Playful learning for information literacy development

Abstract

Play is often seen as frivolous, childish, suitable only for young children. In contrast, this paper will discuss the idea that using playful learning approaches is often a good fit for the development of information literacy in all ages. To do this, it will outline the meaning of information literacy that the author takes, explain where playful learning is placed within learning theories and pedagogies, and show why and how they fit together. Examples of playful practice in library and information literacy training will be given to illustrate current practice, together with gaps within that practice. It will briefly address some of the barriers to using playful learning approaches in information literacy development, and offer some ways forward for information literacy practitioners.

Keywords

Game based learning information literacy pedagogy playful learning

Information literacy

While there are many definitions of information literacy, for this article we are taking an approach aligned to those definitions and frameworks that recognise the contextual, or relational nature of information literacy.

Information literacy is the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to reach and express informed views and to engage fully with society. (CILIP, 2018)

These are different from some of the older definitions of information literacy in that they focus on the way that people approach information, which may vary depending on subject area and context. They tend to stress critical thinking and reflection, rather than competencies that may be presented as a checklist of characteristics that combine to make up an information literate person.

Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning. (ACRL, 2016)

This contextual, relational nature of information literacy started with the work of Christine Bruce (1997), but is now widely adopted (e.g. Andretta, 2012; Boon et al., 2007; Bruce and Hughes, 2010; Edwards, 2006; Walsh, 2012; Williams, 2007). It can be seen reflected within the definitions given above, particularly through this shift towards phrases such as ‘reflective discovery’ (rather than ‘search’) and making ‘balanced judgements’ (rather than ‘evaluate’).

Within this paper, we will refer to information literacy in line with these approaches, as being something that is deeply contextual, something that it is problematic to teach directly (as it depends on the context in which each person is operating), but a set of behaviours, attitudes and skills that are important to help people become fully engaged members of society and their communities.

Playful learning

Playful learning is an approach that recognises that playfulness, a mental state that is characterised as being open to play behaviours, can be beneficial to learning. It can use a range of techniques and strategems to enable that playfulness, including formal games, to gain the benefits of play in learning. Playfulness, in enabling play to occur, rather than the particular aspect of play that emerges, is the important feature. It is a state of mind that includes a willingness to ‘try something new; to attempt something difficult where success is not guaranteed’ and can ‘embrace whimsy, the spirit of the carnival, creativity, humour, surprise and imagination’ (Whitton and Moseley, 2019: 14). As such, playful learning can sometimes enable the unexpected to happen, as learners explore new possibilities and learn through failure.

Nørgård et al (2017) describe how implicitly playful structures within a teaching approach help to build a magic circle where it is safe to play. These include encouraging a ‘lusory attitude’ (Suits, 2005), or an openness to play, amongst learners; encouraging an acceptance of democratic values and openness, where learners feel they are valued; enabling an acceptance that failure is a normal part of learning; and recognising that playful learning is intrinsically motivated, rather than being dependent on external rewards. These structures, in Nørgård’s model, help to enable an environment of active and physical engagement with learning activities: one in which it is easy to collaborate with a wide range of people; with an openness to new experiences and possibilities the norm, and novelty and surprise being welcomed. They discuss how the game structures that most people might be familiar with (such as engaging game mechanics) are only the surface layer of any truly playful learning approach, dependent on the deeper layers outlined above.

Playful learning has traditionally been situated within children’s learning, particularly in young children. Key learning theorists, such as Piaget and Vygotsky discuss at length how children learn through play. For instance, Vygotsky’s (1978: 92–104) Zone of Proximal Development in play is central to the creation of situations where the child can creatively imitate others to enable learning to take place. Piaget (1962) puts play less central to the learning of new concepts, but important to allow the child opportunity to practice ideas that they may have already learned, allowing them to make their environment match their developing concepts for this practice to take place.

Both of these have been built into constructivist learning theories, that is where knowledge is constructed based around building upon the learner’s prior knowledge, which is often negotiated socially. Constructivist learning theories are often applied to adult learning, though the theoretical basis was developed within children’s learning. Particular pedagogies that are aligned with constructivist learning theory include active learning, problem-based learning, experiential learning and constructionism.

These learning theories often lose explicit elements of play when articulated into specific pedagogical approaches, though they may still be implicit. For instance, Active Learning, which may be thought of as ‘learning by doing’ (Gibbs, 1988), is a constructivist approach. It may not discuss play directly, though many active learning techniques are inherently playful. Similarly, inquiry-based and problem-based learning both construct an environment where people are challenged to explore a problem, tend to be group based, and often require you to play a role (which may be a professional viewpoint) against which the learning takes place. They look much like a game, where the rules are set by a mixture of the assessment guidelines and the constructed reality of the profession in which students may be imagining themselves. They include elements of role play and may be thought of as quests, simulations or puzzles to be solved. In reporting results from inquiry-based or problem-based learning we may make resources to show our results, and use storytelling to present what the group learnt and how they learnt it. These are clearly elements within playful learning approaches (Whitton, 2018), though they may not be expressed as such to learners (Table 1).

