kan inte göra den här tungan ut och så där.

Apart from language skills, Bengt and Carl, discuss the positive feeling of success when completing a mission in a video game:

Carl: /…/ att ha suttit kanske i två veckor i sträck döda en stor fiende en boss, och sen äntligen döda honom och vara först på hela servern med att göra det. Och sen se var det här monstret tappar så man kan ta, det, det är bara det så otroligt härlig känsla, man känner sig bra, fast man egentligen inte är det.

Bengt: Men det är inte lönt, det, det är grundläggande psykologi egentligen alltså om det är någonting där man lyckas med någonting så är man nöjd…

Interview 2

As the informants in this interview were not as talkative as the informants in the fist interview, I had to lead David and Eric a bit more in the questions to show them what I wanted from them. Therefore, I specifically asked about what they have learnt through their gaming, and added English as a possible answer. David replied that he thought of his English as being much improved thanks to his long experience of gaming.

David: (Snabbt) Ja, enormt mycket. Det är troligen mer än i skolan, eftersom jag sitter så mycket vi datorn.

Eric agrees and adds:

Eric: Man lär sig jättemycket, fast man inte tror det. Sedan vet man att män lärt sig, andra tror inte att man lär sig någonting men man lär sig mycket engelska.

Topic 4: Possible problems or conflict connected to their gaming interest

Interview 1

Carl describes how he made up lies to his friends and how he played WoW instead of being with them. The other informants say that they have not done so, but they all agree that it is probably common amongst WoW-players to do so. Carl also suggests that you make friends in WoW as well.

Carl: /…/ eftersom jag var så extremt engagerad när jag var spelade så hittade jag till och med på små lögner för mina vänner ibland som så typ ville hänga och så så vart det, näe jag måste hem för den och den anledningen, då jag i själva verket egentligen bara var tvungen att gå hem och spela, för jag ville göra det.

Carl: Ja, några gånger..

Bengt: Nä det har inte jag gjort, mina kompisar, jag tror att det är vanligt när man spelar World of warcraft.

Carl: Det är mycket vanligt. /…/ Eftersom man har kompisar där också.

Adam tries not to put his video gaming before spending time with his friends, and he also suggests that the form he is playing, PvP, is less structured and time consuming than the form of WoW that Carl is playing. Carl did raids together with other players on set dates and hours.

Adam: /…/ jag försöker att inte sitta vid datorn framför mina kompisar. Det känns så konstigt. Då har man gått över tycker jag. Men det jag spelar, det är tycker jag är friare. Det här med raidandet, då är det liksom så: ”Ja, vi ska raida tre gånger i veckan”, och så har man bestämt dag och tid och så måste man vara där. Men det jag spelare är lite friare, tycker jag i alla fall. Då kan man liksom, spela lite när man känner för det…

Carl continues to reflect over his time as a player of WoW, and he is glad that he quit playing, because he felt that his playing affected his social life and school as well:

Carl: Men det är ju för jävligt för det förstör ju verkligen ens liv, det gör ju det jag hade. Hade jag inte slutat spela då, när jag gjorde det så hade jag ju säkerligen inte suttit här just nu, jag hade ju skyndat mig ganska mycket mer hem och spelat. /…/ Jag, näe det hade sett helt annorlunda ut då.

Carl continues:

Carl: Det tog ju så otroligt mycket av, det hade verkligen gått uruselt om jag hade fortsatt spela. Jag stog ju i valet där mellan att world of warcraft eller skolan. Då blir, det kolliderade ganska mycket, så ibland fick man faktiskt offra sin egen speltid för att plugga till några prov, och det fick man alltid ångra. Men ja, skolan är fortfarande viktigare.

Carl conludes:

3: Ja, ja jag ångrar det egentligen inte, det enda jag ångrar i så fall det är att, att dra mig från att vara från mina vänner för att jag ville spela istället, men hade det inte varit så så hade jag inte ångrat att dom här speltimmarna överhuvudtaget, för jag hade så otroligt roligt, det hade jag faktiskt.

A detour from the discussion above during the interview came to touch upon the subject of the apparent violence in many games. Bengt thinks that too realistic violence is boring. Instead, he feels that the violence should be taken to the extremes. Here is a short version of the discussion:

Bengt: men sjäv tycker jag att det kan vara underhållning, men det ska helst inte vara för verkligt, så det måste ha nånting… det är obehagligt när det är för verkligt tycker jag faktiskt. Det får gärna vara överdrivet. Ska det vara blod, ska det vara mycket, mycket blod, så att det är så overkligt… /…/

Carl: Jag kunde sitta och skratta för det såg så kul ut. Man stack en nål i huvudet på någon och det sprutade över hela världen.

Bengt : Det låter så jätteobehagligt, men.. Carl: Det är jätteroligt.

Bengt: Ja, jag satt och skrattade åt 300, den filmen, för dom kapar ju huvuden och jag satt och log hela tiden och det flög över hela… Det var så overkligt, så överdrivet.

