Conclusion

Conclusion

Introduction

This chapter provides a final synthesis of the thesis, returning to its central questions and articulating the contribution made by the study to knowledge and practice. The research was motivated by a desire to explore how computing game design and programming (CGD&P) could be …

Building on sociocultural theory, activity theory, and design-based research, the study developed, trialled and iteratively refined a flexible pedagogy that foregrounded digital fluency, agency, and incorporation of diverse repertoire.

The work took place across five phases in a home education and university partnership context. The pedagogical approach, eventually articulated through the 3M model (Missions, Maps, and Methods), was developed through cycles of design, facilitation and reflection.

This final chapter revisits the study’s three sub-questions and primary question, offers a summary of the conceptual, methodological and practical contributions, and closes with reflections on future directions and the broader relevance of this work.

2 Concluding reflections organised by research questions.

The guiding question of the thesis addressed how can understandings of how to design and facilitate CGD&P be enriched using socio-cultural approaches.

This opening section reflects on each of the subquestions in turn. While initial discussion has occured in other chapters, the aim here is to bring together strands of the questions.

2.1 Contradiction and the design process (RQ1) - Discussion

Sub-question 1 (RQ1): What contradictions arose in this research’s evolving design process and how were they addressed in the resulting CGD&P pedagogy?

RQ1 was answered via the design narrative in Chapter 5 which contained analysis using CHAT concepts to examine three key areas of contradiction in the evolving research design. A summary table and discussion discussed the findings in relation to existing pedagogies explored in Chapter 2. The REEPPP approach outlined in part one of this chapter is in part a result of this line of questioning.

Research Output - REEPP as a technical pedagogy

Recap: REEPP & the 3M methodology outlined in Chapter 4.

Technical flexibility / extendability of REEPP

While REEP in this context used the following tools: glitch.com as a code playground, phaser.js as a game library, a half-baked game template, and a collection of game design patterns based on a classic retro platformer, other configurations are possible.

In terms of the specificity of the last section, this chapter has, in line with underlying Marxist principles, returned to the concrete.

The theoretical generalisation or germ cell that emerged from this research of the use of GDPs is applied in specific concrete instances in a variety of ways. The additional scaffolding provided by GDPs and the synthesis of UMC and half-baked game, specifically as a boundary object with affordances inviting completion, contributing a more specific, accessible and coherent pedagogy to the the field of game making.

Evolution of the Learning dimensions map

Conflicts stemming from tensions between privileging participant choices or underlying computing and systems concepts

In P4 I wanted to create resources and processes which are of potential value to practitioners in the UK classroom. At this stage I noted a contradiction between aligning activities to curriculum or following learner choice and expression [@hoyles_pedagogy_1992]. <!–

CONDENSED VERSION

A defining characteristic of the study was its attention to the contradictions that surfaced in the course of designing and facilitating CGD\&P. These contradictions were treated not as design flaws to be eliminated, but as productive tensions to be understood and responded to. This framing draws on Engeström’s conception of expansive learning [-\@engestrom_learning_2001], where contradictions within an activity system prompt cycles of change.

One of the most consistent tensions across the phases was that between freedom and overwhelm. Early sessions demonstrated that while participants valued open-ended design, too much choice led to decision paralysis, especially among novice coders. In response, scaffolding was introduced in the form of GDPs and a simplified code template. These design responses helped to structure learner entry points while preserving a sense of ownership. A second tension involved the desire to use authentic, industry-standard tools versus the cognitive demands these tools imposed. Phaser.js, while powerful, proved initially inaccessible to some learners. This contradiction gave rise to the REEPP configuration: a Remixable, Extendable, and Partially Pre-Baked Platform. The GDPs and printed guides were key components of this framework.

A further contradiction involved the facilitator’s role. The pedagogical stance had to shift between coach, co-designer, and technical troubleshooter, with implications for power dynamics and learner agency. These tensions were made visible in specific interactional moments—such as when a learner demanded to change the entire genre of the game, or when participants ignored structured challenges in favour of exploratory play. Rather than suppress these moments, they were incorporated into the design logic. –>

Sub-question 2 (RQ2): How can the use of a collection of game design patterns support CGD&P, in particular in relation to abstract and concrete dimensions of existing pedagogies?

