Heimann Katrin S, Roepstorff Andreas
Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Front Psychol. 2018 Sep 11;9:1704. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01704. eCollection 2018.
Play and playfulness have repeatedly been suggested to promote learning and performance, also in environments traditionally not connotated with play. However, finding empirical evidence for these claims has been aggravated by the lack of a definition of play and playfulness fitting to this description. This paper proposes to consider playfulness as an attitude, mode or mental stance, that can be modulated independent of the activity pursued and of the general character of the person. It furthermore introduces the micro-phenomenological method to assess the process and outcome of such modulation. To explore this, we devised a simple building task in a controlled within-subject design, interviewing each participant on how they accomplished the task when asked to perform it so that it either felt playful or not playful. The outcomes of this data driven approach supported this notion of playfulness as a stance, and allowed for specific hypotheses about the temporal course and mechanisms of becoming playful. They suggest that an experience of autonomy and self-expression may be key to the success of the modulation. They furthermore indicate that the resulting playful state may allow for an exploratory engagement with materials that can lead to surprising results. Such unexpected results seem to enhance participants' feeling of competence which, in turn, may increase the motivation for the task. We discuss these results within the framework of Deci and Ryan's motivational theory and in relation to current research on gamification and learning.
游戏和嬉戏反复被认为能够促进学习和表现，即便在传统上与游戏并无关联的环境中亦是如此。然而，由于缺乏适合此描述的游戏和嬉戏的定义，为这些说法寻找实证依据的难度加大。本文提议将嬉戏视为一种态度、模式或心理姿态，它可以独立于所从事的活动以及个人的总体性格而得到调节。此外，本文还引入了微观现象学方法来评估这种调节的过程和结果。为了对此进行探究，我们在一项受控的被试内设计中设计了一个简单的建筑任务，在要求每位参与者完成任务时询问他们是如何完成的，以使任务要么感觉起来好玩，要么感觉不好玩。这种数据驱动方法的结果支持了将嬉戏视为一种姿态的观点，并提出了关于变得好玩嬉戏的时间进程和机制的具体假设。结果表明，自主感和自我表达的体验可能是调节成功的关键。此外，结果还表明，由此产生的好玩嬉戏状态可能会让人以探索性的方式接触材料，从而带来令人惊讶的结果。这些意想不到的结果似乎会增强参与者的能力感，进而可能会增加他们对任务的积极性。我们将在德西（Deci）和瑞安（Ryan）的动机理论框架内以及与当前关于游戏化和学习的研究相关的背景下讨论这些结果。
