Att spela datorspel: Om färdigheter och kompetenser i spelaktiviteten : Gaming and literacy: Skills and competencies in computer game activity

• By taking departure in the concept of computer gaming literacy, which is described as the ability of interacting with a computer game, the report relates this to what gamers actually do in an empirically study of players. Earlier research claim that computer gaming could be seen as a semiotic domain. This study focus on the “character” of any ability that the concept computer gaming literacy could include, and answering the question what it means to be “literate” within this area. In particular what is it that a gamer can? The study’s empirical material is based on 20 gamers playing the Xbox game Timesplitters 2 by videotaping them when playing the game in pairs (split-screen). The players in the study, with an age between 17 and 54, have a broad variation in gaming experience. By doing interaction analysis, which has a background from socio cultural theory, the result illustrate that gaming is a discursive practice with a specialized language. Therefore, the gamer assumes learning a discourse in the game activity. Further, the gaming activities demonstrate that competence could be seen as two, to some extent, separate capabilities. One of them deals with handling the control, and therefore the games interface, by making it invisible to be able to interpret the artifacts “statements”. The second capability or competence is about seeing the game environments structure. The study shows that the gamer must make competent hypothesis concerning the model underlying the functions of the game to be able to progress in the game environment. Experienced gamers have therefore developed a way of seeing based on the structure of the game environment.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Communication Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Datorseende och robotik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Computer Vision and Robotics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Computer Gaming

Computer Game/Gaming Literacy

Professional Vision

Mediating Tools

Discursive Practices

Videoanalysis

Learning

Timesplitters 2

Xbox

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)