Player (Learner) Persona Research and Definition

As we begin our design process, a player persona was required to be created prior to any actual design work. This entailed researching academic articles and sources regarding the target audience that was laid out by the client. The client identified the target audience of the game as 4^th grade Midwestern students in a science class.

Part 1

Researching the player persona was a multi-layered process that sourced mainly from one search engine: Google. The initial search included various keywords on the Google Scholar portion of the search engine. These keywords included: “elementary,” “fourth grade,” and “primary school” to focus on the age of the learner. Terms like “Midwest US,” “Midwestern,” and “us” were used to focus on the location. From there, the articles acquired had to relate to elementary students and ideally fourth grade students. The articles also had to relate to students in the United States and ideally in the Midwest. The article’s topic had to include either culture, learner motivation, or demographics.

After searching and finding middling success in Google Scholar, the search turned to the standard search engine portion of Google. This was mainly to fill in gaps on demographic information as very few of the articles included any demographic information. The sources turned from academic to governmental primarily as that was the most abundant source of demographic information on Midwestern United States.

Sources

• Berthold and Hoover – Correlates of bullying and victimization among intermediate students in the midwestern USA
• English and King – STEM learning through engineering design: fourth-grade students’ investigations in aerospace
• Finn and Cox – Participation and withdrawal among fourth-grade pupils
• Funk and Buchman – Children’s perceptions of gender differences in social approval for playing electronic games
• Keller – Strategy games: Developing positive attitudes and perseverance toward problem solving with fourth graders
• Office for Civil Rights, US Dept. of Education – Gender Equity in Education
• Parker, Horowitz, Brown, Fry, Cohn, and Igielnik – Demographic and economic trends in urban, suburban, and rural communities
• Seelig – Battling declining enrollment in upper midwestern United states: Rural schools in competitive society
• Today, Parent Toolkit Staff – 4^th grade physical development guide: Find out what you need to know
• Wood and Kaszubowski – The career development needs of rural elementary school students

Part 2

Part 3

After reviewing the player persona, it is time to revisit the games that were researched in the last post for fit relative to the persona.

Weather Lord:

• Does the game fit?
  • This game is appropriate to a certain extent for the persona
  • The game lacks engaging elements to draw in players of the persona’s age
  • Weather lord does include creative problem solving and engineering to draw in players like the persona
• Would there be frustrations if the persona played the game?
  • Given the pace of Weather Lord, the persona may give up after a few levels
  • The puzzles may need to be shortened or given another element of intrigue to truly capture players like the persona

Natural Water Cycle Game:

• Does the game fit?
  • The game fits players like the persona quite well
  • The original intent of the game was to teach players at approximately the same age of the persona
• Would there be frustrations if the persona played the game?
  • Given the difficulty of some of the jumping and moving mechanics, players like the persona would get frustrated very quickly
  • Changes to the mechanics to make them smoother would be required for the players to enjoy it and continually engage with it

Running Water:

• Does the game fit
  • While the game fits the player persona in mechanics, it fails in education
  • The change of state of water is apparent in the game, but players like the persona would likely learn not much beyond that there are different states of water
• Would there be frustrations if the persona played the game?
  • There would be a minimal amount of frustration by players like the persona at first
  • The repetition of the game would cause frustration by players like the persona after a while due to the lack of variation