PhD and master theses on games and education: a review of the Portuguese literature

Abstract

The main goals of this study were the following: 1. to identify the doctoral and master theses developed in Portugal within the area of games and education; 2. to categorize the selected theses using the game-based teaching and learning (GBTL) frames purposed by Holmes and Gee (2016). The data was retrieved through the RENATES platform, a database from the Portuguese General Direction of Statistics of Education and Science (DGEEC) that collects official information on doctoral and master dissertations held in Portugal. All dissertations, from educational sciences’ courses, concluded in the last 5 years, including the words game(s) or video game(s) in the title, were collected for analysis. Title, abstract and keywords were examined in order to categorize each thesis as studying one of the following GBTL approaches: action, structuring, bridging and/or design. The results showed that the most common category of GBTL researched in doctoral and master theses in Portugal is, by far, the action frame, while the least studied is the design frame. It also revealed there is only a very small number of doctoral theses studying games and education in Portugal. Lastly, the study highlights the need to increase efforts to guarantee that all relevant information about Ph.D. and Master Theses is registered on the Portuguese institutional repositories.