RQ2 was addressed by findings in Chapter 6 via a summative table of different mediational and motivational uses of GDPs. An interpretation of the role of GDPs as a germ cell of game making activity and it has been discussed in more depth in this chapter. In addition, it has been used to inform analysis of the use of patterns within the technical structure of the REEPPP approach.

Significant advances in understanding of how GDPs can be used in the field of CGD&P and beyond

Existing work by Eriksson exists focussed on the utility for the researcher rather than that of participants and facilitator. Thus this research, summarised by table in Chapter 6, significantly advances these contributions.

In addition, great analysis of the process using CHAT terms which contributed by…

2.2 Agency and repertoire in CGD&P (RQ3)

Sub-question 3 (RQ3): How can varied dimensions of agency be identified and nurtured in an evolving community of game makers?

RQ3 is addressed in the second two of chapter 7 through the reinterpretation of cultural elements in the findings of Chapter 6 using concepts of third space, and repertoires.

As this study progressed to role of learner agency became increasingly important. The study identified three interwoven forms of agency: instrumental, transformative and relational.

Instrumental agency was visible in learners’ drive to complete tasks, implement features, and debug problems. Authorial agency appeared in narrative choices, aesthetic decisions, and the articulation of design goals. Transformative agency occurred when learners reshaped the activity system itself, developing new roles, changing group dynamics, or adapting tools in unexpected ways.

The concept of relational agency through repertoire blending (RARB) was introduced to theorise how participants drew on personal, cultural, and technical resources over time. This blending was observed in many moments where learners connected gaming interest, family learning strategies, or wider aesthetic interests with the features of the game makign process. These became importante modes of participation and identity expression. The idea of repertoire, inspired by sociocultural work on idiocultures and learner trajectories between sites of learning, helped the process of conceputalising multiple valid pathways and avoid the danger of negative perception of activities that would likely be interpreted as non-productive in more formal spaces.

Facilitation and relevant supporting resources played a crucial role in this process. The iterative nature of the design and the availability of side missions, printed GDPs, and narrative scaffolds created an environment where agency could emerge and be sustained. Regular sharing moments, opportunities to test others’ games, and the integration of physical and dramatic play also contributed to this culture. The design aimed to enable acts of appropriation and divergence.

Keeping hard fun hard -

Hard fun is a well used concept in creative computing education.

A relevant challenge is the difficulty of structuring resources in a way which can support the diversity of the directions in which participant want to progress their design. My results Drawing from authentic resources can be chaotic and create problematic errors.

However, in designing out conflicts the facilitator may reduce the capacity for participants to profitably address them, both as individuals pair or collectively as a group. There is a balance here for the facilitator to take an appropriate position on.

Some parents were aware of this tension as outlined in appendix.

There is a potential tension between instrumental agency and transformative agency.

Recap / concuding comments, the value and processes of creating space for emergent practices and agency

Returing to metaphors for creating space, harbours, and jam sessions,

These metaphorical ideas have implications for practitioners that can be framed perhaps best as tensions.

know the territory but don’t pre-plan the route for your learners

Addressing the nature of my contribution to research landscape

It is from the concrete, practical, collaborative struggle of how to jointly make a game making community and to build fluency in the process of making games that this research emerges. And as such the concrete, responsive, re-assembling of existing pedagogies and elements of the learning activity systems is a integral tactic here aligned with a recent socio-cultural concerns.

_This shift from “fixing” the individual to re-mediating and transforming the functional system is key to reimagining new forms of learning and doing science that are tied to the imaginings of new futures, trajectories, and identities (Gutierrez, Morales, & Martinez, 2009) [@gutierrez_re-mediating_2009-2] in [@gutierrez-possibilities2015-1]

It is of value to explore how transferable these findings are to other contexts of learning, and other genres of digital making, or beyond to other project based approaches.

Summary of contributions, research outputs, and future directions

This section provides a summary of some of the synthesised discussion above and from previous chapters.

Category	Contribution
Conceptual	- Introduced RARB (Relational Agency through Repertoire Blending) as a lens to understand how learners blend cultural, social, and technical repertoires in CGD&P. - Advanced a typology of instrumental, authorial, and transformative agency in design-based computing. - Articulated the 3M model (Missions, Maps, Methods) as a mid-level pedagogical framework supporting inclusive, exploratory learning.
Methodological	- Used contradiction mapping and design narrative within a DBR cycle informed by third-generation activity theory. - Demonstrated the application of 360° and multi-angle video to capture situated, collaborative learning in informal settings. - Positioned GDPs as germ cells, bridging design intervention and analytic abstraction.
Practical	- Created an open-source GDP collection and Learning Dimensions Map to support facilitation and learner reflection. - Developed the REEPP scaffold (Remixable, Extendable, Partially Pre-Baked Platform) to balance open-ended creativity with accessible tool use. - Offered design-tested insights for inclusive pedagogy, especially for neurodiverse learners and community settings.

