Elizabeth Boyle

The popularity of esports has gained public interest over the past decade, leading to the industries evolution, providing further avenues for career prospects and educational outreach. Esports, abbreviated from electronic sports, is the nature of playing video games casually or professionally at a competitive capacity, either as an individual, or as a team. Previous research areas in esports have focused on education, psychological factors, health and nutrition, business management, performance review, and commercialisation, factoring in the relevance of esports in sports and supporting terms. The industry has different avenues and perspectives that are advantageous to develop innovative approaches, providing information about the industry, and improving the understanding for the wider general audience. Serious games and games-based learning provides the opportunity to educate and inform about the phenomenon of esports and the potential career industry pathways. This paper presents a conceptual design for an esports serious game to educate players about esports in relation to career pathways and genres. Investigation and adaption of serious game frameworks (e.g. Learning Mechanics-Game Mechanics, Activity Theory Model of Serious Games) will be adhered to through the research. This will lead to the development of a serious game for potential stakeholders to assist in their interests in studying or learning about esports and its multi-faceted career opportunities through simulated scenarios. A mixed methods approach will support the increased frequency of new esports programmes in secondary, further, and higher education, using a serious game to inform prospective students in relation to potential career avenues. The conceptual design idea presented in this paper will support the initial research steps of a serious game to teach about esports.

The provision of Open Educational Resources (OER) means that learning horizons are no longer restricted by time and space. However, if the learning potential of OER is to be fully realised, educators and students must have the media literacy skills to select, use and produce information in a judicious and useful way. A consideration of the psychological dimensions of media literacy skills is crucial to maximise the learning opportunities offered by OER. Although learning platforms may be shifting to online content, the fundamental issues remain: How do we learn? How can learning be facilitated? These core psychological issues are key to the appropriate deployment and use of OER. The authors highlight how psychological theory and research has contributed to our understanding of technology-mediated interactions and the learning process, and consider how psychology can contribute to our understanding and application of OER as a learning facilitator. They discuss how advances in Web 2.0 technology may help maximise participation in learning and consider the potential psychological barriers and enablers to the uptake and use of OER.