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COVID-19 case study: The effects of distance education on the game design practices of students at Uppsala University in 2022

As a result of the global pandemic COVID-19, Bachelor’s game design education at Uppsala University was moved to an online space. Multiple literary sources give insights into as to how students were affected by the pandemic, however, little research specifically explaining the connection between game design students and game production in online environments could be found to inform this study. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the effects remote work has on students’ game production and to explore how these factors connect to the fields of Scrum, flow, as well as burnout. For the purpose of researching this, eight semi-structured interviews have been conducted with third-year game design students who previously had experience with both online and on-campus education and the resulting data was then further examined in the form of a thematic analysis. Overall it was found that the remote environment enabled students to become more independent and increased their work efficiency. However, any aspects related to social factors such as communication, collaboration, as well as other social interaction were perceived negatively by the students. Furthermore, the general online environment as well as students’ motivation and energy levels were found to not significantly impact game production in any particularly positive or negative way. / Som ett resultat av den globala pandemin COVID-19, flyttades kandidatutbildningen i speldesign vid Uppsala Universitet till online. Flera litterära källor ger insikter om hur elever påverkas av pandemin, men lite forskning som specifikt förklarar sambandet mellan speldesign studenter och spelproduktion i online miljöer kunde hittas som inledning till denna studie. Syftet med den här artikeln är att utveckla effekterna av distansarbete på elevernas spelproduktion och att utforska hur dessa faktorer ansluter till områdena Scrum, arbetsflöde och utbrändhet. I syfte att undersöka detta har åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts med tredje års speldesign studenter som tidigare haft erfarenhet av både online- och campusutbildning och den resulterande datan undersöktes sedan ytterligare i form av en tematisk analys. Generellt visade det sig att den avlägsna miljön gjorde det möjligt för eleverna att bli mer självständiga och ökade deras arbetseffektivitet. Alla aspekter relaterade till sociala faktorer som samarbete, kommunikation samt annan social interaktion uppfattades dock negativt av eleverna. Dessutom visade det sig att den allmänna online miljön, såväl som elevernas motivation och energinivåer inte nämnvärt påverka spel produktionen på något särskilt positivt eller negativt sätt.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-478559
Date January 2022
CreatorsLyu, Diwei, Schmoll, Kiana Geno
PublisherUppsala universitet, Institutionen för speldesign
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageSwedish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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