Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers & Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu

Creative thinking in digital game design and development: A case

study
Cesar C. Navarrete
Learning Technologies, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78745, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In a case study on middle-school student educational game creation course in south central US state, the
Received 9 January 2013 students’ creative thinking process is investigated in order to understand perceptions of the digital
Received in revised form design and programming involved in the game creation learning approach. Interviewing 12 students at
19 July 2013
with three different levels of game design experience, students in grade 6, 7 and 8, with 1, 2, and 3 years
Accepted 22 July 2013
of game design experience respectively, findings suggest that students enjoyed the learning approach as
satisfying and engaging, yet technologically challenging. The students experienced positive opportunities
Keywords:
for engaging the creative thinking process in synthesizing social issue information for constructing their
Creative thinking
Game design understanding through the creation of interactive, educational digital games. Findings suggest that the
Programming creative thinking process in student-centered game creation learning approach may provide learners a
Technology rich and enjoyable learning experience with the authentic technology use as well as provide for deep,
Curriculum insightful learning.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Digital games have received interest from educators for their capacity to improve learning. Motivating students with engaging in-
teractions, they have the capacity to promote learning procedural knowledge that goes beyond the traditional standards-based, declarative
knowledge taught in schools that is offered as being a privileged curricula (Shaffer, 2006). Game play is proposed to provide students with
deeper conceptual understanding through digital interactions. Thus, digital games have been identified as an effective way to engage
students in learning (Gee, 2007). Moreover, while game play may offer significant learning opportunities, educational game construction
has been identified as a student-centered constructivist-approach educational improvement (Baytak & Land, 2011; Caperton, 2010; Kafai,
2006). Specifically, educators call for the inclusion of creative thinking in modern education: “Success is based not only on what you
know or how much we know, but on your ability to think and act creatively. In short, we are now living in the Creative Society” (Resnick,
2007, p. 18). Argued as incongruous with standards-based educational trends, the inclusion of creative thinking with technology tools is
suggested to be critical for 21st century learners (Sternberg, 2012). Game design and development, in which the students program original
educational games suggests empowered learning for “cultural resonance” allowing the learning process to “make sense in terms of a larger
social context” (Papert, 1980, p. 54). Designing and programming games offers students authentic participation in the digital game creation
and empower them in their learning as a Web 2.0 participant.
Essentially, creative technology use may hold vast potential for transformative learning (Daud, Mustaffa, Hussain, & Osman, 2009) and
may have significant impact on student creative processes (Gangadharbatla, 2010). Game design and development curriculum that ad-
dresses the 21st century learning skills required from students offers a project-based, constructivist approach to learning (Caperton, 2010).
Game design and development involves the learning of programming language in order to build interactive and educational games. Creating
games engages students in an inventive process that may be suggested to develop digital literacy similar to the way that writing promotes
traditional text-based literacy (Vos, van der Meijden, & Denessen, 2011).
Due to the paucity of empirical research of middle-school student design and development of educational games on social issues, this
research offers insight on the student’s creative experiences in technology-integrated, ill-structured, constructivist learning settings as they
engage in programming digital games (Reynolds & Caperton, 2011).

E-mail address: [email protected].

0360-1315/$ – see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2013.07.025
 C.C. Navarrete / Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331 321

2. Framing creative thinking in digital game design

2.1. Creative thinking

In defining individual creativity, the concept is suggested as a distinct human trait that evokes positive emotions in the form of personal
satisfaction (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 1999). While the creative process is posited to be interdependent
with creative domain and the field (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996), for the purpose of this study, individual creativity potential, as the individual’s
creative actions that may be performed in everyday life (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). Specifically, the creative process may be found in all
individuals as a “capacity to construct original interpretation” (Runco, 2008, p. 98) and is identified as the individual’s creative thinking
process, as a non-expert, and not dependent on domain and field transforming creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). Nonetheless, the creative
thinking process is posited as a central skill needed in education for preparing all students (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009; Runco, 2008). In
framing this perspective, creative thinking as the extension of thinking and problem solving with student learning (Runco, 2004, 2008;
Wallas, 1926), is proposed as the epistemological lens in the study digital game creation environment. Creative and innovative thinking
has been identified as a fundamental component of educational technology to support student learning (Gangadharbatla, 2010; Lewis,
2009). However, while creativity has been identified as important to the inventive human potential in all academic disciplines, the lack
of meaningful inclusion in educational curricula has been identified as a serious limitations in modern schooling (Robinson, 2001; Root-
Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 1999; Sternberg, 2012).