Table 1.

Playful learning: Tools, techniques and tactics.

Playful learning…	Description	Examples
Tools	Objects, artefacts and technologies that signify a playful environment.	Games Toys Simulations Puzzles Virtual environments
Techniques	Pedagogies and learning approaches that facilitate play.	Role play Making Performance Problems Quests
Tactics	Mechanics and attributes that engender playfulness.	Surprise Humour Chance Competition Storytelling Mystery Badges

Source: Whitton (2018).

Within adult learning, and Higher Education in particular, the ‘lusory attitude’ (Suits, 2005) is often not explicitly enabled, that is, the acceptance of the arbitrary rules of a game in order to facilitate the experience of play, that transition into the magic circle of play. This lusory attitude, the psychological acceptance of play, can be seen as vital for a learning space to emerge as truly playful, and for the learning activities to become meaningful (Nørgård et al., 2017).

Attempts to develop specific playful learning pedagogies, such as in Figure 1, clearly ‘mirror core elements of constructivist learning’ (Nørgård et al., 2017: 277), while adding explicitly elements of playfulness, such as novelty and surprise.

Figure 1.

Signature pedagogy for playful learning in Higher Education.

Playful learning pedagogies, in young children or in adult learners, whether the principles are explicitly stated, or implicit in many activities, can therefore be seen as coming from a constructivist approach. The nature of play, which has an inherently socially negotiated aspect to it, perhaps pushes playful learning into a socially constructivist approach to learning.

Playful learning approaches in teenagers and adults, ‘have the potential to improve the higher education practices of students and tutors’ (Whitton and Langan, 2018), through the increase in ‘fun’ and enjoyment, through increased creativity (Chang et al., 2011), and the ability to encourage Playfulness; Practice; Engagement; Scaffolding; Feedback; and Digital Literacy (Whitton, 2012). It creates safe places to explore and innovate as learners (Walsh, 2015), particularly through the use of metaphors (Francis, 2009; Gauntlett, 2011). It can be seen as especially important at transitional periods, particularly through the innate social aspects of play, which help to provide ‘a non-threatening forum for experimentation and a means to form a cohesive subculture/group in which the student feels a sense of belonging or relatedness’ (Cooper, 1996: 33).

These transitional periods, where people may play with belonging to new groups and echoing the language and concepts they find within, have significant overlaps with the idea of threshold concepts (Meyer and Land, 2003). Students do exactly the same thing in the ‘liminal spaces’ of this theory, where they play until they achieve understanding – a transformative step in their development. When learners are in these liminal states, struggling to understand concepts, they tend to move between old and new, or growing, understandings. This can feel risky and unsafe to learners, so they tend to try to situate themselves in the space through mimicry of the language and structures they see presented to them.

This can be a way of constructing their own safe spaces while undergoing their learning journey (Cousin, 2006), analogous to role play, where the player inhabits a safe space through inhabiting an alternative character. It feels much like the ‘lusory attitude’ (Suits, 2005) required to enter play. As we need to accept the arbitrary rules of a game to enter it playfully, so we need to accept the same rules around language and behaviours that we see people mimicking as they move towards fuller understanding of threshold concepts. In the case of threshold concepts and becoming embedded in a particular discipline, the rules are often hidden, making it even more playful, requiring experimentation to discover how to play the ‘underlying game, which requires the learner to comprehend the often tacit games of enquiry or ways of thinking and practising’ (Land et al., 2010: x).

The fit between playful learning and information literacy development

If we see playful learning as fundamentally socially constructivist in approach, where meaning and understanding are created in relation to the context in which we are operating, and in negotiation with our colleagues, then this makes it a good fit for the development of information literacy. Information literacy is not a purely individualistic feature: it is something that develops as we interact with information within a specific context, and in relation to others operating within that context. This applies whatever the age group, or subject matter, under consideration, whether we are discussing a child doing their homework, or a member of a fire service using information within their job (Lloyd, 2005).

As information literacy develops contextually, so pedagogies that draw upon learning theories that recognise the socially constructed nature of knowledge and learning should fit well. Playful learning has been shown above to be a pedagogical approach that does this for all ages, even though it tends to be seen as one that is typically taken with young children.

