At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, students were required to transition into a broken online educational experience. However, this unfortunate shift, proved to be an opportune escape route to distance Black girls from traditional anti-Black STEM experiences. This was an opportunity to create educational STEM experiences and…

Interest development is a topic that has fascinated and puzzled educators since the 20th century. Despite decades of research and important advances in the field, questions remain about interest and its relationship to learning. In particular, given the pervasiveness of technology in our daily lives, it is essential to understand how interest…

This dissertation narrates the data corpus of a 3-year autoethnography of a gaming community that created a history-themed esports event, the EU4 LAN. Descriptive writing and thematic analysis was utilized to illustrate the enacted roles of EU4 LAN community's (I)dentities across its affinity network. The aim of this research has been to elucidate…

Many researchers have observed that gamified mixed reality learning environments (gMRLEs) can increase learner engagement, motivation, knowledge acquisition, and critical thinking. However, there is no consensus on strategies and methods for designing gMRLEs. The purpose of this qualitative Delphi study was to identify best practices in designing…

This dissertation investigates the following research question within an informal games-based learning environment: "How do students construct scientific ideas within a games-based learning environment?" In this study, middle school youth role-played as scientists recruited by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to stop the Raven Virus…