My name is Mackenzie Croxdale, and I am a Research Associate at dfusion. A core function of my job has been assisting in the development of an educational game for middle school students to learn about environmental health. I perform qualitative research, leading individual interviews and group discussions with middle schoolers about their favorite games, what might incentivize them to play an educational game, and how our game could teach a concept as difficult—and relatively new in public acknowledgment—as environmental health literacy.
If I were instead starring in some dystopian film, tasked to catalog the human experience in a library, then I would place qualitative researchers and middle schoolers in the same aisle.
The Researcher and the Middle Schooler
The people involved are in flux: the researcher by threading together answers to open-ended questions about a phenomenon like culture while trying to disengage their biases of perceived results; the middle schooler by trying to make sense of themselves, others, and their school topics while drifting between development and maturity stages.
Just as middle school students like to pick and poke at each other, the qualitative researcher is restless, too. They simply poke in conversation: “What do you mean by that?” “How would you describe this?” The researchers are, in a way, trying to re-tell people’s stories and self-truths as concisely and adequately as possible, translating their told experiences, beliefs, perceived emotions, and body movements into a holistic understanding of someone or something.
Sometimes, the culture of research interest being poked is that of a middle school student in the 21st century, whose education during an increasingly technology-dependent world calls for innovative learning tools. And so, in a strange, meta twist, I happen to do qualitative research with middle school students.
Learnings from the Classroom
The students are usually shy. They are in the midst of shedding their elementary school silliness while acting as if they aren’t in the most awkward phase of their existence. But there is usually a turning point in each of my interviews or focus group sessions; I can almost sense the moment it occurs, when they pass their threshold and accept my genuine interest in their ideas, no matter how intricate or amateur they may think they are. Their expressions slowly shift to excitement. I can witness their ideas forming faster than they can utter them. They refer to the folded notes they had drawn up at home. Many will look up to the classroom ceiling (or to what looks like the upper edge of their Zoom screen, if the interview or focus group is held virtually) as if they’re rapidly filtering through their mind’s filing cabinet of ideas. After months of waiting for the right opportunity, clutching on to their ideas like creativity is scarce, the students trust me. The character idiosyncrasies, rich settings, and story arcs—you would think they’re reciting details from one of Kubrick’s or Cameron’s movies. My finger joints feel cramped by the end of each day from rigorously typing notes and I feel as though my words-per-minute speed must have increased by some obscene number.
Mutant Rodent Battles and Education
I feel honored that the students trust me with their original ideas, and it saddens me that not every idea can be included in the game. This is expected to an extent—the game would be an incoherent nightmare of a mash-up otherwise. But the process of creating an educational game sometimes means sacrificing what many students might think of as fun. I knew this from personal experience as a student in the early 2000s—playing mind-numbing games with movements and graphics that have now been obsolete for what looks like centuries—that certain games or aspects of games are not conducive to learning or appropriate for school, whether by any game’s nature or by the way we prioritize traditional educational tools. It’s difficult to weave fun into every aspect of education, let alone environmental health: unfortunately, our team could not find a way to combine a mutant rodent epic battle with carbon monoxide poisoning—at least in a way that would be true to the science and complementary to the education.
The Teachers and Their Students
I formed a deeper appreciation for middle school teachers. They bridge these intimidating voids between fun and education, elementary and high school. And much like my team’s educational game to teach environmental health literacy, they too must implement new ways to teach new subjects; the difference is that they are not supported with funding or 4 other team members to do so. I was fascinated by the accounts of these middle school teachers and the teachers on our expert advisory board, who are at the frontlines of emerging technology, decreasing attention spans, and increasing academic demands.
“I just think we should all help and love each other.”
With this understanding—of a current social and educational sphere vastly different from my time in primary school—I found the students’ empathy to be one of the most surprising findings. I remember I once asked a group of students what type of game component would motivate them to play our game: was it the storyline? The decked-out tools? Or to win the game and rise as “chief scientist”? I start to sweat, wondering if I was specific enough as I gaze at empty stares and open mouths. “I just think we should all help and love each other.” One kid finally broke the silence with this line, and I’ll never forget it. Other students agreed with nods, “yeah’s,” and other comments about cooperating with others to ensure people’s health and safety. This isn’t an outlier across our findings, either. I could list numerous student proverbs of equal caliber. I reflect on if I will ever have another opportunity like this in my career: will I ever be allowed—nonetheless encouraged—to be as creative and silly as possible while co-creating this game with middle school students? I don’t think so, hence this blog post.
Awkward Growth
Once you’re out of middle school, the last thing you want to think about is being back there (at least for me—I’ll include the headline picture one more time). But now that I’m a qualitative researcher of middle school students, I’ve come to appreciate these awkward states; churning within qualitative researchers’ and middle schoolers’ awkward selves is immense growth—whether that growth is being able to capture the nuance of another corner in the human experience library, or if it’s being able to better understand who you are and where you fit in this library.