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Effects of playing the video game Her Story on multiple dimensions of creativity in EFL writing – An international replication study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2023

Cristina A. Huertas-Abril Open the ORCID record for Cristina A. Huertas-Abril [Opens in a new window]  and
Barbara Muszyńska Open the ORCID record for Barbara Muszyńska [Opens in a new window]
Cristina A. Huertas-Abril
Affiliation:
University of Córdoba, Spain (cristina.huertas@uco.es)
Barbara Muszyńska
Affiliation:
University of Lower Silesia, Poland (barbara.muszynska@dsw.edu.pl)
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Abstract

This international replication study demonstrates how playing a video game is related to multiple dimensions of creativity in foreign language writing. In this research project, university students were asked to interact with a commercial murder mystery video game, Her Story, and produce a piece of creative writing, which was a replication with a new data collection of the original study by Lee (2019). The reason for using this digital game was to provide an authentic learning opportunity for students and analyze whether digital game-based learning facilitates creativity in EFL writing. This replication, involving 25 university students from Poland and 25 university students from Spain, is a media transfer study based on the students transforming one media format (video game) into another (writing). The results demonstrate that the use of a video game with an ambiguous storyline prompts discovery (specific curiosity) and could be the determining factor for producing original, quality ideas in writing even when holding a negative view of one’s creativity. The findings also indicate that the choice of genre and a viewpoint in writing may influence the level of elaboration in the texts produced by students.

Keywords

replicationcomputer-assisted language learningdigital game-based language learningcreative writingEnglish as a foreign language
Type
Research Article
Information
ReCALL , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , May 2023 , pp. 193 - 210
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of EUROCALL, the European Association for Computer-Assisted Language Learning

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