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Chapter 24
Historical Perspectives on
Games and Education from
the Learning Sciences
Brett E. Shelton
Utah State University, USA
Tom Satwicz
Blink Interactive, USA
Tom Caswell
Utah State University, USA
ABSTRACT
This paper reviews three classic theorists’writing on games, learning, and development. Piaget, Vygotsky,
and Bruner all wrote about games and play as important to thinking and learning. This review attempts
to synthesize their perspectives as a means to revisit underused theoretical perspectives on the role of
games in education. The views of Piaget and Vygotsky are applied with respect to the role of games and
play in learning and development to the design of a popular commercial game. Bruner’s perspective
offers the embodiment of games into a larger and controversial curriculum intended to teach young
people about human culture. Each of the perspectives is reviewed and considered in light of new gaming
technologies and their potential for educational change.
INTRODUCTION
Most researchers who study games and education recognize that close ties between games
and learning have existed for centuries. While
traditional, western, classroom-based education
has perhaps frowned on games through the early
and middle parts of the 20th century, theories that
focus on the integration of experience, learning,
and development have often included a special
role for games and play.
Despite a glut of research that indicates the
possibilities for successfully integrating game
activity with educational activity (Shelton, 2008),
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1864-0.ch024
Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Historical Perspectives on Games and Education from the Learning Sciences
there exists surprisingly little in the way of tying
gaming activity to historical precedent as a foundation in the empirical literature. There could be
different reasons for this lack of reference. One
is that classic learning and development theories
are not applicable to current research. Technology,
now at a stage that supports many types of social
gaming activities, is pervasive to the extent that
it is ubiquitous. So the natural match between
educational activities and their focus on gaming
activities is reaching a new level of importance
that perhaps was not seriously considered in earlier
decades (Clark, Nelson, Sengupta, & D’Angleo,
2009; Ketelhut, 2009). The foundations and
theoretical underpinnings that would support
the integration of games in education exist, but
are largely unreferenced. The technology, while
critical for the support of gaming activities, is not
mutually exclusive to how people learn.
Another reason might be that the term “game,”
historically associated with leisure, is not welcome
in serious education and by those who take education seriously. Therefore, the game and play theory
espoused by classic theorists have been buried
beneath what is the more popularized notion of
learning theory, despite their existence. Still another reason could be that most recently, the use
of digital games in education is simply another
fad in a long line of promising technologies that
have failed to live up to expectations. The same
promises were once made regarding film, television, radio, and microworlds (Cuban, 1986).
Perhaps the need to relate new technologies and
the activities they support in gaming are far too
ephemeral to bother tying to classic theories. And
yet it is undeniable that the Internet and its influence in sharing information and helping people
connect with each other has altered the kinds of
information we think are important to teach, and
the way people spend their time (Boyd & Ellison,
2008). The electronic networks that make the
Internet possible also support the kinds of game
play that directly relates to many classic theories
340
on teaching and learning (e.g., Asakawa & Gilbert,
2003; Kiili, 2005; Steinkuehler, 2004).
In this review, we explore those theories,
reintroducing them as appropriate for today’s
technological infrastructure; namely how gaming
technology can and does support the interactions
between people, people and machines, and the
resources they use. Space does not permit a full
accounting of learning theory as it relates to video
games. Instead, we will focus on those areas which
seem to us to have the most relevant to both video
games and the traditional school structure. Our
review covers a selection of axioms, references
and examples of how games and game play were
used by two classic theorists of education and
learning (Piaget and Vygotsky) and those that have
carried on their work (i.e., Bruner).1 We chose
these three theorists because they are, in many
fundamental ways, linked to each other through
their conceptual stance, but more importantly
through the foundational epistemological beliefs
of learning scientists. They are three of the most
widely cited individuals whose tenets are taught
within learning theory classes (not game design
classes) due to their ideas that students can and do
play a large role in their own learning, and there
is value in approximations of common understandings within different individuals. It is their
treatises that help learning scientists’ research and
theorize about learning and learners in context as
much as any others.
We provide their perspectives using examples
of how their theoretical views on learning are
present in the design of games throughout the
latter half of the twentieth century. Additionally,
we take on the task of relating those theories to
modern technology and gaming activities. We assert that creating these ties can serve to strengthen
the theoretical basis for modern game research by
providing a familiar grounding of how and why our
educational system uses methods disparate from
the enjoyable experiences of modern games. The
implications would directly relate to any kind of
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