Interview Responses

The graphs of the participants’ interactions used during the interview sessions can be seen in Appendix4J. The interactional states described in Chapter 3 section 3.4.5 were used to obtain the periods when pairs were in agreement (represented as 1) or disagreement (represented as 0). The graphs were presented like that because the researcher needed a way to quickly create the graphs from log file data and try out the initial ideas to gain some insights and understandings. Presented in this section are the themes generated from the thematic analysis of the participants’ responses during the interview sessions with the quotes from the raw data indicative of each theme.

6.3.6.1 Strategy

All groups developed strategies to play the game and most of these strategies occurred across controllers. While some (Agamepad, Atangible, Btangible, Ctangible, Ddancemat) did this in advance others (Bgamepad, Cgamepad, Dgamepad, Dtangiblei, Adancemat, Bdancemat, Cdancemat) developed strategies during game play. One of the participants (P1) in Group A (while playing the game with dancemat) identified that their initial strategy which involved use of the game features influenced how they collaborated using dance mat. According to P1: “…it was just that we decided pressing where

they [aliens] wanted to go and then we will say to the other person go right…” In addition, pairs

in Group B (while playing the game with dance mat) had no initial strategy however they noticed the map during game play and used it to collaborate as stated by one of the participants in the group “I think we were both trying to do different things and then we looked up at the

little bars, the circles which showed us what each other was doing. And then we thought, oh alright I would do what each other was doing.” There was no strong evidence to suggest that

112 same strategies being adopted on the same gameplay conditions and ordering but there is not enough data for any kind of meaningful analysis. Furthermore, there were not enough groups for fully balanced Latin square.

6.3.6.2 Synchronicity of Response

Synchronicity of response relates to synchronous agreement between players interactions which occur when players press the same keys simultaneously. In this case, agreement is recorded if a key is still pressed down by one player by the time another player presses the same key. There seemed to be no serious problems related to this issue as the key presses generated agreement severally during game play. It would have been impossible to play the game if the participants did not agree in their controller input. One of the participants P7 in Group D while playing with the dance mat mentioned that the periods where they agreed was as a result of their quick reaction to each other’s interactions with the game: “when there were

long spaces [i.e. where they agreed in their controller input], I think we responded really quickly…” and P6 in Group C while playing with the game pad: “we were both pressing it very fast...” One of the participants P1 in Group A indicated that it took them more time to get into

agreement while playing with the dance mat. Initially, they used the alien movement to decide where to go but had to re-strategize probably because their initial strategy seemed not to work as seen in the transcript: “Uhmm, well it was just that we decided pressing where they [aliens] wanted to go and then we will say to the other person go right. So it takes us more time to react”. One of the participants P6 in Group C also mentioned that it took them “…a bit [a longer time] to get together…” as they needed to coordinate their interactions while playing with the

dance mat. Furthermore, P6 in Group C indicated that it was difficult to coordinate key presses while playing with the game pad: “…I don’t think we were pressing the red button at the same

time very easily”. This issue with the game pad may have arisen due to the typically very short

duration of button. 6.3.6.3 Collaboration

Difficulty working together was identified as one of the issues encountered by some pairs during interaction. P2 in Group A stated that “It’s harder to work together than work alone” while playing with the dance mat. Also, the same participant encountered similar problem while playing with game pad however, this seemed to be less of a problem after the participants had learned how to agree in their controller input as seen in the transcript “It’s still the exact same

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reason but because it’s sort of working together…and you learn how to do it easier so you’re just moving out more and shooting.”

6.3.6.4 Interaction Issues

This refers to the challenges posed by the controllers as the players interacted with the game. Pairs in group D reported experiencing some hardware problems while playing with the dance mat as stated by P7: “I think the dance mat was a little bit unresponsive in some places …” and that this resulted in a slow response during interaction: “I think it was a little bit jerky moving, so

we have to be a bit slow in, in places”.

6.3.6.5 Ease of Use of Controller

This refers to the players’ ability to easily interact with the controllers. The gamepad was reported as the easiest: “I think it’s more of a case the buttons are easier to press…, it’s easier to

go on and off, on and off...” (P4 Group B).

6.3.6.6 Accidental Interactions

This refers to when players generate game control inputs not planned or intended. Pairs in Group C and Group A found that they accidentally tilted the Tangible and that this influenced how they collaborated. This is evident in responses of P5 in Group C “I kept slipping going that

way without realizing” P6 in Group C “Yeah, it’s hard to get it really straight” and P1 in Group A: “…sometimes you just accidentally tilt it.”