2.2. Technology

Educational technology use offers a distinct opportunity for development of the creative process (Gangadharbatla, 2010; Lewis, 2009;
Rutland & Barlex, 2008; Spendlove, 2008). In the investigation of technology-integrated creativity learning, Gangadharbatla (2010) calls
for “a new system for understanding the creative process” (p. 226) and suggests that the technology tool affordances may hold significant
opportunities for the creative thinking process in educational settings. How students may be fostered in thinking creatively in technology
environments remains ambiguous and requires empirical grounding. The complexity of curricular objectives with technology-integrated
learning and existing standards-based education identifies critical tension between creative thinking education and existing educational
practice (Klausen, 2010; Sternberg, 2012). For example, researcher have found that educational, transformative use of technology in
traditional schools may be typically eschewed (Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck, 2001)

2.3. Games and play

Games and play have been found to be fundamentally important and contribute to the development of society and learners (Caillois,
1961) and are found to hold potential for cognitive development (Vygotskiǐ, 1978). Specifically, games and playing are fundamental ele-
ments for the youth in learning to become participants in their culture. With the innovative inclusion of robust technology applications,
digital games as learning tools have been argued to hold a vast dynamic potential to engage students in 21st century learning opportunities
(Gee, 2007; Squire, 2011). Shaffer (2006) argues that teaching procedural knowledge to students through digital games offers a great
improvement in learning beyond the declarative knowledge learning that holds a position of privilege in our current educational curric-
ulum. That is, despite the vast potential for improved learning, digital games may not valued in traditional educational curriculum aligned
with high-stakes standards-based models (Jenkins, 2006; Shaffer, 2006).

2.4. Game creation

Game creation is suggested to provide greater student engagement and learning than game play (Vos et al., 2011), in supporting a
constructivist approach in which the students learn how to synthesize information and express it, in the authoring of an original game. For
example, in a pilot Adventure Author project, researchers explore student perceptions in the game-authoring environment (Robertson &
Nicholson, 2007). These researchers reveal that students found it difficult to articulate where their creative design ideas came from and the
software limitations constrained the development of their ideas and argue that creative designing is a difficult concept for young children learn.
In an eight-week game-authoring exploratory study, an Adventure Author project using Neverwinter Nights toolset software, with
students ages 9-10, researchers found that game-authoring opportunities may offer students motivating, technology-supported learning
activities that promote enthusiasm with the young learners and “can empower learners by enabling them to express their creativity and
share it with a genuine audience” (Robertson & Howells, 2008, p. 562). Importantly, these researchers found that digital authoring offered
opportunity for creativity in authentic learning within a “powerful learning environment” (pp. 576–577).
In a similar case study with grade 5 students using Scratch software, researchers found that the students could design games within a
constructionist framework and that programming skill increase with increased design experience (Baytak & Land, 2011). In this study,
learners were found to learn programming skills along with science content through the use of graphical programming software. Addi-
tionally, they found that the learning in this study was difficult to determine.
In a study using drag-and-drop game design software, creating vocabulary memory games, conditions for learner motivation and deep
strategy use were compared between students creating games and playing games (Vos et al., 2011). These researchers found that con-
structing games may be more motivating and provide opportunities for the use of “deep learning strategies” in the more active condition of
constructing when compared to the more passive condition of game playing (p. 135). Although these studies identified the creativity in
games with game-authoring software (Robertson & Howells, 2008; Robertson & Nicholson, 2007; Vos et al., 2011), programming skills, using
authentic programming software in the game creations were not explored in these studies.
In a game design pilot program, Reynolds and Caperton (2011) found that the game design program, using Flash software, “may provide a
particularly interesting and useful context in which to continue exploring pertinent theoretical questions and debates occurring presently in
the learning sciences” (p. 287). This research builds on the concept of engaging students in creative thinking as they design and build games
322 C.C. Navarrete / Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331

within a constructionist learning approach. Important to this strand of research, student’s perceptions indicated a positive learner expe-
rience. However, creativity was not elaborated on with only 1% of the participants indicating creativity/expression as “important” on the
survey (p. 277).
Designing games and programming them is central to the development of technology literacy in a similar fashion to the way that writing
supports traditional text-based literacy (Caperton, 2010; Kafai, 2006). Kafai (2006) argues, “The special role of games in contemporary
children’s culture coupled with the deep sense of engagement common in game-related activities creates a new and promising context for
games studies” (p. 39). The literature reviewed suggests complex concepts and mixed empirical understanding of creative thinking learning.
Understanding the creative thinking process when students engage in game design and development his critical to current educational
issues. Illuminating how creative digital authoring impacts 21st century skill development with young students is urgent and necessary.
The purpose of this case study is to examine the learner’s creative thinking experience in the digital game design and development
course with middle-school students. It is vital to understand the student’s perceptions of the complex digital design environment. The
question guiding this study is: How do students experience creativity within the game design and development environment? The focus of
this study is to develop insight in to the creativity inherent in designing and producing interactive digital games within traditional learning
environments. The study was IRB approved and no external funding was involved.

