"Expert on drums, could be experter": an ethnographic case study investigating the learning principles displayed in video gaming among Inuit youth

• Main Author: Chippett, Jeremy
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 2016
• Subjects: Nunavut; inuit
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/12384/; https://research.library.mun.ca/12384/1/thesis.pdf

The aim of this research is to conduct an analysis of a successful learning experience—interactions with video games—among Inuit youth in one Nunavut community to determine what factors help these Inuit learn. Through this analysis, questions relating to whether video games constitute a technology of learning for Inuit as well as what characteristics of digital games lead to increased engagement among the youth were addressed. Using the theoretical framework of cultural studies, the work of James Paul Gee, along with the pillars of isumaqsayuq (Inuit traditional ideas of teaching and learning), this study finds that video games are a technology of learning for Inuit youth and factors such as autonomy, competition, contextualized content, and self-efficacy all contribute to the youth’s continued engagement with video games despite their increasing difficulty.