Poster #243 - More than Standing Around: Parent-child positioning informs collaboration during large-format gameplay

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

Scholarship has investigated collaborative intergenerational play as an important site of learning, but research examining family gaming on interactive touchtables is only just emerging (Banerjee & Horn, 2014). Research on collaborative learning with interactive touchtables suggests that the way groups interact with digital displays and coordinate their actions is affected by their position around the tabletop, the individuals’ reach and the design of the digital interface (Jermann et al., 2009; Tissenbaum et al., 2017). These findings accord with research on family museum visits that found that family members’ joint verbal and nonverbal communication and scaffolding behaviors shape children’s learning (Jant et al., 2014). Understanding the relationship between spatial orientation and family learning behaviors during digital touchtable-based interaction may help inform future design decisions of digital interfaces.

The present study is situated within a project creating a design-and-play skatepark physics game for an interactive touchtable in a children’s museum exhibit. This study looks at 7 parent-child dyads collaboratively playing an initial game prototype in a playability-testing, non-naturalistic context (e.g., laboratory environment) and seeks to develop methods to examine the relationship between dyads’ spatial positioning and collaborative problem-solving activities. Sited on a 128cm-wide interactive touchtable, players of the game create virtual skateparks and play through their designs. Data was collected from a convenience sample of museum member families with children aged 5-to-8, and dyads were asked to play the prototype for 15 minutes with little instruction. This analysis looks at 30-second intervals of play and, for each dyad member, two independent raters assigned a dominant spatial location across 15 possible positions and six codes for collaborative activity. Collaborative codes were developed from an open and iterative thematic process: 1) Quiet Driving (QA) through interface control; 2) Active Driving (AD) the interface while talking; 3) Quiet Observing (QO) without talk; 4) Active Observing (AO) aloud about a partner’s actions; 5) Directing (D) a partner’s actions with commands; and 6) Guiding/Scaffolding (G/S) through questioning.

Across all seven dyads children engaged in little movement between spatial positions, while parents tended to occupy more varied positions (see Figure 1). Parents seemed to occupy these positions as they helped children reach for hard-to-access interface controls in design mode like the trash can or the ‘reset’ button in the upper right of the screen. Some evidence suggests that parents who do not move much tend to do more ‘Quiet Observation’ and ‘Quiet Driving.’ Parents who occupied more spatial positions tended to be involved in Active Observation or Guiding/Scaffolding acts. In the case of Dyad D, we see this tendency illustrated as the parent moved to positions around a largely stationary child, while interacting with the child through Active Observation and Guiding / Scaffolding (see Figure 1). In Dyad B, conversely, the parent stayed largely in the same location and participated mostly by quietly observing their child playing. If accepted, the poster will more fully present the nuances of space and collaborative action across seven parent-child dyads.

Authors

• Benjamin DeVane, University of Iowa
  Presenting Author

• Jeremy Dietmeier, University of iowa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristen Nicole Missall, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ben J Miller, University of Iowa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Salloni Nanda, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Caitlin Courshon, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author