Creative freedoms: longitudinality and game-based research with teenagers

Purpose This paper aims to apply a “revisiting” approach to past game literacy-based research. Starting from a media literacy and videogame making oriented PhD project, it explores how the discussion of past research can be evolved, but also questions what young research subjects gain from participating in research of this nature. Design/methodology/approach With a frame of longitudinality, this research takes a long view of the experiences of participants from a game making project, against how they consume texts in their lives now. It considers the kind of artefacts (design work, videogames) produced in the original research against a revisiting of some of the student-participants, interrogating their digital media literacy, practices currently, along with discussing their memories of being involved in this research project. With the previous PhD work taking place in the school where the researcher was a teacher, this new research reviews the role creative practice can have in classrooms. Findings Revisiting the data from past PhD research, which drew positive conclusions about the role game making can have in the teaching of literary texts, and in literacy progression generally, this paper then overlays new interview data from some of the past participants, affirming the power of critical game work in schools. Originality/value The combination of a PhD methodology that was itself novel with a revisiting of research subjects in the present offers an original insight into the effectiveness of games-based classroom research over time.