3. Methodology

3.1. Setting and participants

The case setting was a charter middle school in a southern US state. In the 2011–2012 scholastic year, the student population had a high
demographic representation of 85% Latino students and identified 40% English language learners. All of the students attended a mandatory
game design class everyday for an hour, as a technology course. During the first half of the year, three teachers initially taught the class. In
the second half of the year, two teachers taught approximately 300 students in all grade levels: 6,7, and 8. The mid-year administrative
decision for the game design teacher’s reassignment to reading instruction made the game design class student-to-teacher ratio increase
and suggested the prioritizing of traditional content courses with an emphasis on the passing state exam pass rates.
The students worked in a project-based setting by researching social and educational topics and creating thematic games in collabo-
ration with other students. The learning skills for digital age learners are: creativity and innovation; critical thinking and problem solving;
communication and collaboration; and digital media literacy skills (Claro et al., 2012; ISTE, 2007; Trilling & Fadel, 2009). In framing the
constructs, creative thinking is implicit to critical thinking in the form of everyday problem solving (Runco, 2008). Moreover, action script,
an object-oriented development language, logical thinking is suggested to be intrinsic to programming language learning (Stamouli &
Huggard, 2006). That is, programming languages require a computational approach that makes use of specific logic functions typically
used in object-oriented language such as Action Script in the form of logical thinking and problem solving in game design (Wang, McCaffrey,
Wendel, & Klopfer, 2006).
The game design and development involves a project-based, socio-constructivist approach to technology-integrated learning while
students engage in creating interactive games that focus on critical social issues that integrate content areas such as science, math, and social
studies (Caperton, 2010). In this study, the creative thinking involved in this technology-integrated learning environment, aligned with
constructivist learning approaches is the phenomenon of interest.

3.2. The case

For this research design, case study methodology offered the lens for researching the phenomenological events within the real-life
context of middle-school students’ experience in game designing and developing digital games as a regular computer course involving
Web 2.0 technology (Merriam, 2009). Due to the complex interplay of project-based technology integration in game authoring (Reynolds &
Caperton, 2011), understanding the students’ experience, “The case study offers a mean of investigating complex social units consisting of
multiple variables of potential importance in understanding the phenomenon” (Merriam, 2009, p. 50). The cases of student groups
designing and authoring, using Flash-based programming language in grade 6–8 offer the bounded system circumscribing three distinct
units of analysis (Merriam, 2009). Specifically, the case consists of three ‘treatment’ levels of analysis or three nested units within the wider
case (Thomas, 2011). That is, grade 6 students having received one year of technology instruction with grade 7 students having a second year
of learning and grade 8 students programmed games for three years. The self-reported process by the student and that finding are particular
to this phenomenon, suggest limitations to this study. The data and triangulation contribute a foundational support of the findings on
creative thinking in game creation with conceptual convergence.

3.3. Data collection and analysis

3.3.1. Interviews
Individual student interviews, classroom observations and student digital artifacts were analyzed to inform this investigation. Semi-
structured interviews with four students from each grade level were conducted in attempting to reveal the “emerging worldview of the
respondent and to [determine] new ideas on the topic” (Merriam, 2009, p. 90).
The student’s were asked to tell about their experience with questions:

How do you feel about designing games?

How do you think designing games help you learn?
What do you learn?
What is something new or creative that you have learned about designing games?
In designing and creating unique games, how does the process feel like?
 C.C. Navarrete / Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331 323

Tell me about something new or creative that you have learned?

These questions guided the semi-structured interview in order to capture the students’ perspectives on creative thinking. Additional
probing questions were asked by the researcher to have the student describe past and current game design experiences.
The interviews and two observations were conducted near the end of the school year with another two observations and the follow-up
screencast collection approximately five months later. Adding to of the research, rich and candid conversations resulted. The 12 students
interviewed had parental consent and personal assent to participate in the study. The teachers selected four students at each experience
level of 1, 2, and 3 years of experience. Their respective teacher selected the students on the following criteria: students from each grade
level, with the corresponding years of experience, who were earnestly engaged in the game design and may reflect and be able to speak of
their experience, as well as students who may be moderately engaged in an attempt to capture a variation of perceptions. Unengaged
students were not selected as the focus of the research was to reveal the distinct attributes of game design-based learning. The setting
demographics offer diverse learners that include students with special learning needs as well as English language limitations that suggest
challenges in learning programming skills as well as their capacity to reflect on complex thinking constructs and explicate their perceptions.
Nonetheless, the intent of the investigation defines the need to explicate the phenomenon as the “atypical” and attempt to reveal “deeper
causes behind a given problem” (Flyvbjerg, 2011, p. 306). The focus of the interview, with each individual student in a confidential space, was
intent on engaging the students in deep introspection and reflection on their creative experiences in creation of games.
Ten of the students were audio recorded and two opted to have notes taken on a laptop. The audio recordings were transcribed and the
text was analyzed using the constant comparative method (Merriam, 2009) using NVivo 9 software. Pseudonyms provided the participating
students with confidentiality required by the IRB protocol. The themes and codes were analyzed to identify recurring words, semantic
meanings, expressions and general feelings about the digital design space to inform the research question (Gee, 2011). The understanding of
creativity from the student’s feelings and intuitions are warranted for this study (Root-Bernstein, 2001). The essential consideration is that
“creative thinking and expression in every discipline are born of intuition and emotion” (p. 6).

