08. Conclusion

Conclusion

Introduction

This chapter provides a final synthesis of the thesis, returning to its central questions and communicating its contributions to knowledge and practice. The study set out to explore how computer game design and programming (CGD&P) could be supported through inclusive, socio-cultural approaches, and the findings are now brought together in relation to the research questions. The first section revisits each sub-question, integrating the main findings and highlighting the conceptual and practical research outputs generated. This leads into a concise overview of these contributions. A section follows on implications for practice and directions for future research, organised by topic, outlining how the models and resources developed here may be extended and tested in new settings. This concluding chapter closes with reflections on the wider relevance of the study and a personal account of the journey. Thus, this chapter partly returns to a more personal interpretation of the research trajectory, within which a key theme that has emerged is that of inclusive practice. As such, this focus on inclusion is used as a guiding thread throughout this conclusion. This thread reflects the principal question used to orient the writing of this thesis, specifically how can pedagogies to support CGD&P be enriched using socio-cultural approaches to enable inclusive learning in non-formal contexts. While this focus on inclusion was not a deliberate part of my starting point, it became central through the research process, culminating in an understanding of inclusion as an act of holding space for diverse forms of participation.

To frame the following discussion, I take a deliberately narrative approach in revisiting the research questions. Rather than presenting the findings as detached summaries, the following section traces how the questions evolved through my own activity as designer, facilitator, and researcher. This approach reflects the participatory orientation of the study, in which inquiry and practice were inseparable, and acknowledges my role in shaping the research process. Later in this chapter, I return to Stetsenko’s (2014) transformative activist stance, which sees the researcher’s active participation in the evolving direction of research as a vital and justified aspect of collaborative inquiry.

Concluding reflections and research outputs organised by research questions

The research objective of this thesis was guided by three additional questions designed to explore the principal question, how can pedagogies to support CGD&P be enriched using socio-cultural approaches to enable inclusive learning in non-formal contexts, with greater precision. This section revisits each of the three sub-questions in turn, drawing together findings, outputs, and reflections. It integrates earlier analysis with broader interpretations to demonstrate how the study’s conceptual and practical contributions emerged. While the findings have been discussed in earlier chapters, the aim here is to draw the strands together in a final synthesis to provide clearer insight into how the research outputs address each question and their relevance to the existing research landscape and wider practice.

RQ1: Contradiction and the design process

RQ1 asked: What contradictions emerge during participation in CGD&P activities, and how can they be addressed through pedagogical change?

Building on the theoretical framing of activity and contradiction outlined in Chapter 3, this question was examined through the use of a design narrative (Mor and Warburton, 2014), which forms the basis of Chapter 5. It proved challenging to integrate this level of detail within a conventional PhD structure, even though it felt important to do so. This tension was overcome by adopting a narrative approach as an effective way to capture how contradictions unfolded across phases, showing how tensions in tool use, project navigation, and participation shaped the evolution of the learning design. Using CHAT concepts, the analysis highlighted three recurring areas of contradiction, which were then summarised in Table 5.5.

One of the earliest ways I sought to enact the productive potential of these contradictions was through the 3M process (Missions, Maps, and Methods), which I published in a peer-reviewed book for K–12 practitioners (Chesterman, 2023). At that initial stage, the framing of the 3M process was broad in scope and independent of specific tools, since I had not yet narrowed my focus to Phases 1–3 and the use of the Phaser JavaScript library, and hence a text-based coding approach. The 3M model captured a wide typology of how learning activities could be structured to sustain momentum: missions offered accessible starting points, maps helped learners navigate pathways and options, and methods provided shared approaches to problem-solving.

While this holistic framework lacked the specificity required for a doctoral output, I became, for a time, a bit lost in the detail and scope of the work I had created, struggling to commit to or prioritise a particular strand. This situation was compounded by a hesitancy to commit to non-formal settings as the key focus of the study. While this might seem a straightforward decision given the context of home-educated participants, the desire for the research to be relevant and applicable to mainstream computing education was reinforced by my ongoing involvement in UK computing teacher training. This personal dilemma is echoed in wider research, for example tensions articulated within constructionist research related to diverse learner pathways (see Chapter 2). My work on the Learning Dimensions Map, a matrix of curricular concepts that learners could encounter via their game making, deepened my understanding of what I had earlier described as the play paradox (Hoyles and Noss, 1992) (see Chapter 2): the tension between privileging learner choice and expression on the one hand and aligning activities to curriculum concepts on the other. This tension was visible throughout the project, but the attempt to design resources for classroom relevance in Phases 4 and 5 brought it into sharper focus. The Learning Dimensions Map was one way of grappling with this paradox, offering a reflective tool to balance these competing pressures. In retrospect, I interpret the play paradox as a productive tension rather than a problem to be eliminated. It highlights the ongoing challenge of creating environments that respect learner agency while also supporting conceptual progression, and it connects closely with the Levels of Abstraction (LOA) mapping discussed in the next section.