6.3.6.7 Awareness of actions

This refers to how clearly a controller can be seen by the players during interaction. P4 in Group B stated that the size of the tangible controller caused them to easily see what each other was doing as seen in the comment “Yeah, cos it’s so big. It’s easy to see what the other person is

doing. Cos you can see them going like that [gestures]”. Awareness of others play an important

role in the fluidity and naturalness of collaboration and can be easily maintained in a collocated situation such as the one reported in this research compared to a non-collocated situation e.g. groupware (Gutwin & Greenberg, 1996).

6.3.6.8 Familiarity with Controller

This refers to the degree of familiarity the participants felt with the controllers. P7 in Group D felt that the game pad had strong single player connotations for them: “it might be that when

you’ve got that kind of controller, your immediate response is to play a single player cos that’s how you normally play it at home.” Although P8 in the same group is familiar with the tangible

114 controller, the appearance made him use it differently as seen in his comment “even though

these are wiimotes, they look different so you try and play it differently.” This was surprising as

the wiimote was concealed in a plastic bar (as stated in chapter 3 section3.4.2). Conversely, unfamiliarity was found to foster collaboration, in relation to the tangible and dance mat. P7 in Group D stated “I think with the other two you have to work as a team cos you have never used

that kind of equipment before.”

6.4 Discussion

The findings from this study revealed a range of different collaborative behaviours exhibited by the participants whilst playing a multiplayer game that supports ECA. These behaviours were similar across controllers (i.e. they were observed in various groups using the three controllers apart from ‘Not allowing partner dominate’ and ‘telling by showing’ which occurred only in the gamepad condition) and in some cases transferred from one controller to another within groups. The behaviours observed in this study confirmed those of the preliminary study but also revealed other collaborative behaviours that were not evident through researcher observation of the participants’ interactions. The inclusion of video recording enabled the researcher to record and monitor events to gain more insights into the strategies adopted by the participants while playing the game. The qualitative analysis of the collaboration used an approach known as ‘collaborative networks’ which provided a framework for analysing the video footage from the study and developing understanding of the collaborative behaviours. The collaborative networks consisted of descriptive data such as participants’ talk and action and their accompanying codes (obtained from the coding scheme) and were used to highlight patterns of behaviours within this study. Most pairs demonstrated truly collaborative behaviours such as negotiations, verbal suggestions, explanations, enquiries and response to enquiries. Soliciting help from a partner through questioning (which occurred a few times in groups A, B and D), offering help to partner through gesturing with input device (which occurred once in Group A) and conflict resolution (an indicator of good collaborative interaction (Roschelle & Teasley, 1995) and occurred a few times in groups A and B) were also evident in the study. Non-conflict (agreement) situations where partners did not require further explanations to agree featured most commonly throughout gameplay. Evidence of dominating behaviours was observed in some groups where a participant gave instructions and the other did not respond verbally but carried out the instructions. However, this dominating behaviour did not persist for the entire game play sessions and typically ended with the other player disagreeing or giving their own instructions.

115 Within Group C, two instances were observed where a participant attempted to dominate by interacting with their partner’s controller, but these attempts where ineffective. While more research is needed these observations imply that ECA could help empower people that are being dominated and encourage more equitable participation, this may be particularly desirable especially in educational settings.

The participants appeared to be enthusiastic and engaged well with the activities in the study, some shouting, laughing and jumping while others focused all their attention on the gameplay: these observations were similar to those obtained in the previous study. The Children’s interest/enjoyment scale which compared the participants’ enjoyment of the two game versions gave very little differences in result but also the questionnaire included questions on whether the participants preferred and enjoyed playing the game alone or with their partners. The questionnaire revealed that one participant (13%) preferred to play alone and did not enjoy playing with their partners while 62% (five participants) of the participants did not prefer to play the game alone and enjoyed playing with their partners. As expected, there appears to be a relationship between participants’ preference and enjoyment of the collaborative element of the game reasons being that it was fun, challenging, engaging, and promoted teamwork. These results are in line with those obtained in the previous study (chapter 4 section 4.3.4). While the number of those who participated in this study was small, Figure5-12 showed that the dance mat was clearly the most fun controller. The data also implies that the game pad was easiest to play the game with. These results could be due to the novelty factor as majority (all apart from one child) of those who participated in the study had no previous experience with the dance mat. Also, a high familiarity with the game pad could be the reason for the participants ranking the game pad as easiest to use controller. It was observed that controllers participants ranked lowest on the funsorter was rated as ‘not very good’ using the smileyometer (in four cases) and those ranked highest on the funsorter were rated as ‘brilliant’ using the smileyometer (all cases). Whilst this result is limited to the number of participants in the study, it confirms that of the first pilot study and is in line with conclusions of previous research that the fun sorter on the construct of fun measures the same thing as the smileyometer (Read, 2007). In addition, the participants that ranked a controller highest on the ‘most fun’ construct ranked the same controller as highest on the ‘liked the most’ construct whereas those that ranked a controller highest on the ‘easiest to use’ construct ranked the same controller as highest on the ‘liked the

116 most’ construct. Similar result was obtained in the first pilot study and this suggests that controllers that are fun or easy to use influenced some participants’ decision on the controller they liked most.

