thinking, analyzing, and writing - blog 13

For my analysis, I decided to look at the Gaming Literacy interview. Originally, I was going to do the teacher comments (data set 4) but I decided that looking at an interview would be more beneficial for my final research project. I’m hoping to conduct interviews for that project, so I thought this would be good practice. To draw a parallel between these two projects, I decided to try out looking for awkwardness/discomfort in this conversation. I want to see if I’m able to draw out clues about awkwardness, and see if I’m even able to make a judgment of how the student is feeling. 

The kind of questions I asked during my analysis included things like: Is the student uncomfortable? Why or why not? What does he think about the topic he’s discussing? Does he feel comfortable talking about this topic? If not, why? 

Some of the things I decided were that he doesn’t have a firm belief about the topic, and that is probably because it is the first time he’s considered the idea that his gaming might contribute to his computer literacy. Because he isn’t sure of his topic, the student is also uncomfortable. He does things to create a distance between himself and the things he is saying, which shows that he doesn’t want to take full ownership for these ideas yet. 

In this interview, the student is being questioned about his background as a video gamer. The professor is trying to show that his background as a gamer may have prepared him with the necessary ‘literacy’ in software to be able to learn computer programs. The student shows some hesitancy in answering the questions, not seeming sure of himself in giving his examples. Some signs of hesitancy/discomfort in the interview include: hedging phrases like “you know” and “well like”, minimizing terms like “just” and “only”, use of the present tense, fillers like “uh/ah”,  laughter, and use of the present tense. In general, we can note that he makes few if any direct statements during the interview.

Here’s the writing I have so far…

In the interview, the student uses several vague words and phrases which may indicate his discomfort. Several of his sentences begin with the phrases “you know”, “yeah, but”, “well, just”, “well like”. These hedgers have the effect of putting some mental distance between the speaker and his claims. Anything that follows in the sentence seems softened. It does not put the speaker directly in ownership of their claims, which can mean they are still thinking out their beliefs or do not really believe in what they’re saying. Furthermore, the speaker may be trying to indicate that they don’t want their listener to take what they say too seriously. In this case, the student is developing his thoughts on gaming literacy for possibly the first time. The professor is trying to pull out particular ideas from him, so as he goes through the process he is hedging. He is ‘giving an inch’ by saying there could be a connection between his gaming and his computer literacy, but he doesn’t want the professor to ‘take a mile’ so to speak. 

Another way the student shows this hesitancy is by his frequent use of the words “just” and “only”. By using these types of phrases, the speaker is able to put verbal space between himself and the action of the sentence. By contrast, a phrase like “I’m going” brings the action very close to the agent, creating more immediacy, showing that the speaker associates themselves strongly with the action. A phrase with many filler words like “just” or “uh” creates a buffer of verbal space between the agent and the action. It shows us that the speaker is trying to put that action away from themselves.

The other, obvious, use of the word just is to minimize the strength of the point that follows it. By using them in the interview, the student downplays the significance of the experiences he’s relating. To him, these experiences are not a big deal, and he wants the professor to see them that way as well. A good example comes from his fifth line in the interview, where he uses “just” four times and “only” once:

“Well, just in learning how to learn a program, I just see buttons, tool tips and ah I make a go at it, the scissors mean I can cut in here, and I can just cut and drag and drop - these a simple things everyone knows, I guess the only reason I can pick up learning a program is that I just have that knack, no other way to explain it.”

Another way that we may guess that the student feels uncomfortable is by the laughter recorded in the interview. People often laugh in moments of tension to help dispel the discomfort, or in lack of something to say. In this case, student B laughs after admitting something (again, returning to the theme of perhaps trying to downplay what he admits to)

Example:

Ch           that's literacy - you have the basic tools, the right basic set of assumptions for how to read, understand, interpret a program.  And so what I'm looking for is the connection between all the gaming experience you have and your ability to do that with the applications - the academic applications

B             well like a lot of games, in the beginning, there's menus.  You don't just start playing.  There's menus, you get to customize your decal your spray, clothes,

laughing

It's not all playing the game it's a lot of process to prepare for it, there's like box, scripts, you practice it, and you're not playing with other people, you're just like fooling around.

The professor’s questions are leading him to recall the details which may make up part of the comparison between gaming and computer literacy. In this excerpt, the professor didn’t even really ask him for the example, so it’s clear that he’s beginning to come up with ideas on his own and relate them. He laughs after explaining how in the beginning of a video game there is a preparation period where you set everything up (which later set him up for knowing how to familiarize himself with computer software). He laughs after the phrase, “There’s menus, you get to customize your decal, your spray, cloths”.

Perhaps at this point he feels embarrassed about this cyber world, that he places value in unreal people with unreal cloths. Its not common to discuss hobbies like this in an academic setting, and certainly not to consider them as valuable to academics. Video games come with certain Cultural Stories attached, certain stereotypes go with them. So in bringing up more details about his background as a gamer, he is brushing closer to his identity as a gamer. That identity is distinct from his identity as a student. To him, they don’t really overlap, and may even clash. The idea that the professor is presenting brings those two identities into the same realm may make him uncomfortable.

Another thing that the speaker does is use the present tense when giving his examples. His examples are related from memory of past events, things he used to do with computer and gaming. His use of present tense in these examples may indicate that he is mentally thinking through the action while speaking of it. This builds the case that he is discussing these ideas for the first time. Also, by using the present tense, he brings these actions closer to himself. If they were in the past tense, it would demonstrate that he thinks of them as a firm exemplary experience of gaming literacy. Because they’re in the present tense, they seem more like everyday experiences to him, and less set apart.

So far, I have lots of examples for why the student may be unsure of what he's talking about. I'm not sure that I can use this to prove that he felt any embarrassment though. I've also pulled in Gee a little bit with my mentions of stereotypes and identities, but I'll need to expand these more in my coming drafts.