There are many examples (e.g. Angell and Tewell, 2015; Broussard, 2012; Smale, 2011; Walsh, 2015; Wilson et al., 2017) of taking a playful learning approach with a range of ages in libraries, particularly within Higher Education settings, which may be a reflection of the focus on this within Higher Education, and the culture of dissemination through books and articles. Unfortunately, few of the examples of play- and game-based learning reported in the literature explicitly address learning theory (Wu et al., 2012), which is echoed in the literature on playful learning and information literacy.

It can be seen, however, that taking a contextual, relational approach to information literacy suggests that it is developed in relation to others, building upon prior knowledge and experience. Information literacy development fits into the constructivist approach to learning discussed above. Any pedagogical approach, therefore, that supports a social constructivist approach to learning, could be seen as a good fit for such development. This seems re-enforced by the application of threshold concepts to information literacy within the most recent ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (ACRL, 2015). Threshold concepts (Meyer and Land, 2003), recognise the idea that learners spend time in liminal learning spaces before gaining full understanding of these key concepts. They may echo language that they have heard, practice with ideas and skills, before moving across that threshold of understanding that situates them within a professional (or educational) context. This sounds like the socially constructed learning that is discussed above, and particularly the idea that playful learning is powerful within transitional learning spaces (Cooper, 1996).

The idea that playful learning is aligned with the way that people develop information literacy seems to be supported, suggesting that playful learning as a pedagogical approach should be effective with adults, as well as younger, learners. However, despite the examples we have of games and play in developing information literacy, they rarely mention ‘play’ as a driver beyond ‘engagement’ or fun. This is despite the idea that play is always engaging being problematic (Whitton, 2018), as although play itself may be engaging, there are barriers to achieving a play state in learning situations. We cannot force people to play (many definitions of play include this as a core component), and there are barriers to anyone who is not a young child playing, as well as for the use of playful learning approaches.

Barriers to using playful learning

Many of the examples of playful learning in information literacy development from the literature focus on structured games, or gamification, and only lightly touch on the concept of play or playfulness. This is not too surprising, as play is often perceived as a childhood, or child-like activity. Information literacy in early childhood, the time that play is seen as most acceptable, is rarely discussed. By later childhood, and particularly adulthood, play is increasingly seen as inappropriate, as potentially embarrassing and requiring ‘alibis’ to enable it to take place (Deterding, 2017).

This is especially true for free or imaginative play activities, and opportunities to take a playful attitude to work or education are significantly reduced as we get older (Van Vleet and Feeney, 2015). Play can even be seen as becoming a ‘political act’ (De Koven, 2014; Koh, 2014), one that makes a statement about how we interact with the world, and one which requires a certain amount of bravery to embrace. This goes some way to explaining the focus on formal games, especially computer games in the literature on playful learning and information literacy instruction, as these sorts of formal games provide a vehicle in which play is formalised, reducing the opportunity for this embarrassment. Sometimes explicit ‘alibis’ such as ‘fun’ or ‘increased engagement’ are used to justify games (Whitton and Langan, 2018), again reducing the explicitly stated benefits of play beyond these elements.

There are ways of explicitly making play more acceptable for all age ranges. Walsh (2018), writing about permission to play in Higher Education, suggests that this can be done through giving cues from the time a learner starts; making the environment conducive to playful activities; using tools like learning objectives to put agency in the hands of the learner through structural invitations to play; using playful pedagogies; and easing people into play by inviting it, not forcing it. These are expanded upon below.

Induction or orientation tasks, those activities that happen at the time a learner starts, preferably at a new institution, but also at the start of course or module, can act strongly to give cues around normal behaviour. The initial days and weeks in a new setting is where the new ‘frame’ of social expectations are set out, and prior expectations are reinforced or destroyed. So interactive, playful activities and games can signal to learners that it is the norm to learn through play in that context. Introducing play at a later date, once those norms of behaviour have been set and reinforced, is much more difficult than introducing it an initial transitional period.

Making the environment conducive to playful activities, or giving environmental invitations to play signal to learners that the environment they are in is conducive to play. Often teaching spaces, like lecture theatres or libraries, immediately signal particular ways of behaviour. People expect to be passive, quiet, receivers of knowledge, rather than active participants. To interfere with this perception, it can help to consider the space in which we teach and how we may signal playful behaviours within them. We can use objects on tables such as Lego or modelling clay, pens and paper (to encourage thinking with your hands), and bubbles or fidget toys (as distractions as concentration aid). In classrooms without fixed seating, we can move tables into different configurations (or remove them entirely), encouraging activity, groupwork, and active modes of participation.