Table 8.x - of contributions and research ouputs.

Key recommendations for educators and facilitators

Allow learners to draw on their home interests by creating an inclusive creative environment where they are encouraged to explore their existing knowledge of game conventions and their attitudes towards video game play. Recognising these funds of knowledge supports engagement and enables learners to make meaningful connections between personal interests and technical practices.

Start coding with a half-baked game [@kynigos_children_2018]: Provide learners with a partially completed game template that they can adapt. This shared structure promotes peer learning and comparison, while also helping facilitators keep track of each participant’s evolving codebase and learning pathway.

Use emerging learner requests to shape a collection of code examples: Build a set of code snippets and supporting documentation based on familiar gameplay design patterns (GDPs). These can be co-curated with participants over time. Encourage learners to explore and remix these elements, supporting autonomy and technical growth.

Allow flexible working practices and incorporate regular play-testing: Create an environment where learners can draw on relationships with family members and experiment with different modes of collaboration. Scheduled play-testing and shared feedback moments foster a sense of co-creation, motivation, and cross-project dialogue.

Incorporate playful approaches to support emergent identity work: Use drama, narrative prompts, and side missions to invite diverse forms of participation. These elements can help learners experiment with new roles and self-representations within the learning space.

Support agency in multiple forms: Design learning environments that allow learners to take initiative (instrumental agency), express ideas (authorial agency), and reshape activity structures (transformative agency). Scaffolding should support rather than constrain these possibilities.

Design with scaffolding and choice in balance: Tools like GDP menus and narrative maps provide structure without closing down creativity. Offering a curated set of remixable components helps reduce overwhelm, especially for novice learners, while preserving space for exploration.

Adopt facilitation metaphors that support emergence: Think of the educator’s role as holding open a harbour or wayfinding space—somewhere learners can navigate their own routes with guidance. This helps avoid overly linear or predetermined models of progress.

Plan for transferability and reflection: Encourage learners to reflect on how their current game-making strategies might apply in new domains or contexts. Make design decisions and code structures visible to support deeper understanding and future adaptation.

Directions for future research

While limitations related to scope, scale, and context have been outlined in Chapter 4, the findings of this study suggest several promising directions for future research and development.

Develping this studies’ socio-cultural approach to contribute to computing pedagogy: How best can socio-cultural approaches be aligned with constructionist legacy & and current UK directions of research. Is my approach of x, fruitful in other areas?
Other areas of application of the REEPP model: Other interprestations extensions of the REEPP model may offer new opportunities to explore engagement and authenticity in more tangible maker settings. These adaptations could help integrate computational thinking with sensor-based interaction, robotics, or hybrid game-making experiences.
Wider 3M model: The use of 3M model could be trialled in a range of new settings, including school-based computing lessons, enrichment clubs, and museum-based learning environments. Such work would help evaluate the model’s transferability beyond the flexible, high-autonomy context of home education.
Learning Dimensions Map: The Learning Dimensions Map, developed as an interpretive and facilitative tool, could be adapted into a co-reflective scaffold for use with learners and educators. This could support deeper insight into emergent learning trajectories and concept development in project-based computing education.
Wider, partnership work to develo the concept of repertoire blending (RARB): The conceptual tools developed in this study, particularly the idea of relational agency through repertoire blending (RARB), may be useful and of interest to other researchers and practitioners. Further refinement of this framework in partnership work with other practitioners could deepen understanding of how learners mobilise personal, cultural and technical repertoires across different collaborative practices. The concept could be explored across other domains such as creative writing, systems science, or maker education
alignment with UDL: The lens of inclusion and the alignment with UDL is relevant as a possible resolution to abstract / concrete tensions as a gateway to access diverse learner pathways and thus avoid an overly complex navigational framework thus reducing cogintive load. A pedagogy aligned with inclusive approaches may be promising to address neurodiversity in particular in non-formal settings.
More work with GDPs using other tools: Make-code arcade resources have been created in D3 and suitable for testing in other contexts. The P5.js tool perhaps provides a better base which is more aligned with learners needs. Recreating resources in P5.js is a strong possibility to bring the text code process into a more controlled ecosystem within the oversight of an educational foundation.
More work exploring drama elements and participation types: Future research in the drama realted use of side missions linked to participation types within a drama process. The analysis has had to been de-prioritised from this research do to practicalities of space limitations. Work to continue existing use of MOE in creating coding is of great interest to me [@chesterman_game_2023].