3.3.2. Observations
The four classroom, two with each teacher, observations were able to ascertain common environments to triangulate the analysis
findings (Mathison, 1988). One teacher, who taught grade 6 and half of the grade 7 students, had 25 desktop PC’s in the technology lab, while
the other teacher, who taught the rest of the grade 7 and all of the most advanced, grade 8, was in a portable building classroom with 25
laptops on tables. The classroom observations were used to triangulate with the student interviews. Inherent to computer–human in-
teractions, the classroom observations indicated that the students work directly on their assigned desktop computers or laptops to search
for relevant information and programming the games.

3.3.3. Games
In a brief, follow-up individual interview session, the students accessed their game and screencasts were collected of the games. The
individual games were reviewed with each of the students. Additionally, the students’ games were played for general functionality and user
interface, by two researchers and used for triangulation. Member-check with the students was conducted during the follow-up game
viewing and concurrent discussion. Additionally, peer-debriefings were conducted with another researcher to mitigate research limitations.

4. Findings

4.1. Student interviews

Four student interviews at each of the grade levels of 6, 7 and 8 offered details on the creative work in the game design and development
environment. The student’s words offer the insight into understanding how the student, in the creation of games, perceives the creative
thinking process and examples of quotes are found in Table 1. The creative thinking construct was identified by two categorical themes:
creative process as a technological capacity along with challenges and creativity as personal intuition and emotions. That is, in response to
the research question, the students attributed the technological environment, that included multimodal design elements as well as pro-
gramming the game functions, as critical to their game design learning. Additionally, the students identified positive emotions, such as
“fun”, as well as personal satisfaction in their technological accomplishment, despite the difficulties found in the game design environment.
In analyzing the student interview transcripts, creative thinking was supported in the game design learning approach through the use of
professional development software and enabling the student’s individual creative potential.
From NVivo files, the number of coding references of the creativity theme was 26, 27, and 33; and the originality theme was 9, 13, and 38,
for the grade 6, 7, and 8, respectively. While the number of comments may provide evidence the observations, it was the insightful quality of
the reflective statements that indicated the change in perception of creativity (Gee, 2011). That is, the questions prompted deeper meaning
making of creative thinking within the game-authoring space. For example, the grade 6 students, Carol and Todd described it in terms of
drawing while; Sonya spoke in terms of putting “your personality into your own game.” Carlos said, “I’m happy.” From the grade 7 students,
Julia described “a world of imagination,” Antonio spoke of the “amazing” aspect, while Yvonne and Jesse reflected on “drawing.” From the
grade 8 students, Alma spoke of how she “learned how to control them,” Blanca spoke of “come up with something new,” Justin thought is
was “pretty easy” while Tony said that it’s “.good to start with different topics.”
For example, with the grade 6 students, the student identified creativity with the use of artistic elements found through visual expression
in the digital environment. The students detailed the creative element in game design as images created for the games. For example, Sonya, a
grade 6 student, said that she expressed her creativity by, “Using all the different tools to make different shapes and change different colors.”
Another, grade 6 student, Todd commented his personal control of his creative work, “You can draw your own characters, you can be creative
[in] your background work, you can make anything look the way you want it and you can, yeah, you’re just making your own game on
anything you want to make it look like.”
324 C.C. Navarrete / Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331

Table 1
Student quotes on perception of creative thinking in game design class.

