The Science of Fun

As a burgeoning HPE teacher it is difficult to admit that I love video games and that I enjoy watching e-sports as much as I do real sports. E-sports are professional video game competitions. This is difficult for me because as an HPE teacher, I should be promoting healthy active living, which does not include video games. But video games are just so much fun. In some cases they are even more fun than real games. This is because the companies that make video games have taken a scientific approach to finding out what makes games fun. In traditional sports, the fun generally comes from the competitiveness and challenge of defeating an evenly matched team or player. If the challenge is not even, sports become less fun. Many video games provide that same competitive challenge. However, what video games do that most traditional sports don’t is they provide an experience. There are many games that have few competitive elements, but allow players to explore an environment and complete various objectives for which they earn rewards, etc. The best video games, do both of these things really well: they provide an engaging and rewarding experience, plus they involve some sort of competitive element.

The reason I wanted to discuss video games, is because I feel like as HPE teachers, we are competing against video games. We are trying to get students to turn off their consoles and computers and go play sports or to the gym. But, perhaps we can learn something from these video games, that will help us create more engaging and rewarding experiences for our students. For example, if you gave students the option to play tag, or any popular video game, most would probably pick the video game. But if you included laser tag on that list, many of the students would probably choose that over the video game. Another example is the popular mobile phone game, Angry Birds. In Angry Birds you slingshot birds into structures and see if you can knock them down. You decide the direction and speed of the bird, and there are different types of birds that behave differently after you slingshot them. Now, if you gave students the option to play Chuck the Chicken or play Angry Birds, a lot of them might choose the latter. But what if you were to create a cooperative or low-organizational game, which included game elements from Angry Birds. For instance, teams set up targets at a distance (i.e. cricket wickets). The object is to use fitness bands to slingshot rubber chickens and knock over the target. Students can experiment with bigger or smaller targets, moving the target closer or farther, or using different projectiles. The inclusion of creative elements as well as problem solving creates a more rewarding experience than Chuck the Chicken does.

Another way in which HPE teachers and coaches could use video games is in team building. Some of the most popular e-sports are video games which require team play. The skills developed while playing team based video games are transferrable to real sports. If a group of students can learn to communicate and cooperate with their team in a video game, they will be more likely to do the same in real sports. The challenge for the HPE teacher is to include these kinds of communication skills and strategies in real games, so that students can apply what they have learned in video games. An example might be to create a cooperative game in which the only way players can communicate is through hand signals. The teams will be given time to develop their own sign language before the game starts, and perhaps part way through, they would be given the chance to change or add more signals. 

In addition to communication skills, the strategies learned while playing competitive video games are transferrable to real sports. For example, in sports video games, players might learn advanced strategies because they have the opportunity to see the whole field, and assume control of any of the positions. Players learn how to set up offensive and defensive formations as well as learn how to use space effectively. These strategies can also translate to real world games.

The last thing to point out about video games is the sense of escapism they provide. Most video games allow players to gain a virtual experience that would be impossible to have in the real world. Whether the game is set in a fantasy world, or whether it is based in reality, the kinds of things that player characters can do inside the game world are not possible in real life. This engages players because they have the opportunity to role-play. They get to be the hero and feel powerful. In real sports only the best players get to feel like they are the hero, and feel powerful. Providing students with a sense of escapism, or role-play can be hard in the HPE setting. However, in the sport education context, students can choose from several different roles to play within their team. They get to create their team name, their mascot, their colours. In a sense, they get to create a team with characteristics that reflects their own desires and interests. In both video games and real life, these types of role play experiences allow students to learn perspective. 

Perhaps video games and e-sports should not be regarded as the antithesis of healthy active living. Instead they should be viewed as tools that could be used to make real games and experiences more interesting. They might even be excellent training grounds for developing skills like communication and strategic thinking. 

On decreased interest in physical education amongst intermediate and senior students.

I’ve been contemplating the research which shows that as children mature, their interest in PE tends to decrease. This seems especially so for students who are not natural athletes. The students who tend to stay in PE longer are the ones that are naturally good at sports and always have been. Interestingly, these are the students who probably don’t need to learn fundamental skills, and probably play sports outside of school where they receive advanced training in their particular activity of interest. In that case, even those who are good at sports will get bored in a PE class that teaches fundamental skills and strategies. That is why PE often just becomes a venue to play various games and sports, without much teaching and learning. That is why the goal of many PE classes is to make the students “busy, happy and good.” 

I think the reason young children like PE is because it is fun. They enjoy exploring and trying new and interesting activities. I think that for many, PE becomes less fun as it becomes more focused on specific sports and fitness. For most, fitness blasts are not fun. Likewise, team and team sports and activities that require a high skill level are not fun. This is because most people have no desire to put in the effort and work to gain the skill necessary to perform the activity at a competitive level. This is when the expression, “if it ain’t fun, it won’t get done,” holds true. 

If learning fundamental skills is boring for naturally skilled athletes, and learning advanced skills is more like work than fun, what are we left with? If the goal is to keep children in PE longer, than I think it must be made fun and/or interesting somehow. Perhaps as educators we need to tap into the types of experiences that children enjoyed in PE when they were young. Provide students with a sense of freedom and allow them to explore movement. The way to do this is to find activities that involve movement, exploration, collaboration, and that when completed provide students with a natural sense of accomplishment. The culmination of the activity should be fulfilling unto itself. When you are child, climbing the jungle gym feels like scaling a mountain. Standing on top is a rewarding experience unto itself. The problem is that as children age, those experiences become harder to find. 

After reflecting upon all of this, I have come up with a potential method for keeping children interested in PE. First, deemphasize formal sports. As mentioned above, students who are good at formal games and enjoy them, probably play them outside of school anyway. The same goes for fitness training. People who enjoy running, resistance training, etc., probably do that already. If schools wish to promote those activities perhaps it should be done through intramurals or clubs, etc. Instead, cooperative and low organization games should be promoted in PE. These games tend to take us back to the kinds of experiences we enjoyed as children. These are activities that allow for more freedom and exploration, and often have a culmination that feels rewarding. The goal is not simply to compete with and outperform the opponents but to solve a problem or challenge. Educational gymnastics can also provide that exploratory experience, as well as the satisfying culminating experience. Dance is also something that is almost universally enjoyed in childhood but in adulthood it is something only usually done at weddings and night clubs where large amounts of alcohol is involved. Perhaps as educators we should take that love of dance—in whatever form it comes—and build upon it. Lastly, I think that putting most of the emphasis on alternative environment activities would be the most effective way to keep students interested in PE. The reason is that as children we loved the playground because we were free and able to explore. By taking PE out of the gym and into the real world, we are once again free and able to explore. Activities like geocaching, rock climbing, orienteering, scavenger hunts, parkour, and canoeing—just to name few—allow for freedom and exploration, as well as a satisfying culminating experience. 

One possible critique of this view might be that the school year is largely during the winter months and therefore students will be confined to the gym for much of the year. To that I respond by pointing out all the winter activities we enjoyed as children: ice skating, tobogganing, building things out of snow, snowball fights, etc. Also, activities like geocaching, orienteering, and scavenger hunts can still be done in winter, perhaps adding further challenges like snowshoeing or cross country skiing into the activity. All of this ultimately increases the sense of personal satisfaction upon the culmination of the activity. 

While this reflection might have provided a possible solution to the problem of decreased interest in PE for intermediate and senior students, it is also purely based on theory. I have no experience to back it up. Therefore, it should only be regarded as a thought experiment. Something to keep in mind and not necessarily implement without any further thought.