Interview 2

Eric and David discuss conflicts with their gaming habits that connect with their parents’ demands.

Eric: Jo men, vi säger att jag är på väg att levla en gubbe som är nära en level, eller en häftig kraft, då gör man hellre det än att göra läxan eller städa rummet, eller sånt. Känner du igen dig (till David)?

David: Mm, nja fast jag blir mer tvingad att göra det alltså. Min mamma eller farsa slänger ut datorkontakten om jag inte lyssnar /…/ det var några år sedan, så som jag inte följde med till någon som fyllde år eller något sånt, vi har stor släkt å så, så tog de datorn en vecka. Det är löjligt.

5 Discussion and conclusion

This section presents a discussion of the results gained from the interviews. Each topic is discussed separately.

Background and gaming habits

Most of the informants started playing when they were around nine years old. One started playing when he was six years old. Four out of the five informants still play video games, but one person, Carl, describes how he stopped playing World of Warcraft to pursue other interests instead. Another reason for his loss of interest in the game was that his friend switched server. This reason goes well in hand with what Linderoth and Bennerstedt found in their report, regarding possible causes to quit playing WoW.

Furthermore, it is interesting to see how almost all the informants had similar “training” in video gaming, as they all started playing when they were very young. This can be related to what Gee points to regarding semiotic domains: not all of the informants in this study have the same preferences regarding what type of game they are playing, but they are well trained within video games in large, i.e. the semiotic domain of video games. Gee describes a semiotic domain as, “an area or set of activities where people think, act, and value in certain ways” (Gee 19).

Language use and exposure to English during gaming sessions

In the first interview, this topic became more of a discussion regarding meeting Swedish in the context of gaming. However, as interesting as it may be, it is not within the focus of my research.

In the second interview, both David and Eric agree that they meet a lot of English in the games that they are playing, as all the missions and tasks they perform in the game often are presented in great detail. They also agree that they understand the games better now, compared to when they were younger. This result underlines the fact that there is some form of learning going on – both in understanding the structures of the games but also of the foreign language that the games are presented through. This is valuable knowledgethat needs to be taken care of. However, through constantly playing games and new games, the informants may keep their learning up to date, and at the same time apply earlier knowledge learnt prior to the new game. This is closely linked to what Smith refers to, through Eurat’s study, as tacit knowledge. The gained language skills described by the informants, are skills that they have learnt unintentionally or implicit, as the main purpose of their gaming is not actually linked to any formal learning. This type is of interest for the purpose of this study, as the theories desecribed above actually suggest that video games could be a source of knowledge. However, it is probably hard to evaluate the quality of the learnt skills. This is discussed further in the section about the informants’ ideas about possible problems and conflicts related to video gaming.

Possible benefits from playing video games

In both interviews, the informants agreed that their language proficiency had increased because of their gaming. This, they say, is highly connected to the fact that you have to be able to communicate in the game, in this case mostly World of Warcraft, to be able to be successful. As MMORPG games connect people from around the world, English becomes a natural choice of language for most players. Gee argues, through the

“Committed Learning Principle”, that if you put enough effort into your gaming, you can apply your learnt knowledge on latter parts of the game (Gee 222). In connection with the discussion of semiotic domains, this could probably be applied on the world outside of the game as well. I believe that good learning could and should take place in different domains and be put into different contexts. Hence, language learnt from playing video games, could be applied on domains outside of the game. Most informants in the

interview say that they have noticed an increased proficiency in English in school, and thus they have taken their knowledge that they have learnt in one domain, and applied it on another domain. This also goes hand in hand with Gees’ “Transfer Principle” that suggests that you in the games are given opportunities to transfer knowledge learnt earlier in the games to later problems (Gee 142). Again, in extension, this should be available between different domains as well, for example from video games to the real world.

Again, Smith’s presentation of Eurat’s theories about tacit knowledge is closely linked to the discussion above. He continues to say that tacit knowledge is: “knowledge entailed in transferring knowledge from one situation to another” (Eurat 2000: 28). This also corresponds with Gee’s “Transfer Principle”.

Apart from the discussion about better language proficiency in relation to gaming, Bengt and Carl discuss the feeling of satisfaction when accomplishing something in the game. This can be compared to Gees theory about “amplification of input principle”. This principle, says Gee, is highly motivating for the player, and a sort of mark for what level of mastery you have of the game, which could be compared to the system of your

characters’ level in World of Warcraft.

Based on Gees theories, I think Bengt and Carl describe a situation where “good learning”, as Gee describes it, has occurred: you have learnt something within the game, and you feel proud when you can apply that knowledge and accomplish something that rewards you, for example through gaining a new item or rise a level for your character. Gee argues that video games are particularly good at this, because in a limited space and time, you learn and apply your knowledge and you are able to try out new things and put your effort into becoming better and better at the game (Gee 18).