Year Student Individual perceptions of the work in game creation Technological capacity in game creation
1st Carlos I’m happy It is the only class that makes it easy to make games.
Carol I like to draw it, that’s the more fun part, cause, like at the end For designing the games, it’s like, if you, like, try to paint something,
when you’re done, whatever your drawing, it looks better than, you have to cover everything, no holes, and then you can get less confused.
whatever you suppose to draw. And then, if you have the object and it’s a symbol, there’s this little dot
in the middle and then the other part is over here and that’s why it’s
flashing, you have to move it over there and it’s kind of difficult.
Sonya The creative side is that you get to make it the way you want it. When we play other games, we can actually know how we did it, cause
So, it can be your personality into your own game. I know before I started, I would ask, ‘man this must be hard for them
to do’ and it really is hard. Cause you have lots of code that you have
to put it in for it to work.
Todd I think it’s pretty fun, cause you get to see what you’ve made The most difficult thing is actually the coding; cause you have to, like,
and be proud of yourself cause you have these games.you can if you make a single mistake, it might not even work, it might not move.
make it anything you If you forgot a bracket a coding bracket or anything like that,
want it to look like. you’ll be mess up.
You have to have the code, spell everything right and it has to have the
punctuation if it has it, and stuff like that.
2nd Antonio Pretty amazing, I didn’t know I could do this in middle school, You spend the whole period in there, trying to do your game and
cause, none of my other cousins, they didn’t do this, it was you do it by yourself.
pretty cool doing this.
Jesse I can be like more creative and then, it’ll make my game better It helps you because you can learn how to type faster and you can
cause I’ll say, ‘well this game good, so I got to make mine better’ learn stuff off the wiki. And it teaches you how to really do stuff
and it also helps you making it into choices of your own.
Julia When I’m making a game, it makes me feel I’m imagining I think it expands or technology skills, especially since technology
something like if I’m in a world of imagination or I’m asleep itself is expanding, We have things that back then not even able to
and I’m dreaming. think of, so, it just makes it awesome and you see something and you
want to do it, and you’re just like, how do I do it. Technology is basically
what we do now.
Yvonne I think it’s fun, cause it’s like a challenge, even with the codes, It makes you pay more attention to detail, like for the codes, you have
I think the codes are the best part, kind of, cause they’re really to pay a lot of attention, so it helps you pay attention to detail and typing,
hard and all.. I’m proud. I type like really fast now.
3rd Alma I think it’s fun because you get to play with the codes. It’s fun. I like it, it really gets easier every time you come here. Yea, I like the class.
I really like the experience.
when creating the game you have to think about the social issue.
Blanca You just get an idea, just like start working with what you have I kind of dislike that [coding] too, but it makes me understand how the
and then you like, start processing more ideas. computer talks and how it’s different from, let’s say our language,
I felt good, I felt a lot smarter. I feel great, like, I have how the computer has it’s own language and we have ours.
accomplished something for this class.
Justin I mean your creativity is all based on what you can do and When you play other people’s games, you get ideas on how you can
you got a lot of creativity. Very fulfilling. make your own game better, how you can make it more, I guess, powerful,
like attention wise, so you can get people’s attention, try to see what they
did wrong or whatever we can do better.
Tony In my opinion, I think it’s pretty cool. And then there’s the coding, it’s very sensitive, one missed key, it messes
up your whole thing and you probably know what it is, you find it but by
the time you find it’s all messed up. But, it’s not that hard once you get the
hang of it.

While some of the grade 7 students also defined creativity as a visual form, Yvonne elaborated more on the topic and connected it to the
technological affordance of creative capacity along with the experience gained, “This year, I learned how to trace things better, cause before
our drawings were sloppy and not that good. And, at first it was hard because we didn’t know what to do in Flash and use the tools and
anything but now it’s easier because we know how to trace things and how to make things of our own.”
Another grade 7 student, Julia also indicated the technology as important to the creative thinking process, “I think it expands our
technology skills, especially since technology itself is expanding. We have things that back then, not even able to think of, so, it just makes it
awesome and you see something and you want to do it, and you’re just like, how do I do it. Technology is basically what we do now.” In grade
8, Alma also indicated the technology support for creativity along with the control of her process, “I’ve learned how to control them. For
example, you make an object, you convert it to a button and you put the instance name.” Alma was describing accurate and descriptive
understanding of technical operations.
Creativity for personal fulfillment and empowerment, indicated by intuition and emotions was found more representative with the more
experienced students in grade 8 with three years of game design work. For example Tony reflected that “Yes, I think that you’re actually
learning more than you’d probably would in just a class dealing with one subject. Since you’re on a computer that has unlimited information,
you can look up what ever you want.” Also in grade 8, Justin offered, “I mean your creativity is all based on what you can do and you got a lot
of creativity, it’s pretty easy to do that stuff.”
Importantly, a grade 7 student, Julia was able to recall the creative thinking process, “I think. there is no problem with creativity.
When I’m making a game, it makes me feel I’m imagining something like if I’m in a world of imagination or I’m asleep and I’m dreaming.”
This insightful observation on the process of creativity is associated with the concept of visual imaging.
The representative text from the three nested cases of students offers a distinct increase of reflectivity on the creative process of game
design. While students with one year of experience in programming games found opportunity for the creative thinking process in the
technology environment, added experience suggested increased opportunity for understanding of the creative process in game creation.
The analysis of the 12 interviews offers insight into the involvement of creative thinking with technology. The main premise suggested is
that long-term and substantial experience in an open-ended learning approach is needed by students in order for them to identify the
 C.C. Navarrete / Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331 325

creative elements in game design and development classes. In this case, the students who have taken the game design class for three years
were more apt to identify the creative thinking process in their reflections of the game creation experience while the least experienced
students in grade 6 with one year of experience identified the process in more concrete terms found in the visual arts, such as creative
expression through lines and colors, while the students with more experience, indicated greater integral understanding of the technology
involved in the game creation.

