Critical thinking in interacting with digital games
analysis of an online community of the game Plague Inc.
Abstract
This article investigates how critical thinking is mobilized in digital games, with a focus on the game Plague Inc. It aims to characterize manifestations of critical thinking in evaluations made by Players in the online community of the Steam platform. A qualitative approach of exploratory character was adopted, using content analysis as a method of data treatment. The collection covered 1,734 evaluations in English and Portuguese, of which 545 were analyzed, 461 of which were coded in the "critical thinking" category. The analyses showed the activation of several cognitive skills, such as inference, analysis, evaluation, interpretation, explanation, and self-regulation. Critical thinking dispositions were also identified, such as planning, interaction with others, use of reasoning, search for information, and confidence in one's abilities. The results suggest that digital games, especially Plague Inc., have pedagogical potential for the development of critical thinking and scientific literacy, by promoting active, investigative, and interactive learning environments.
Keywords: Reasoning; Scientific literacy; Cognitive skills; Learning
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