Bridging the gap: Digital games, pedagogy, and equity in NSW history classrooms with Shea Rigney

Shea Rigney's Master of Research thesis examines the complex landscape of digital game-based learning in NSW secondary history education, revealing critical disconnects between pedagogical potential and classroom reality. Through mixed-methods research involving surveys, interviews, and policy analysis, her findings expose how well-intentioned teachers default to quiz-based platforms like Kahoot! and Blooket; tools that motivate students but rarely advance historical thinking beyond recall. This tendency fundamentally misses opportunities for digital games to develop critical inquiry and higher-order analysis - a requirement of the current and new 7 - 10 History Syllabus.

More concerning, Rigney's research reveals how commercial off-the-shelf games like Civilization and Age of Empires (games built on mechanics of invasion and exploitation) perpetuate colonial narratives while erasing Indigenous perspectives leading to digital dispossession in Australian classrooms. Moreover, the use of these games violates ACARA's Cross-curriculum priority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Culture. Despite a framework designed by Southgate et al (2017) within NSW  for serious games, the research discovered zero teacher awareness of the resource, highlighting a significant theory-practice gap and dissemination failure in professional learning within the NSW education sector.

The research identifies technology infrastructure disparities as the most significant barrier to implementation, with analysis of 21 large NSW public schools revealing stark equity gaps between high and low socioeconomic communities. Rigney argues that without targeted professional development, Indigenous community collaboration in game design, and longitudinal studies examining games' impact on students' historical knowledge, digital game-based learning risks reinforcing the very inequities and colonial frameworks quality history education should challenge. As she prepares to commence PhD research at the University of Sydney next year, Rigney's work highlights the immediate need to deliver digital game pedagogical professional learning to both in- and pre-service teachers to ensure effective and culturally appropriate use of digital game-based learning. 

Transcript

Ellie Meissner:  Welcome to our next episode of the podcast, Technology and Learning. And today I'm very excited to have with me Shae Rigney from Western Sydney University. Who is coming on to our podcast today with 13 years experience in public schools classrooms, but also as an academic about to embark on her PhD journey, which is very exciting. And she connects technology debate back to real learning experiences, policy and institutional practice. Welcome.

Shea Rigney:  Thank you so much.

Ellie Meissner:  So today we want to talk about your research up to this day, and of course, all of your experience going into all of that research as well. So some of your findings suggest that teachers often turn to platforms like food or Blooket for engagement and differentiation. What do you think is driving that preference and what learning opportunities are potentially lost when digital games are reduced to fast paced quizzing, rather than inquiry or systems thinking?

Shea Rigney:  Yeah, it was really interesting. I was quite surprised that my research that I did focused on history teachers in particular, and a number of those teachers were also geography teachers. But their go-to digital game that they used was Blooket and Kahoot! And when I say 'digital games', I use that as an umbrella term. So that includes things like, obviously those quiz based games, drill games. So I think cool maths games, think Mavis Beacon Typing. We've also got our puzzle games. We've also got commercial games. So that's kind of the umbrella. And so when I provided the survey participants and the interview participants, those options. Survey participants definitely came back and said, those quiz based games were the most common they used. The reason being is, and other researchers identified this is because, it's easy to use, it's quick to use. The teachers don't necessarily need any training to use them, and it also can be used as a type of formative assessment. This can be true in terms of using it as a formative assessment, as long as the teacher maybe designs those quizzes. However, we're also seeing a number of teachers just using the pre-made ones, so they're not specifically tailored to the class to get that authentic feedback.

The problem with some of the quiz based games as well is that they are lower order thinking. So if we're thinking Bloom's Taxonomy. It's our remember and our comprehension, our understand. And it's not pushing up to those analysis, critical analysis or evaluation that some of our other games like, Never Alone, for example, could provide where students get the actual chance to investigate certain events or people or choices that they make.