4.2. Classroom observations

The four formal classroom observations along with occasional walk-through informed the researcher that the class format involved some
guided instruction on how to use the Flash software and wikis for code sequences used in the games. The guided, teacher-lead, instructions
were brief and concise, demonstrated the use of a small coding sequence for a specific animation or interaction effect. Both of the teachers
observed, projected their computer screen via LCD while they orally gave guidance and suggestions. Subsequently, the students would work
in pairs or singly to develop their own interactions while the teachers offered individual assistance. The individual computer screens and the
quiet conversations were the focus of the class activity. To provide greater insight into the classroom work, the researcher included in-class,
side-by-side, questions with individual students while they worked on their computers.
While the students worked on authentic digital products, the teachers supported the development process with guidance on information
and coding sequences. However, in observing for variation in different experience levels, experienced students appeared to work more
independently and seemed more confident in their work while less experienced students appeared to rely more on teacher support and
guidance. However, variations of student engagement were observed throughout the sessions. Not all students were fully engaged in the
game constructions at all times, as the learning the programming language offered daunting challenges to diverse learners such as special
needs learners. Nonetheless, the students’ discourse specific to creative thinking, suggests that the class was more engaging and offered
greater opportunity for individual construction of learning than in the more traditional, didactic, teacher-centered approaches.
Generally, the students worked on their games independently but some expressed obvious frustrations when codes did not work as
planned. The coding appeared to challenge individual students as they needed to “debug” their sequences. In the classroom, the students
were provided with the demonstrations of the codes and procedures through a projector and had the students collaborate on creating
games. The classroom observations offered triangulation with the student interviews and game artifacts.

4.3. Games

The numerous digital games produced involved a wide range of contemporary issues that dealt with a wide range of topics on envi-
ronmental pollution, politics, gangs, bullying, teen pregnancy, etc. These were analyzed holistically to triangulate with the student in-
terviews and classroom observations. In the follow-up interview session the student would access their games and describe it as the
researcher collected screencasts as artifacts provide in Table 2.
Overall, the game demonstrated a varied range of social issues addressed with original elements in thematic approach. The gang issue
was represented by several of the students, yet each game had unique approaches. For example, Justin’s Street Wars, had the player paint
over the graffiti tags on the brick wall. Although the level of details and interactivity varied, each student was able to capture the essential
value of the digital game as a Web 2.0 participant. The students noted their participation in discourse on social issue with their individual
expression, the game, on the topic. In observing the themes and game interactions, Carlos, demonstrated his educational game involving
dental hygiene, using a zombie theme. Carol and Todd contributed to endangered cutthroat trout environmental awareness and had players
attempt to catch the fish and avoid the cans in the water. Todd additionally offered considerable insight into the game production to include
‘cheat’ methods for increased success in the game as well describing some technical functionality and glitches. Sonya’s theme and discussion
revolved around animal cruelty and challenged the player to save the chicken from confinement. Antonio created a game on the envi-
ronmental issues involving littering that endangers turtles. Jesse and Yvonne’s game involved the issue of gangs in their environment and
teaching elements of resistance to the gangs. Julia, learning about the Holocaust in her studies, focused her game on educating individuals
on topic on a survivor. Alma used the election zeitgeist as the theme for her game based on the precedential race. Blanca, similar to Jesse and
Yvonne’s and Justin, created a game dealing specifically with the theme of gang resistance. Justin, while treating the gang issue as well,
managed to create original thematic approaches to his game that involved street graffiti. Tony, describing his aspirations to pursue a medical
career, created a game in which the player can heal Haiti disaster victims. While working on the project, he found that he was unable to
create the full range of game elements that he had intended, due to time constraints. The theme choice indicated divergent approaches to
synthesizing the content for the games and identified original and distinct creations.
The games reveal a variety of digitally interactive games; they provided interesting activities on the various themes. Although the games
had similar interactive features such as ‘platform’ games or multiple-choice quizzes, the thematic content is developed effectively. While
evaluating the game or educational quality is out of the scope of this text, the more experienced students in grade 8 were able to elaborate
on their design choices as well displayed greater engagement with the design, programming and content elements of the game product.

5. Discussion

5.1. Technology affordance

The game design environment, in which the students are provided open-ended game design tasks, the findings suggest that the
environment provides the student with technologically afforded creative thinking process capacity (Gangadharbatla, 2010; Klausen, 2010).
Moreover, the findings suggest that the open-ended, design-based computer work was challenging as well as personally rewarding (Papert,
1980; Resnick, 2006). These findings are consistent with current understanding that the creative process, as a form of thinking, is something
that all students may find beneficial and argue for the inclusion into traditional educational environment (Lewis, 2009; Runco, 2008).
326 C.C. Navarrete / Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331

Table 2
Examples of the student created games with screencasts of the player interface.
 C.C. Navarrete / Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331 327

Table 2 (continued)
328 C.C. Navarrete / Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331

The close association of the individual’s feelings, in particular positive expressions of the design-based learning, is suggested to offer
insight into understanding creative thinking in educational environments (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 1999).
Digital game creation courses may offer learning approaches that provide students with open-ended learning opportunities for using
creative thinking in problem solving and critical thinking learning activities (Runco, 2008). In having the student learn the programming
that provides for an engaging yet challenging experience (Papert, 1980; Resnick, 2007), the coding and associated technical demands
suggested a challenging aspect of the game design environment (Cifuentes, Alvarez Xochihua, & Edwards, 2011). That is, learning to code and
debug provides distinct challenges that the students must learn to overcome with experience in the environment. The potential cognitive
demands of learning programming suggest further investigation.