Using tools like learning objectives to put agency in the hands of the learner through structural invitations to play disrupts the traditional power structures normally found within teaching at all levels. These tend to focus power on the teacher, lecturer, librarian, as the person who is imparting knowledge to the learner. In play, however, power is normally more evenly distributed, with players able to change the rules to suit the group that is playing at the time. In order for learning activities to be truly playful therefore, more of the power needs to be in the hands of the learners. For instance, although learning objectives are important, they should be set in a way that allows serendipitous and emergent learning to happen, with the learner able to diverge from pre-set objectives. With assessment, regurgitation of facts discourage play, whereas creative exercises that promote critical thinking can encourage it.

Using playful pedagogies is perhaps one of the most explicit invitations to play in learning and teaching. Designing lessons as playful learning experiences ensures that those invitations are built into the pedagogical approaches used. Learning games can be used to allow self-discovery of facts and processes, simulations used to practice skills, and creative exercises to apply and knowledge all encourage a playful approach to the classroom.

Easing people into play by inviting it, not forcing it, fits alongside the normal definitions of play that say it must always be a voluntary activity to count as play. This flags the importance of recognising that people can choose not to truly ‘play’ while still carrying out learning activities that are designed to enable play. It is important that playful learning activities should still be good, or effective, learning activities without forcing people to fully engage in play, even though the full benefits may not be seen without it. The focus should always be on encouraging and enabling play to happen, rather than trying to force it, as once play becomes compulsory, it is no longer play.

These suggestions from Walsh (2018) aim to build an expectation that play is ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’ within a particular context, making it instead ‘embarrassing’ to choose not play. These were written within a Higher Education context, but could readily be adapted with specific examples from information literacy settings from any library sector or age group.

Instead of explicitly referring to play, playful learning approaches often use more readily acceptable phrases or vehicles for delivering playful experiences. This can be seen in the literature earlier in this article, where computer games, other games and creative exercises are the vehicles through which playful learning are delivered. This is due to ‘play’ being seen as a childlike activity, whereas alternatives such as ‘creative exercises’ can be more acceptable for a range of ages, even though the underlying activity may be the same.

Foregrounding the play in existing approaches

A way forward in improving information literacy instruction may therefore be to acknowledge the playful elements within existing teaching. By foregrounding playful aspects of our teaching, together with reflecting upon the theories around play and learning, we may be able to improve our pedagogical approaches.

Redesigning existing information literacy interventions might not be necessary, but reframing them may be, in order to see the extra benefits that a playful approach brings. In terms of Nørgård et al. (2017) this could be seen as a shift from focusing on the surface structures (our activities), to more implicit structures. The tools and techniques that Whitton (2018) discusses may be laid on top of approaches such as problem-based learning, or other active learning interventions, but the acceptance of risk-taking and failure; openness; and a lusory attitude can be enabled whatever the surface layer (such as game mechanics) suggests at first glance.

To do this we do not require specific learning games, or play activities. Instead we need to be aware of playful pedagogies, learning theories and the barriers to playing as adults. This can allow us to bring playfulness, or a lusory attitude, to pervade our existing teaching methods. Playful learning does not depend on any tool, but on an attitude, a willingness to embrace play, and to facilitate that for our learners.

Enabling information literacy classes to be within the magic circle of play, being aware of the many barriers that prevent this (Deterding, 2017; Walsh, 2018) and explicitly trying to address this in our teaching, can help enable understanding of troublesome concepts to emerge in a socially constructivist way. Learners can safely test ideas out, slowly moving towards an understanding of what it means to be information literate within their own contexts.

Summary and conclusion

If we accept that information literacy is contextual, socially constructed, and therefore difficult to teach directly, but instead may be more effectively enabled through constructivist approaches, then we should consider playful learning as a good ‘fit’ for information literacy instruction. Playful learning approaches seem to be suitable for a range of ages and settings, and are inherently socially constructed in style as pedagogical tools.

There are, however, barriers to using playful approaches outside of early childhood settings, though there are ways of making them more acceptable, or less ‘embarrassing’ for potential learners and instructors. These barriers to using play may be why it is rarely foregrounded in articles that describe the use of games, play and creative activities to develop information literacy. This is despite achieving a state of play or playfulness being a major factor in these interventions. By not explicitly recognising and acknowledging play when it is used to develop information literacy interventions, some of the core benefits can potentially be missed. We therefore expose ourselves to increased risk of failure when we do not engage with the established literature and the communities that work with play.

Few articles within the information literacy literature, when discussing these approaches, mention underlying learning theory at all, meaning that librarians and learning developers miss out on both the learning theory, and the specific pedagogical applications of it as it applies to the use of playful learning approaches.

By recognising that many existing information literacy interventions fall within the socially constructivist, playful learning umbrella, we can improve the design and implementation of them. With design and application better informed by theory and existing practice, we should have the opportunity to improve information literacy interventions.

Without such informed design and use of games, playful and creative approaches to information literacy development, our learners potentially miss out on the full benefits that may otherwise be within reach.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Andrew Walsh

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