Dungeons & Dragons

As technological and cultural forces continue to disrupt the educational space, one of the most promising avenues worth considering are games.

I teamed up with a fellow learning scientist and former globally ranked top-100 Pokemon card player to explore how much deep learning takes place through games like Dungeons & Dragons and what what this could mean for future curriculum design and educational practices.

D&D is the most popular role-playing game in the world (with a player base of over 50M). Contrary to stereotypes of it being the domain of nerds, social outcasts, and yes, even satanic worshippers, modern research suggests quite the opposite - that it actually produces individuals who are better able to socially adapt than their peers due to the repeated in-game exposure to and practice with collaborating and negotiating skills.

Games as rich Learning Sites

Through this project, we take a deep dive into the game by applying specific learning theories (or “lenses”) and conducting rigorous scientific research in an effort to determine how much meaningful learning and cognitive development takes place through such environments (or “sites”), especially when it comes to the development of critical 21st-century life skills, such as socio-emotional intelligence.

Created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons deviated from the traditional wargaming styles of play at the time. Instead of military formations and battlefield tactics, D&D instead focused on the players themselves, who assumed the roles of self-constructed characters within a fantasy setting where they could quest for treasures, battle deadly foes, engage in court intrigue, and much more.

project kickoff

D&D is traditionally played in-person, but Covid restrictions and precautions had moved most games online. We reached out to several groups online until we found one willing to be observed.

Determining our Researcher Stances

We originally wanted to take the stance of complete observers (per Gold's typology of researcher roles in qualitative ethnographic research), since this would help minimize and control for certain participant biases, but groups were wary of allowing outsiders into their private, intimate spaces.

We were only granted permission to observe after I agreed to join the game as a participant, which allowed my partner Sho to remain as a silent observer. Below is the character I created, a bard named Asaydal.

Our Site of Observation

In addition to Covid restrictions that prevented in-person gatherings, our group members were geographically dispersed all throughout the US. We therefore met up virtually through a communication app called Discord.

Summary of Participants

The group being observed had 6 total players: a narrator known as the Dungeon Master (or DM) and 5 players. Below are their names, followed by their characters.

• Kyle (Male, Experienced) = Ymir (Goliath Fighter)
• Evan (Male, Experienced) = Edramir (Aasimar Cleric)
• Donald (Male, Novice) = Alphen (Tiefling Sorcerer)
• Ali (Female, Novice) = Eva (Wood Elf Ranger)
• Iron (Male, Novice, Participant-As-Observer) = Asaydal (Half-Elf Bard)
• Autumn (Female, Experienced) = DM & all non-playable characters

Our site of learning was now clearly established, but how were we to make sense of our observations in any organized way?

applying learning theories

Applying specific learning theories to a situation lets us identify and analyze elements and processes behind a learning environment. But the selection of a particular theory can also depend on the researcher themselves, since they are making a hypothesis at this point regarding which lens they think would best explain the phenomena about to be discovered.

Cognitive Constructivism (Jean Piaget)

As a former competitive card game player, Sho was primarily interested in the internal egocentric process behind how players were able to construct their knowledge.

Social Constructivism (Lev Vygotsky)

My decision to apply the social constructivist lens over Piaget's cognitive constructivism stemmed from my disappointment with his stance on the influence of one's social environment on learning. Like Vygotsky, I too believed that all learning must necessarily begin in a sociocentric manner, after which it is internalized egocentrically.

I found that Vygotsky's theory allows us to observe the site from two interesting angles: first, how knowledge is negotiated (between people), and then, how it is constructed (inside the individual). So for my research, I set out the following two guiding questions:

1. Knowledge Negotiation: How do players create a shared understanding between each other of how to play the game?
2. Knowledge Construction: How do players construct their own understanding of how to the play the game?

applying scientific rigor

As gamers ourselves, we have always understood the potential for games to do more than just entertain. We were therefore motivated by a desire to help contribute to the growing body of literature on the innumerable learning benefits of games for learning. And so in order for our work to be acceptable as both credible and reproducible, we applied the tenets of strict scientific rigor to our research.