5.2. Experience and creative thinking

The case of three distinct levels of game design work suggested three nested cases bounded by the difference in years of tech-
nology experienced by the students. When asked to describe their perceptions of their use of creative thinking, generally, the less
experienced students found it described their creative thinking process in more concrete terms (e.g., drawing, colors) in design
environment while the students with more years of design experience were able speak more insightfully of their creativity. This
variation in perception with domain experience is consistent with Csikszentmihalyi’s (1996) argument that increased experience
within a domain is important in developing the creative process. For example, the first year learners typically spoke of characters,
colors and the choices they had within the Flash design software. Conversely, students with two years of experience offered similar
design aspects but expanded the terms using their imagination for creating games. For example, Julia described, “it makes me feel I’m
imagining something like if I’m in a world of imagination or I’m asleep and I’m dreaming.” This finding is consistent with processes of
creative thinking as is found through the use the “visual imagination” in the creative process (Root-Bernstein, 2001, p. 51). Similarly,
Resnick (2006) also highlighted the critical nature of imagination as part of the creative process spiral: imaginedcreatedplayd-
sharedreflectdimagine, etc.

5.3. Creativity and personal perception

Identifying satisfaction and pleasure, despite the technological challenges, in the process of creating a game suggest that the game
creation may provide students with a “joyful and interesting complex symbolic activity” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 125). This finding may
specifically add to the epistemological understanding of the creative thinking process in seeking investigative approaches for revealing
insight and contributing to learning theory. The students in game design learning may establish essential understanding of the creative
thinking required for producing interactive games with greater learning opportunities. Increasing levels of proficiency with the Web 2.0
environment and the Flash software is suggested to contribute to insightful reflection of creativity as indicated by Alma when she expressed,
“I think it’s fun because you get to play with the codes. It’s fun. I really like the experience.” After three years of leaning how to code and
produce games they referred to them in terms of “playing” and “fun” within the complex technical environment (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996;
Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 1999; Spendlove, 2008). Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein (1999) also concurred that personal pleasure,
with the understanding that creativity is intimately connected with emotions and personal intuition, are intricately involved with creative
process. Important to this argument, these findings suggest that learning creative thinking may not be exclusive to gifted or highly intel-
ligent individuals (Ambrose, Cohen, & Tannenebaum, 2003). While creativity may be connected to intelligence, arguably, creativity may be
experienced by all students and aligned with constructivist-approach learning (Runco, 2008), in terms of personally enjoyable or satisfying
experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996).

5.4. Deep level reflection

Conceptually, creative thinking remains integral to other thinking processes, such as problem solving, in constructing critical under-
standing of the learning environment. Tony explained, “I think it makes me feel pretty good. It makes me feel pretty good that I figured out
what my problem is, the problem solving [in the] game by yourself. Some people just ask for help. I think it’s pretty good when you yourself
find the problem cause you’re actually learning.” The discourse suggests and empowering, student-centered view, with the understanding
of ownership problem finding and problem solving (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996) and suggests deep level reflection of the learning environment
(Nelson Laird & Garver, 2010).

6. Implications

6.1. Authentic learning environments

Using innovative technology-based curricular approaches that involve modern student skill development, may offer students a venue for
self-expression and managing their own learning (Runco, 2008) through an experiential learning approach (Dewey, 1998). The students
involved in the creative opportunity may be empowered their understanding through authentic learning, by having to think creatively
through the problem solving process (Runco, 2008). Additionally, the creative thinking may be involved in the programming debugging, as a
form of cognitive activity that includes problem solving (Papert, 1980). Essentially, hard-fun learning, as part of knowledge construction in
design work, with programming software used for open-ended theme exploration of issues, are proposed to be critical for modern learners
(Reynolds & Caperton, 2011). Additionally, curricular implication includes the immersive and engaging elements of creative work in which
the student has unstructured workloads in coding animation sequences (Liu, 2010) and suggest improved learning opportunities for pre-
secondary education.
 C.C. Navarrete / Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331 329

6.2. Creative thinking and self-perception

In identifying creative thinking in this case study, the student’s own perspective, is used to illuminate practical understanding of the
creative process (Runco, 2008; Spendlove, 2008). Additionally, the reflections in terms of enjoyment, fun, are argued to be potential in-
dicators of creative thinking. That is, creative thinking may allow students to feel as they “living more fully” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 2).
Theorist asserts that the creative experience is nothing short of singularly joyful experience that all individual have a capacity for
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Robinson & Aronica, 2009; Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 1999). Moreover, providing students with creative
thinking opportunities is suggested as important for personal fulfillment.

