Game Jams as Valuable Tools for the Development of 21st-Century Skills

Ruth S Contreras-Espinosa,Jose Luis Eguia-Gomez

doi:10.3390/su14042246

Abstract

The concept of 21st-century skills refers to the knowledge, skills, and emotions that are critical to successfully navigating today’s world. Game jams can act as spaces to develop these skills and thus boost cooperative learning, problem-based learning, or co-creation. Additionally, game jams offer opportunities to improve collaboration and creativity skills, among others. This paper summarizes three years of activities designing and studying game jams to develop 21st-century skills, focused on Mexican students aged 12–16 years old. Data were compiled through direct observation, open-ended questionnaires, and interviews and were subject to thematic analysis in order to construct new knowledge on a previously underexplored topic. The results suggest that game jams are valuable tools to develop 21st-century skills, and, although the outcomes of skill evaluation may vary and may be difficult to verify, the participants reported increased skills, such as creativity or collaboration. Finally, this paper provides recommendations based on the research and practice conducted by the authors on how to use game jams to develop 21st-century skills and different ways to organize game jams, along with the resources needed.

Highlights

A game jam is an event where knowledge is shared by organizing multidisciplinary teams that create a video game, and its purpose is to explore the conceptualization process, the development, and the skills that students developed thereafter
Some studies report that video games motivate STEM learning [6], while researchers have been interested in the role of problem resolution in these contexts [7]
Game jams are collaborative experiences that facilitate learning as part of a team

Summary

Introduction

A game jam is an event where knowledge is shared by organizing multidisciplinary teams that create a video game, and its purpose is to explore the conceptualization process, the development, and the skills that students developed thereafter. Game jams offer opportunities to improve the skills necessary to develop video games [1], improve skills in STEAM [2], develop interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, and heighten participant self-efficacy [3] or learning motivation [1]. Through game jam experience, participants become more skilled in video-game design, as creativity is highly promoted [4]. Game jams seem to offer diverse opportunities to improve skills, such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration, and can be valuable tools in formal education contexts [10]. Some examples of jams as part of game industry conferences and exhibitions include Develop [20], Pocket Gamer Connects

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Conclusion