Another aspect of the game World of Warcraft has to do with what Hylén refers to as social software. Carl describes how he together with up to forty persons completed different tasks in the game, and in fact, all the informants in this study playing World of Warcraft describes situations where they in one way or another are reliant on other players in the game. Such examples, given by Carl and the other informants, indicate the value of invloving gaming in formal education with aim of emphasizing social skills and co-operation. Both Hylén and Gee describe new media’s different benefits of being multimodal and the positive effects on learning. This underlines the benefits of actually

bringing a video game into formal education, but at the same time one can argue that it is not beneficial for the hobby itself to bring spare-time interests into school. In conclusion, and this is parallel to what Gee argues, educators have much to learn from video games when it comes to inspiration for how to find new ways of learning in connection with new media.

Possible problems or conflicts connected to gaming interest

Again, this section mostly connects to Linderoths and Bennerstedts report about World of Warcraft. In the first interview, the informants discuss the problem of how gaming can interfere with their social life. The following excerpt from Linderoth and Bennerstedt resembles my own findings in this matter: “A recurring theme in the youngsters ’statements was that the game takes a great deal of time and demands considerable commitment. Time consumption may not be a problem in itself but problems arise because of it in relation to the player’s everyday life” (Linderoth & Bennerstedt 24).

In the second interview, the informants’ discussion about their gaming in relation to their parents resembles the theories that Linderoth and Bennerstedt has about parents not actually knowing what the game is about, or more specifically, not understanding the amount of time it takes to accomplish a certain quest in World of Warcraft. This can be compared to Gees’ thoughts about the “problem with content” and his discussion about video games as a waste of time.

In the first interview, Carl says that he would not be successful in school if he continued to play World of Warcraft in the same manner that he used to do. Moreover, all three express that they do not play as much these days as they did when they were

younger. The main reason for this is that their current formal education at school takes up more time and effort at upper secondary school compared to their earlier experience at lower levels of formal education. However, in the second interview, David explains that he plays video games about ten hours per day, but has not yet found any problem with his interest clashing with his formal education. Of course, one can argue that there could be a

connection between the different informants’ current upper secondary situations and their hours spent on gaming.

Another problem described by Bengt, is that his writing skills has actually become worse because of his long time interest in playing games and chatting within games. As chatting often includes abbreviations and smilies, Bengt is used to using them in writing, and often wants to use the same type of language in more formal text writing. This is a clear example of a clash between informal and formal training.

Conclusion

Here I present the main conclusion that can be made, based on the outcome of this research and the discussion above. First, the method used in this study is briefly discussed, and then the major conclusions are presented.

The method used in this study was based on the assumption that I would gather enough informants to form a solid base on which I could ground my theories based on the chosen literature for the subject. Initially, I wanted to do a more close study of a few chosen individuals, to form a narrative study. However, due to time limits and other factors, I chose to base the study on group interviews. Also, I believed that discussing video games in groups of gamers would create interesting debates, as they could fill in information on each other’s interests. In retrospect, I think this was partly successful, at least with the first group of informants, as they seemed to be comfortable with each other. In the second group interview, the relationship between the informants was different, and this resulted in a different quantity of the results gained from them. However, I also believe that this can be related to my own limited experience as a researcher and, more importantly, as an interviewer.

The main overarching research question for this study reads: What are the pupil’s thoughts about their gaming habits and possible learning situations in connection with their gaming?During the process of the study, my research question has been revised from being focused solely on learning English, to instead focus on learning in a wider context where English could play a part among other findings. This resulted in that I

gained more insight in different theories about informal learning in general, and I could draw conclusions from the results of the interviews that were not only connected to language use. My main conclusions from this study read:

- Learning could take place in different domains and be put into different contexts. Hence, language learnt from playing video games, could be applied on domains outside of the game, i.e. implicit learning in terms of using a foreign language when communicating with other players can become tacit knowledge that the learner can apply on settings outside of the game. Also, social skills learnt from the structure of a game like World of Warcraft can be used in a formal educational setting. As a video game is multimodal in its nature there are benefits from also using other multimodal material in formal education, as many of the pupils are familiar and used to the same sort of text.

- There are also problems connected to informal learning. The informants in this study describe how their interest in video games often clashes with their formal education. Another aspect is of course how the quality of the content learnt within an informal setting is being supervised, in contrast to how the formal education works with a trained teacher and a set curriculum that carefully explains how the learning should become available for the learner. Finally, one of the informants explains how his writing skills has become worse because of his informal training of English, since he wants to use smilies and abbreviations in formal text writing.

Further research

Based on the outcome of the questionnaires, it would be interesting in further studies to compare the use of a game like Singstar and a game like World of Warcraft. Also, the clear distinction between how boys and girls play in connection to the results of the questionnaires is interesting to investigate. Furthermore, only boys volunteered to

myth about the lack of female gamers. Finally, it would be interesting to be able to observe gamers of different age and sex in their gaming habits and possibly gain a deeper knowledge of any possible informal learning that occurs.