In the past decade, scholars have turned their eyes toward games as being critical for fostering the kinds of 21st century learning environments we desperately need. My work deals with games, not as simple instructional tools, but as vibrant and artistic media first and foremost. Media with histories, with cultural impact, and with their own “lives” outside of their use as instructional tools.

In my research, I bridge multiple disciplinary perspectives, primarily the learning sciences and cultural studies, with the aim that constructing new models of learning necessitates a better understanding of the diverse learning ecologies that are fostered by popular uses of digital media.

A bit of background: I started off as a cognitive scientist, both for my undergraduate degree (at Miami University), and my master’s degree (in the Department of Psychology at Bowling Green State University). In my previous research life, I studied scientific thinking — argumentation, reasoning, problem-solving and expertise within scientific theory formation. I focused on applying cognitive approaches to understanding the exemplary scientific and technical practices seen outside of the contraints of the psychology lab.

In 2009, I finished my docorate in the Curriculum & Instruction department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in Educational Technology with a distributed minor in Learning With New Media. I studied and conducted research within UW-Madison’s Games+Learning+Society Group, conducting research of gaming “communities of practice,” as well as helping to pilot an interest-driven afterschool gaming program for youth.

Since January, 2010, I have been the C. Michael Armstrong Professor of Interactive Media, an Assistant Professor appointment within Miami University’s School of Education, Health, and Society and Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies. In my work and undergraduate teaching, I have striven to connect these two sides more meaningfully — literature on learning and literacy with interactive media studies. I lead an undergraduate research team I dubbed the “MAGIC Lab,” and am co-coordinator for Miami’s new games center.

Current Research Projects

My current areas of interest are focused in three major wings and associated projects — Learning in Affinity Spaces, Games and STEM Learning, and Interest-Driven Learning. For all three, I have the underlying goal of connecting the learning sciences to exogenous, “in the wild” gaming practices, and understanding the learning communities that form around engaged participants with these media.

Learning in Affinity Spaces

My major areas of research through my doctoral work revolved around understanding learning and literacy practices found in online “affinity spaces” — shifting, fan-centered communities of practice — around video games. I have published, with Constance Steinkuehler (Steinkuehler & Duncan, 2009), on informal scientific reasoning found in gaming fan communities, and I have recently published on approaches for investigating the evolution of design practices (Duncan, 2010) in similar spaces.

Additionally, in April, 2012, a volume edited by Elisabeth Hayes and myself entitled Learning In Video Game Affinity Spaces will be published by Peter Lang Publishers, as part of their New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies series (see tentative cover above). Through this collaborative work, I have found myself increasingly convinced that online “affinity spaces” present a largely-overlooked domain of study for the learning sciences, and am interested in further developing rigorous methodologies for analyzing the creative development found within them, as well as the social interactions at their core.

Games and STEM Learning

Building off of the initial work reported in Steinkuehler & Duncan, 2009, I have focused upon investigating the learning of design practices within online gaming communities. In particular, recent work has delved into the role of learning computer programming in the development of digital games, as well as design practices more broadly. In terms of the components of “STEM” learning, I argue that computational and procedural facility is currently under-studied, and occasionally ignored in favor of an “injection model” of game-based learning, in which overt scientific content areas are privileged over the development of computational thinking practices with digital tools.

Most recently, I have been a part of a collaboration with Matthew Berland (University of Texas-San Antonio) on uncovering the forms of computational thinking present within non-digital, collaborative board games. The game under study, Matt Leacock’s Pandemic (pictured above), provides players with opportunities to enact hypothesized elements of computational thinking — from algorithm-building to debugging to simulation. Through analyses of verbal discourse within gameplay, we have developed an interpretive scheme which we argue is effective for capturing the forms of informal computational thinking “in the wild” that typify engagement with games. In upcoming work, I plan to extend this research into studies of young children, through studies of similar, collaborative board games designed for younger learners.

Interest-Driven Learning

If we shift our focus from analyses of pre-existing, online learning communities to the forms of learning that can help to drive future instructional spaces, the role of interest-driven learning (see Squire, 2011) needs further understanding. That is, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him (or her) drink — taking seriously the interests of young learners is integral for developing long-term success with digital media as learning contexts.

Toward this end, I am currently in the planning stages for an afterschool game modding/game design program. Dubbed the Gamers As Designers Program, the undergraduates in the MAGIC Lab undergraduate research group will be assisting in crafting an environment for teens to bridge existing interests in game modding (using popular games Minecraft and Portal 2) with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics content. Leveraging and fostering interest in games toward STEM goals, I view game modding/game design as an ideal “STEAM” learning intervention, guiding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics content through the artistic pursuit of game design.

For more on this upcoming program, please check out the barebones project site, as well as a promotional flyer.