Unfortunately, they are missing that, and I think that comes down to as well, is that lack of professional development. So teachers aren't given the opportunity to, take on any kind of digital game pedagogy, professional learning, whether that's while they're in-service or even in pre-service. There's no initial teacher education programs that focus on digital game pedagogy. And I think that's where that is doing digital games a bit of a disservice. When we think about the types of texts that you can use for your students, and that's across all KLAs and across all year groups. We often think about movies or clips or books. Video games and digital games don't often come into the picture. And that's interesting because, video games are the highest grossing form of entertainment. They far surpass books and movies and music as well. So the fact that we're not engaging with this medium, even though the 'Australia Plays Report', identifies that almost 90% of students and parents engage with video games in their household is, very much a missed opportunity, I feel.

Ellie Meissner:  Yeah. I was just thinking, it sounds like really, there's so much potential here, that this could be used for good. You also state the the Erica Southgate 2017 framework guides teachers in using Serious Games was developed within New South Wales, however, none of your interview participants were aware of it. But yet all of them sort of, when you asked said that you know they would be using it. What does that suggest? How can that framework be effectively translated into the classroom?

Shea Rigney:  And again, that's something that my research discovered is that there is a significant theory-practice gap. So what we're seeing in universities is a lot of research coming out about the benefits of digital games and how they can be implemented, how they can improve engagement and motivation and skills and content acquisition. But, the teachers who are the boots on the ground, they're not actually getting this information. It's not being disseminated. So when I did show the interview participants that framework, they were like, 'yeah, this is actually incredible. I would use this.' And I would also use this for those teachers who are perhaps a little bit hesitant to use digital games. And that's part of that issue that teachers are not actually aware. 'Well, how do I line this game with the curriculum? How long do I play it for? Do I use it in pairs? Do I have them playing it individually or as a class?' And all of that rolls into that digital game pedagogy, which, as I said, is missing from our initial teacher education programs, not just in New South Wales, but actually across Australia and also in our in-service teacher professional learning. So making sure that the dissemination of these frameworks goes to schools, goes to classrooms, is really important to ensure the effective use of digital games in teaching and learning activities.

Ellie Meissner:  Did your teachers or your interview partners also talk about some of those barriers, like probably being time poor? You said you work in public schools mostly are resourcing issues, I'm assuming?

Shea Rigney:  Resourcing issue was my biggest finding as to a barrier. One is access to technology. We know that there is literature that the Department of Education in New South Wales has released themselves. That there is significant issues with, access to technology, especially in our low socio economic areas. So Western, South Western Sydney. We have about 30,000 students who, according to the New South Wales dataset, actually has very poor access to the internet. So that's over 30,000 students who have a one device to ten plus students. There are also the teachers who are talking about their issues with BYOD, because there are so many different variations.

So there are three main ways that the school can implement their technology policy. So they can either say to the parents 'Here is the BYOD policy. This is the laptop you MUST buy.' So that they're all uniform. And I've been in those schools and that works well. Because as a teacher you know exactly what they're going to have. So you can plan for that.

However, we also see that those families who can't afford it, the students end up with detentions or, yes, the school are required to provide these laptops, but they're not always available. You then have the BYOD that the student can bring in, whatever the family can afford. Which again, is good because it allows the students to bring something in. But then the teachers, it's a nightmare, because you actually don't understand the different types of technology. It can be tablets, it can be Macs, it can be a range of things. And it means you can't plan effectively for anything. It also means that it's going to be a hindrance in terms of accessing specific games and things like that.

You then of course have their last option, which is where the school says, 'no, don't bring in your own device. We will supply it to you.' Sometimes that, 'we will supply you' looks like 30 set of Chromebooks for a whole faculty or 90 Chromebooks for the whole school. You might then get your set of Chromebooks to the classroom. Some of them aren't working, there's keys missing. So it is such an incredibly vast range, and it is the digital inequity within our public education system, and access to technology is actually quite, disheartening. It's one of the more relevant issues in New South Wales as to why digital games, for example, aren't as widely used.

Ellie Meissner:  Yeah. And you can see how from a teachers perspective then, if this is the situation you're in, you know, like how much effort are you actually going to put into your digital pedagogy given those context and circumstances? Right?

