More Than Just Play

In many contexts, play is often considered as mutually exclusive to a person’s learning process. As children advance through their learning experience, play is often removed or limited from their daily activities. Meanwhile, through research on the Pedagogy of Play, researchers found that making learning joyful for children enables them to lead their own learning, explore their curiosity and the unknown (Mardell et al, 2023). Playful learning can also help students develop their abilities to collaborate, problem solve and navigate uncertainty through the development of vital life skills (Mardell et al, 2023). While play has been cited as a feminist decolonial and imaginative practice of knowledge sharing (Salami, 2021), it is equally essential to provide the critical meta-skills in a constantly evolving digital society. 

We’re Still Getting It Wrong

In response to the digitization of society and the Covid-19 pandemic, educationalists and learning designers placed significant effort in exploring education technology (Ed-tech), as a solution to expand access to education, and provide learning opportunities at a distance. Yet, most of these forms of learning have also defaulted into the normative pedagogical approach to delivering education. Instead of leveraging technology to create new, inclusive, and adaptive forms of education, much of Ed-tech has simply transplanted conventional classroom practices into the digital realm. This means that many online learning environments still emphasise rote learning, standardised testing, and teacher-centred instruction where the opportunity to integrate more interactive, experiential, and problem-based learning approaches is often missed.

Challenges on the Path to Game-Based Learning

In the African context, what we consider as game-based learning (GBL) is still in its very nascent stages (Mastercard Foundation, n.d.). While GBL has the potential to engage students in novel ways, its implementation faces significant challenges, such as inconsistent internet access, limited device availability, unreliable electricity supply, and a lack of teacher technical skills. Additionally, the localisation of content to make it culturally relevant and accessible remains a critical issue, leading to missed opportunities. This situation often forces educators to rely on very basic tools for gamification and GBL such as Kahoot, if at all. 

What Tomorrow’s World Asks Of Us

The demands of globalisation and the proliferation of the internet have created a need for new skills that outdated and stagnant curricula prevalent in many African countries simply cannot supply. In this context, GBL emerges as a low-cost and efficient means to impart these skills to a young African population. However, for GBL to truly succeed and be effective, it requires a significant investment of resources, innovative thinking, and research tailored to the African context. We need games that go beyond arithmetic and language that impart important life skills like communication, empathy, ethics, emerging issues of our time such as climate change or artificial intelligence, and cross-cultural understanding (Salami, 2021). And, we need more localised development of such games - by learning designers, teachers, students, private sector, government, and academia.

Good video game design can serve as an effective tool for imparting essential skills and  for teaching key learning principles, as outlined by James Paul Gee (2003). For example, the Identity Principle in games encourages role-playing, which supports learning through empathy and identity exploration. Similarly, the concepts of "Just in Time" and "On Demand" learning illustrate how games provide information to players exactly when they need it, avoiding the overwhelm of frontloading information. This approach aligns with how people learn best—by acquiring knowledge as it becomes relevant.

The game industry across Africa is growing rapidly both in terms of revenue and players, and this is a very exciting time to introduce positive changes to traditionally sluggish education sectors. However, any initiatives must be approached deliberately, supported by thorough research, careful consideration, and solid evidence before being implemented with children during their formative and most vulnerable years.

Our Research Questions

As part of our first study, we have two main research questions:

1. What are the current types of learning experiences that exist for children (ages 9-15) to access creative and critical thinking skills?

2. How can we design culturally relevant and accessible game-based learning experiences for children who have access to at least one technology device at home or in their school?  

We will employ a qualitative research methodology centred on in-depth interviews. The aim is to gain insights from a diverse group of learning designers across the continent, who are actively engaged in the development and implementation of educational technologies and GBL experiences. Data will be collected through semi-structured interviews conducted via video conferencing platforms to accommodate geographical diversity.

Our Ask

The purpose of this study is to apply a feminist framework to explore inclusive and accessible game-based learning (GBL) within the African context. Building on these insights, the next phase of our research will involve developing a robust framework for measuring metacognition—how learners think about their thinking—in the context of games and learning.

At this stage, we are reaching out to learning designers across Africa who are interested in contributing to this study. We value your expertise, experiences, and perspectives and invite you to help shape a more inclusive and effective approach to game-based learning in Africa.

Reach Out

Contact us here.

References

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, NY: Palgrave/Macmillan.

Mardell, B., Ryan, J., Krechevsky, M., Baker, M., Schulz, S., & Liu-Constant, Y. (2023). A 

Pedagogy of Play: Supporting playful learning in classrooms and schools. President and Fellows of Harvard College. https://pz.harvard.edu/resources/pedagogy-of-play-book

Mastercard Foundation. (n.d.). Exploring the Role of Gamification in Africa’s Education Systems. Retrieved from Mastercard Foundation website: https://mastercardfdn.org/all/centre-for-innovative-teaching-and-learning-in-ict/exploring-the-role-of-gamification-in-africas-education-systems

Salami, M. (2020). Sensuous knowledge : a Black feminist approach for everyone (pp. 13–15). New York, Ny: Amistad, An Imprint Of Harpercolinspublishers.

Written in collaboration with Mardiya Siba Yahaya