Brittney McFarlane

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (January 6 - February 6)：

This semester, McFarlane will be starting her thesis exploring games’ potential to positively impact behavior through narrative and playful learning. She is particularly interested in Shanghai because she is familiar with the variety of online ESL companies that leverage digital learning and remote classrooms for young students. While she won’t be focusing on English learning, she would like to know if there exists different views on gameful learning between people in the greater New York City area and in Shanghai. More broadly, she’d like to apply the foundational knowledge collected (via literature reviews and other secondary research) this semester, to pre-testing her finalized research question. She is interested in behavioral change, narrative, and games as they relate to holistic education, society, and culture. In the future, McFarlane would like to develop a framework that allows her to apply her  research findings on gameful learning to a broader, global community.