Shea Rigney:  Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, part of the digital game pedagogy is also around developing those strategies. So hopefully I have an article coming out soon which is a framework, which is around initial teacher education. It's called the Pathway Framework, and it teaches initial education students all about how to overcome those barriers. And then part of my PhD research project is about doing in-service teacher professional learning, addressing those technological barriers where possible.

Ellie Meissner:  That is excellent. That's really amazing. And I'm really excited to learn more about all of that from your PhD. But all of that really is only one part of what you're doing. You also have a very critical lens and an indigenous lens on your work as well. So, some of the games that I use, often rely on, you know, mechanics of invasion and exploitation. So what are the cultural and ethical risks specifically relating to the colonial narratives and concept of digital dispossession? 

Shea Rigney:  It was surprising to find that, with the survey, the majority of teachers were using quiz based games. In the interviews, those who were really keen to tell me everything that they were doing, they were talking about using those traditional Age of Empires, Civilisation, games, which looks at colonisation. In Australia, especially as we have to abide by ACARA and at the cross curriculum priorities, we have the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, cross curriculum priority.

Not one of the interview participants while talking about their use of brain strategy games. Did they mention that they also incorporated indigenous perspectives. This therefore violates that cross curriculum perspective. And also in particular, if you're looking at history, part of the history syllabus, actually requires you to look at indigenous perspectives. But our new syllabus in New South Wales also has a focus on inquiry based learning. And at the heart of inquiry based learning is actually looking at the different perspectives.

So, Ashlee Bird, who wrote a piece in 2021 about digital dispossession, speaks about how, when there is that virtual representation of land and then there is no representation of indigenous voices or culture or language or consultation while the games being developed. It is that digital dispossession. There are a few games out there though, that, unfortunately not in Australia at the moment. We have a rather popular game which is called 'Never Alone', which is based on the Inuits in Alaska. And that was made in consultation with the Cook Island Inuit. They created that game. And they were the first to actually own a publishing studio. 

We do have as well, coming up, Ben Armstrong, who is an Indigenous game designer, he's got a game coming up called 'Boo & The Old People'. So he was just given some, additional funding from the Screen Australia, I believe, to, start working on that or to further the work on that. So hopefully with, my PhD, I'll be using that game as well. And I'm hoping that will be a web based games. And in that way, it's actually easier for teachers to access and use. So there is some movement in that space. But we certainly need a lot more research done in that space to understand the implications of using colonisation and grand strategy games in history, in Australia. And then we also need to see a lot more funding to Indigenous game developers and designers to ensure that they're the kind of games that we are getting into our schools.

Ellie Meissner:  100%. So when you think ahead to your PhD journey, what are you most excited about? 

Shea Rigney:  The whole premise behind this, is that, I want teachers to understand that games or digital games or video games, however you want to call them, they should be used as a trans-media. And when I say trans-media, I mean that they are part of the story. So when you are teaching, you are not just using normally one source. You use a variety of sources and teachers are really good at doing that. And so, digital games should be used as part of telling that story. In history, for example, we look at colonisation. Again, we shouldn't just be looking at textbooks or videos. You can incorporate a game like, 'When The Rivers Were Trials', which is a game that was written by an Indigenous lady in North America as a bit of a push back against the Oregon Trail.

I want teachers to understand that, A) Give it a go. There's lots of hesitation around using games. The fear of 'I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to do it, and I don't know what the parents will say.'

And B) I want them to understand the benefits of using them in terms of engagement and content development and that they should really lean in to it. 

Ellie Meissner:  I know you are very passionate about all of this, and we could probably talk all day. Thank you so much Shea for coming on and talking to us. Please connect with her if you're interesting in anything we talked about today. Obviously we will share your contact details, and once that article comes out we will share the link as well, because, it sounds amazing. We're very excited for your PHD journey to start. 

Shea Rigney:  Thank you so much Ellie, it's been my pleasure.