(En)gendering videogame development: A feminist approach to gender, education, and game studies

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Notes

This is true despite 48% of game players being female.

“Gamergate” refers to a harassment campaign against female game makers and feminist videogame critics triggered in August 2014.

“Dummy-coding” is a method of categorizing a variable that has only two levels (i.e., gender: students in this sample identified as either male or female) to allow these variables to be included in statistical analysis; each coded value represents a category in the dummy-coded variable.

A t-test is a statistical procedure that compares the averages of two groups to determine whether there is evidence that averages of those groups are significantly different. Independent t-tests are used when the groups being compared are “independent”—members of one group do not also belong to the second group (e.g., students are either in Grade 6 or in Grade 9, they cannot be in both).

A chi-square test is a statistical test that is used to determine whether the frequency of a categorical outcome (e.g., presence of a game feature) differs based on a categorical predictor (e.g., gender).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Negin Dahya

Negin Dahya is Assistant Professor in the area of Digital Youth at the University of Washington Information School. Her research is focused on the social and cultural context of digital media production and use among young people of color in local and global educational settings.

Jennifer Jenson

Jennifer Jenson is Professor of Pedagogy and Technology in the Faculty of Education and Director of the Institute for Research on Digital Learning at York University, Canada. Her scholarly interests include digital game studies, new media, pedagogy and technology, gender and technology, multimedia and online content/design issues in education, educational gaming, and cultural studies of technology, and the design and development of educational games.

Katrina Fong

Katrina Fong is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at York University, Canada. Her work is focused on the relationships between media (such as literature, films, music, and video games) and how individuals understand themselves and relate to others. She is especially interested in the impact of media on identity formation and expression.