Reflections on practice, participation and positioning

It has been a long time since I started this study. In the mean time, after COVID realated lock down experiences, I founded a community based workshop (Todmorden Makery) in my home town of Todmorden in a college that had been reclaimed by the local community. My position as a facilator holding space within drop in sessions in the Makery has allowed for related reflection on how the processes related to agency and identity. I designed the space to show varied affordences and materials at play inclusing a social area with kitchen and tea-making facilities. When people walked in through the door, I wanted to maximise the potential for them to see an area that they identified with, and that they could imagine themselves using and contributing to.

The role of a facilitator involves leading from behind.

Two emotional moments

This PhD has taken a long time. When I started I had a 2 year old boy. He is now 10. His learning journey as someone who is lively, expressive and struggles with formal learning environments has brought up issues of designing for inclusive pedagogies that would have formed a greater part of the research process if carried out now.

In the end stages of the writing up process. In a final review of interview data, two emotive extracts stood out for me. The first Maggie’s sharing of a moment that made her quite emotional in recognising the learning of her dyslexic son. The second was a sharing of Madiha that her daughter had hacked a Amazon Fire tablet to install the android play store thus allowing greater access to free apps and extending the usefulness of the devices beyond the manufacturer’s constraints. They reflected that participation in the game making process had helped with the empowerment and patience need to achieve this process. As someone involved in hacking, and repurposing technology to reduce landfill via the Todmorden Makery project this made me emotional.

Final reflections

This thesis began with the question of how computing education might become more collaborative and interest driven.

The shift in direction towards a deeper understanding of agency and its diverse elements has been both professionally and personally illuminating.

In addition, I feel the resources created offer genuine potential and opporunity to learners and faciliators who are able to access them.

The challenge, I fear may not be the outreach to but the reduced numbers of spaces where such exploratory work is possible. The burst of enthsuism outlined in the chapter and the pulling together of teachers, enthusiast and parents seen the years between the Raspberry Pi and new computing curriculum have died down. While the technology and pedagogy outlined in this thesis provide opportunites for project based approaches, the challenges remain as I outline in an article for July 2025 Advancing Education journal ¹ [@chesterman_use_2025].

However, this narrow interpretation obscures the wider immediate potential of this research. Young people and families are still playing retro computer games and strategies for learning in informal settings are increasingly importants. Home education continues to rise in the UK. When I began work in this this area in 2016 UK figures of home educated children were 48,000 and as of 2024 were at 111,700 ². A key factor driving this doubling over the period of this thesis is the difficulties schools have in providing inclusive pedagogical approaches to students with neurodiversity and specific learning difficulties(SpLD) [@parsons_homeeducation_2010].

This study began from requests from the home education community and the outputs should benefit that community. As educational research driven by more mainstream provision while a need is there, a clear direction to help dissemination and further research is less obvious. The challenge for myself is that there is little scope to even pursue that possiblity within my teaching role at University. The challenges within formal education to do with project based and resposive approaches, are also reflected in broader societal and environmental contexts. The challenges which drove much of my activism as a young adult have only intensified.

Taken as a whole, I often find the many challenges ahead overwhelming in scope and character. I sometimes drag my family to local towns of Accrington, Dewsbery and Keithley where economic, political and civic decay at work on western society is particularly visible. My family find a grim humour in these trips. But for me, driving this dark tourism is a desire to investigate the grassroots community responses that emerge from these adverse conditions. Many community cafes, civil libraries, health and art projects hold space in city centres for people with diverse and sometimes extreme needs running drop ins when you never quite know who will come in and what will happen next. This study is in part a tribute to the people and processes of holding space for people to interact

Foot note

July 2025 Advancing Education journal from https://tpea.ac.uk/advancing-education-journal/ ↩
Figures are likely to be under-reported as they are electively provided to local authorities. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42624220 and https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/elective-home-education/2024-25-autumn-term?utm_source=chatgpt.com ↩