Research Methodology

In order to ensure that our claims would be based in evidence, we applied the Grounded Theory Approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). This approach helped to ensure that our claims would be developed only after all the data had been collected and analyzed (thus "grounding" the theory in the data), after which we would turn to the existing literature in order to find support for and legitimize those claims.

Data Collection

• Field Notes. We initially took notes by hand or by typing (in real-time) but it was quickly apparent that this was not very effective.
• Recordings. During our 2nd site visit, we made audio recordings, which were much more effective. And by the 3rd visit, we were able to make video recordings.
• Transcriptions. We relied on a speech-to-text transcriber called Otter.ai that was very helpful in allowing us to find specific data very quickly through simple searches of the text.
• Interviews. We conducted a series of informal interviews with the group's DM (and de facto leader), which was helpful in gathering information that would otherwise have been difficult to gather during the game.

Data Analysis

At this point, our data existed in several different formats (handwritten notes, audio recordings, transcriptions, etc), which made it difficult to analyze. Affinity mapping allowed us to finally centralize, and thus develop insights from, all of our data in a meaningful and visual way.

Grouping the data according to common themes and patterns allowed me to form the following knowledge claims (listed below) that I back up with evidence drawn from existing research and literature.

a brief recap

To recap, I chose to research this site through a socio-constructivist lens, which allowed me to set up the following 2 guiding questions below. My analysis of the data allowed me to arrive at 3 conclusions, which are listed below as my knowledge claims. The guiding questions were:

1. Knowledge Negotiation: How do players create a shared understanding between each other of how to play the game?
2. Knowledge Construction: How do players construct their own understanding of how to the play the game?

Claim #1

In response to the first question, I posit the following:

It is through dialogue and social interaction that players are able to come to a shared understanding of what has meaning, making collaboration the key to knowledge negotiation.

At several points during any given session are critical decision points that could change the rest of the story. The way that knowledge is built, however, has no objective "right" or "wrong" way to do it, but rather, what the group collaboratively comes to agree on. Through back-and-forth dialogue, they come to a shared understanding of what has meaning or what doesn't, which is how players are able to learn how to "play" the game.

[example] session 2: forest path, outside castle ravenloft

During the 2nd session of gameplay, the party is racing through the forests in the back of a caravan when they are attacked by a horde of creatures. As the players fight and cast spells, it quickly becomes apparent that the creatures are not trying to attack the players but the caravan itself.

Without this social interaction between the players, what would each of them have done? Especially for the novices, their knowledge of "playing well" could have meant continuing to attack even though they would know that mathematically, it wasn't going to work out in their favor. Yet under a collaborative approach, they were able to negotiate what had meaning (changing their strategy from one of attacking to one of defending) and come to a new shared understanding of what they needed to do.

Claim #2

Internally, knowledge is co-constructed by and with other players, but for novices of the game, this is done primarily in the Zone of Proximal Development so that they can expand their domain knowledge.

One of the most interesting insights we developed from our data analysis involved how novices and experienced players differed (from each other) in how they played but were remarkably similar to other members within their expertise level. Take a look at the affinity diagram below after we decided to organize it according to experience levels.

When it came to the players' individual construction of knowledge ("how do I understand this?"), the socio-constructivist lens tells us that it is co-constructed with others, rather than egocentrically (a la Piaget's idealized child).

But for novices, their knowledge is primarily co-constructed with scaffolding from the experienced players (aka Vygotsky's "more knowledge others") and the type of knowledge that novices are after is primarily focused on learning the basic rules of gameplay.

[example] Session 6: Town Square, Village of Vallaki

In the clip below, taken from the 6th session, listen to how knowledge for Eva (a novice) is being co-constructed by and with the other players and how this knowledge amounts to what is essentially basic and foundational rules.

You can tell that Eva is concerned with learning basic gameplay. Keep note of how novices like her played as I contrast it with how experienced players construct their knowledge in my 3rd claim below.