Furthermore, contrary to the conclusions of (Read, MacFarlane, & Casey, 2002) which indicated that people would like to do fun things again, results from this study showed that dance mat is a fun controller (due to novelty factor) that the participants liked, but they would not like to use it again. This confirms the result obtained in the first pilot study and could be attributed to lack of prior experience with the dance mat (only one participant had prior experience with dance mat) causing frustration i.e. participants finding it challenging to put their foot in the right place on the mat while engaged in the game. The dance mat may have proved frustrating as, compared to the game pad for example, it requires more practice to interact accurately, is more tiring to use, and the pace of interaction is naturally slower due to the larger body movements (gross movement of legs compare to fine movement of thumbs or wrist).

In a study that investigated the effect of personalized electronic quest on children’s enjoyment (van Dijk et al., 2012), strong correlations were reported between the results of Again-Again and Smileyometer for younger children while weaker or no correlation was reported for older children (those above 10 years old). In their study, the older children rated the Smileyometer questions very high and still sometimes answered ‘no’ and ‘maybe’ to the questions on the again-again. This result is similar to the one obtained in the current study and it can be argued that due to the fact that the participants in the current study (11-16 years old) are more cognitively advanced and judgemental compared to younger children (0 -10 years old), they were able to reveal (through the use of fun toolkit) how much they enjoyed playing the game with the dance mat as well as express their doubts on whether they would like to play the game again with the dance mat.

In this study, performance was measured by adding up the number of key presses of both participants in each group divided by the total number of times they were in agreement. Performance was used to find out how well each group collaborated in the three play conditions (i.e. game pad, dance mat and tangible). Results from the calculation showed that all the groups (apart from Group A) performed best with the game pad, followed by the tangible and then the dance mat. This is not surprising as most of the participants were familiar with game pads

117 (having previously played games with game pads) and all apart from one participant had no previous experience playing games with the dance mat. This may also explain the reason why the participants found the dance mat fun but would not use it again as they performed worst with the controller. The hypothesis that familiarity with partner would have an effect on the participants’ performance was not supported by the result as all the participants have known each other for an average of four years but minor differences were observed across groups and within controllers as shown in Table5-12.

In this study a very simple visual representation, a map, was used to provide a visual feedback of each participant’s interaction with the game. It was anticipated that the interaction map would support more effective collaboration through awareness of own and partner’s actions (Bowman et al., 2012). Results from this study (questionnaire, interview, and video) showed that the participants noticed the map and were aware of its function in the game. How prominently this featured in the participants’ strategies is unclear (only pairs in Group B discussed it) and further exploration in this areas is required.

A set of eight core themes which influenced the participants’ interactions were identified in this study. These themes span a range of levels and can be used to inform future work in the area of ECA in a range of possible application scenarios such as gaming and learning.

6.5 Conclusion

This chapter reports a similar study to the first pilot study but with modification to the research methods. The video recording provided a set of rich data for analysing the participants’ collaborative behaviours in enforced situation. The interviews offered a way to understand what influenced the participants’ interactions and the log file data generated during game play were displayed graphically and served as prompts during the interview sessions with the participants. Necessary precautions were taken by the researcher to ensure the interaction techniques did not malfunction during study sessions.

Analysis of the data obtained not only produced useful information for the design of future studies but also highlighted the limitations of the study design (timing and setting), methods and tools used in the study. Timing was a key issue faced in the study. The researcher was allocated 30mins however, each session took between 35-40 minutes to complete which put

118 the researcher under pressure to finish on time. This problem could be attributed to numerous evaluation forms used in the study.

The following conclusions were drawn from this study:

 Various collaborative behaviours were identified however, no clear differences were observed between the interactions methods used in the study. The inclusion of video recording in the methodology and use of collaborative networks in the analysis of the data provided an avenue to analyse the participants’ behaviours in detail thus revealing collaborative patterns which were not evident through researcher’s observations of the participants. Conclusively, this study supports the use of video analysis to effectively explore ECA.

 The interview sessions with the participants revealed a set of eight main issues which influenced their interactions during game play. These issues span a range of levels likely to the side of the interaction and might be more general when applying ECA outside of space invaders to other applications.

 Similar to the result of the first pilot study, the dance mat was the most fun controller and the game pad was easiest to play the game with.

 Results of the first pilot study showed that the participants would not like to use a controller they found to be most fun again. It was thought that the result was due to the intermittent fault in the operation of the dance mat. However, similar results were obtained in the second pilot study with the dance mat in good working condition. This