6.3. Technological challenge

While coding and other elements of the game design work proved challenging, the student’s identified the “hard-fun” element (Papert,
1980) of game design and programming. Thus, the open-ended, technologically-oriented, game design environment may offers a model of
embodied learning (Resnick & Wilensky, 1998; Wing, 2006) through the process of learning about a complex social issue, in a thorough
manner, so as to be integrated into a game platform. The immersive nature of this type of learning environment may offer a model for insight
on the influence of learning technologies on curriculum design in K–12 learning. Finding the game creation environment an engaging and
robust learning environment is consistent with previous game creation research (Robertson & Howells, 2008; Vos et al., 2011).

6.4. Deep level thinking

Additionally, insightful and deep level thinking is implied, as the students do more than cover the topics of environmental issues by
simply taking in the information; they are immersed in the study and must synthesize their own understanding of the topics and social
issues through the game creation (Nelson Laird & Garver, 2010). For example, the students in this case were able to reflect on thematic social
issues with in-depth understanding of the critical factors involved. This suggests that game creation provides students with a motivating
and deep learning environment and is consistent with previous research (Vos et al., 2011). For example, Blanca spoke clearly of her un-
derstanding of environmental factors with Polar bears, “It’s an environmental problem, how it’s affecting, not just us, but [other] animals
and the rest of the world.” “Deep-level processing” may be involved as the students may “focus not only on substance but also the un-
derlying meaning” (Nelson Laird & Garver, 2010, p. 250).
Important to understanding what the technology-based design environment may offer learners, Resnick argues that “When children
care deeply about the projects they are working on, they are not only more motivated but they also develop deeper understandings
and richer connections to knowledge” (Resnick, 2006, p. 6). The students creating games based on their interests, supported their
thinking critically and dynamically about the complex social issue. Their engagement afforded them deeper inspection of the topic and
understanding involved in the translating the concepts into a game. The students working on constructing understanding of the topics
by “combining facts and ideas to synthesise, generalise, explain, hypothesise” (Liu, 2010, p. 596) suggest deeper understanding of the
topics.

6.5. Curriculum design

Learning technologies have seen limited integration in school environments for the enhancement of student learning (Inan & Lowther,
2010; Mouza, 2011). Moreover, tension between existing educational standards-based educational approaches and the identified potential
of creative thinking with game design and development is suggested. For example, approaches for learning creative thinking, elicit a
considerably different curricular approach to learning than may found in standards-based educational approaches (Klausen, 2010;
Sternberg, 2012) and “Most uses of technologies in schools today do not support these 21st Century learning skills” (Resnick, 2007, p.
22). Discussion of these curricular tensions is called for as critical educational concern that requires attention (Sternberg, 2012).

7. Conclusion and further research

In understanding how students experience creativity within the game design and development environment, creative thinking in open-
ended, digital game creation in authentic use of technology that includes programming may support the learning of modern skills needed by
students for not only academic success but to be active participants as digital citizens. Curricula that align with open-ended, project-based,
constructivist learning environments, in which students are provided with ample opportunities to explore content and game design
element, while developing original digital products that signify the learning objectives may have much to offer young learners. Increased
experience in self-directed, creative thinking experiences may be critical to students who otherwise may not have creative and innovative
learning experience within didactic, standards-based educational approaches.
Despite this dynamic potential, understanding of creative thinking and how it should be included in education is mixed (Liu,
2010). Further research is needed to understand how the creative thinking in technology-integrated learning may provide for
improved learning (Gangadharbatla, 2010). What technology provides in this learning environment in order to address the 21st
century learning skill set, suggests further investigation. Questions that surface from this case include: How does the learning in
game design impact the student’s overall education? How can students be better supported in technology-integrated learning, such
as programming?
Exploring diverse research protocols in technology-based environment may be necessary as typical research techniques such as class-
room observations may provide a limited view of the student’s thinking when working on a computer. Creative approaches to case research
(Thomas, 2011) of technology-based creative thinking skills are called for. Alternative research techniques may provide improved insight.
For example, “process video” recordings (Wallace, 2004), a process screen capture video recording of as the learner reflects on their digital
product, may offer greater understanding of the thinking involved. While designing data collection approaches for understanding important
330 C.C. Navarrete / Computers & Education 69 (2013) 320–331

but latent constructs in curricular practice, computer–human interface creates a conundrum of variables that may reveal or obscure se-
mantic understanding in terms of 21st century skill education. Creative and innovative research design and implementation may offer
methods for greater insight on the fostering of creative potential in all student (Kafai, 2006).

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