Disruptive learning and optimal flow: Game jams in heterotopic affinity space

King, Andrew

Abstract

Game jams are intensive, time-bound videogame-development events where students, professionals, and hobbyists form teams to create games against the clock. Jams are popular, offering accessible, informal learning environments which promote teamwork, problem solving, technical skills and high levels of participant satisfaction.
The Foundry is an award-winning environment developed to enhance the agency, risk-taking, and problem-solving of technology graduates through digital projects and participative events. Its design drew upon a case-study of MIT’s “Building 20” alumni, and Owen Barden’s concept of “heterotopic affinity space” which combined Foucault’s heterotopia with Gee’s affinity space, creating an informal learning space at odds with the institution around it. As the only dedicated campus jam site in the UK, it offers an amplified experience compared to traditional university computing labs.

This mini-ethnographic case-study explores the disruptive behaviour and engagement of Foundry participants during the 2019 Global Game Jam. Through audio interview, video observation and reflexive thematic analysis, it concerns learners, learning processes and educational spaces. Taking-up an interpretivist perspective, it offers inductive exploration of disruptive and transgressive behaviour in heterotopic affinity space, and the effect the space has on individuals and groups.

Research has recently aligned game jams with affinity space theory, but does not yet consider the effect of physical or heterotopic affinity space on participants undertaking technical development. This thesis does not seek to establish why spatial or technological aspects of the Foundry elicit disruptive behaviour, or to develop generalisable specifications to revitalise classroom pedagogy elsewhere. Instead, it forms an explorative “first foray” to gaps in knowledge around game jams, physical campus affinity spaces and the effect of heterotopia on engagement.

The significant original contributions of this thesis are its conceptualisation of “lateral moments” as an analytical tool for off-topic behaviour, and the development of a model to situate them within wider phases of heterotopic affinity space engagement (PHASE). Operationalising these contributions, disruptive individual and group behaviours are identified as proximal to flow experience, leading to conclusions which consider the extent to which disruptive behaviour in heterotopic affinity space can be considered a positive pedagogic phenomenon conducive to the optimal experience of “flow”.

Findings carry implications for researchers in game studies and the educational sciences, specifically those involved with game jams, hackathons, affinity space, learning engagement, or the design of educational spaces.

Citation

King, A. Disruptive learning and optimal flow: Game jams in heterotopic affinity space. (Thesis). University of the West of England. Retrieved from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9303643

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Apr 7, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 23, 2022
• Keywords: Heterotopia, Affinity Space, Game Jams, Game Development, Learning Spaces, Learner Engagement, Flow Theory
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9303643
• Award Date: Dec 23, 2022