Claim #3

Unlike novices, experienced players obviously have no need to expand their domain knowledge (since they already know the majority of the rules). So what do they gain from continuing to play? And what do they learn?

Knowledge is also co-constructed by and with other players for experienced players, but unlike novices, they use the social interactions in order to test, refine, develop, and improve their pre-existing knowledge.

What we gleaned from the data was that experienced players were still very much learning new things, but for them, games like D&D were opportunities to test, refine, or further iterate upon things they already knew. In fact, what experienced players most liked to do was to push the boundaries of the rules of gameplay by innovating in ways that had no precedent.

[example] Session 4: Weapons shop, village of vallaki

In Session 4, the experienced player Edramir decided to give his warhammer to Ymir, the other experienced player, since he was primarily a spell-caster in battle anyway. The possibility that characters could even do something like this came as a surprise to the novice players, but for experienced players, it was an opportunity to innovate and try something new.

Ymir took this a step further when he asked a weapons-maker to chain his hammers together so that he could hit enemies that were at a distance. Again, without any specific rules about this in the gamebook, the Dungeon Master allowed it, making Ymir capable of attacking enemies at a range.

[example] Session 5: tavern, village of vallaki

Another innovation from Ymir occurred in the 5th session of gameplay, when he surprised everyone by recruiting non-playable characters to our party. After all, NPCs were usually no more than just simple plot devices - background characters created to fulfill simple and specific roles.

But, again, without any specific rules about this in the playbook, the DM (at her discretion) allowed it, and our party expanded from 5 to 7, which helped greatly increase our success against enemy encounters.

With the research having been concluded, the final step was to compare my theories against the existing literature in order to find support for them. Doing so allowed me to make my recommendations for what my research could mean for educational practices in the 21st century.

supporting literature

Although the theories I developed above were all grounded in my research, could they be validated by the existing literature on the topic?

validating claim #1

The works of scholars such as Damon & Phelps (1989), Dillenbourg (1999), O'Donnell & Hmelo-Silver (2013), Stahl et. al (2014), and others laid the foundation for our understanding today of the difference between cooperation and collaboration.

What games like D&D are so good at promoting is an emphasis on the interdependence of goals rather than on distinct and apportioned contributions by individuals towards a common goal. This helps to foster a necessarily collaborative environment since each member has ownership of all of the goal, rather than just a slice of it.

validating claim #2

When it came to how novices constructed their knowledge, both Piaget and Vygotsky agreed that it had to be co-constructed with the help of "more knowledgable others" within what is known as a "Zone of Proximal Development." My partner Sho came to the conclusion that this internal co-construction of knowledge focused almost entirely on acquiring basic and foundational knowledge, which is what experienced players had a lot of.

validating claim #3

Due to my hypothesis at the beginning of this project that Piaget's approach was still unable to tell the whole story (especially in terms of explaining how and why the more knowledgable others played), I found support for my claims in the works of Ackermann (2004) and especially Bereiter & Scardamalia (1993) and Chan & Van Aalst (2018).

The latter two were especially helpful in describing how experienced players interacted with games like D&D. Instead of using it as a Zone of Proximal Development to learn more domain knowledge (which they didn't need), they instead used it as a Knowledge Forum with which to develop and test out new ideas, hence "pushing the boundaries" of the game.

Integrated Framework

The benefit of approaching the same site of learning through different lenses allowed us to combine our research to create a more integrated framework of how learning was occurring through D&D. Below is our final conceptual framework.

recommendations

There is strong evidence that games like D&D help build the kinds of critical like skills that are going to serve learners well in tomorrow's economy. In addition to having whatever "hard" skills that a job may demand (ie. Javascript for web developers or Stata for data analysts), the future of work will place increasing importance on an individual's ability to collaborate well with others.

Perhaps what we can do as learning scientists, educators, and policy-makers is to apply some instructional design to games like D&D in order to incorporate them into school curriculums or other learning environments.

And with continuing improvements to the field of qualitative research and data analysis, integrating instructional design will also allow us to track, measure, and assess students' developments.

Read the entire report by clicking here.