While further work could investigate how tools like the Learning Dimensions Map might help practitioners navigate the play paradox in different settings, this area remains purposefully underdeveloped in this thesis. Instead, the main focus of the thesis emerged as the varied use of game design patterns (GDPs). Before progressing to a more complete treatment of GDPs in the next section, their composite inclusion in a broader pedagogy merits attention as a key research output addressing RQ1 in the form of the REEPPP (remix-enabled, elective, progressive, pattern patching) pedagogical model. While the different elements within the REEPPP acronym point to its complexity, that complexity is a justified adaptation to the varied tensions and barriers present in the context of beginning CGD&P with novice learners. The grounded detail presented in the design narrative of Chapter 5 helps to clarify the logic driving that complexity. A significant research output in this process was the restructuring of the starting template to facilitate the inclusion of specific game feature requests made by participants during the pilot phase. While the motivating ethos of this process is outlined in the work of Kynigos (2018) on half-baked games and Resnick (2005) on remixing, REEPPP provides a level of detail and structure that allows the process to be replicated in other contexts. Additionally, REEPPP as a framework is flexible and extendable, with the potential to be used beyond the context of CGD&P (see later Section 8.4).

On a personal level, not all of the elements of REEPPP were novel to me as a practitioner. Some built directly on my earlier experiences, for example using incomplete templates and foregrounding choice in participant pathways (Chesterman, 2015). Others, however, emerged entirely from this research project, one key example being the use of a game design pattern collection and supporting documentation structured explicitly around a design pattern approach drawn from computing and design education. This contrast between continuity and novelty shows how the thesis both extended my existing repertoire and generated contributions I could not have anticipated without the contradictions and challenges encountered and documented within the design narrative and CHAT-informed analysis of the resulting tensions. This process of development laid the ground for the next question, which narrows the focus of the thesis further to examine gameplay design patterns as conceptual and social scaffolds.

RQ2: Game design patterns (GDPs) as conceptual and social scaffolds

RQ2 asked, How can the use of a collection of gameplay design patterns support CGD&P, particularly in relation to abstract and concrete dimensions of existing pedagogies?

This question was addressed through findings in Chapter 6, which presented a summative table (see Table 6.5) outlining different mediational and motivational uses of GDPs, structured around dimensions of personal, social, and cultural activity. The chapter explored GDPs as a germ cell of game making activity and used this concept to inform analysis of how patterns functioned within the technical and pedagogical structure of the REEPPP approach.

A recurring challenge was supporting learners to balance creative freedom with the successful enactment of coding structures and concepts. GDPs and the REEPPP framework together offered a structured yet flexible approach to this, with each GDP providing a concrete, engaging unit of design that also embodied abstract principles. However, given the non-formal nature of this educational setting, challenges of project orientation and organisation became more prominent. The process could feel overwhelming for participants (see Chapters 5 and 6), a feeling I could relate to from my own experiences of learning programming. With so many moving parts, it was easy to lose sight of how the different elements connected. Within REEPPP, the technical process of pattern-based code patching offered an organising structure at a suitable level of granularity for novice coders (see Section 6.2). The overall understanding of the underlying code structures and broader orientation within the design and programming process were further supported by the links between GDPs and learners’ cultural experiences of retro computer games, ensuring that patterns resonated with both technical practice and familiarity with the features of the end project.

The findings of Chapter 6 contain significant advances in the understanding of how design patterns can be used in the field of CGD&P education and beyond. Eriksson et al. (Eriksson et al., 2019) position patterns primarily as an analytic lens for researchers, with pattern sets curated and applied by the researcher rather than taken up directly by participants or facilitators (see Section 6.5). This thesis extends that line of work in two ways. First, it treats GDPs as co-curated mediational tools that are identified within the making process by learners and facilitators, not only coded after the fact or selected in advance. Second, it documents a broader scope of functions across design and project activity stages, including ideation and patterning, coordination of joint activity, debugging and code reading, narrative framing, and motivation. Chapter 6’s summary table makes these roles explicit in one place, offering both greater depth about what patterns do in practice and a wider view that connects analysis to design and facilitation.

My findings also allowed me to reflect on abstraction more broadly. At the outset of the research, I was often resistant to principles-first narratives in computing education, which I interpreted as overemphasising abstraction in both policy and research. That resistance was shaped by the under-representation of more concrete and constructionist approaches, which I felt were marginalised despite their promise. Working with GDPs helped me to reframe this position. Rather than rejecting abstraction, I came to value how GDPs supported a spectrum of engagement. They grounded abstract concepts in playable features while leaving space for learners to encounter generalisable concepts tacitly through design. This shift helped me to resolve some of my initial resistance by placing abstraction within a more plural framework, one that echoed the constructionist tradition while also recognising the value of explicit conceptual work (Papert and Turkle, 1990). In this sense, the process generated not only research outputs but also a personal output: a repositioning of my own stance within the wider field.

The germ cell metaphor, which is core to CHAT theory, illuminates how GDPs became central to this thesis. Like uncovering the kernel from a husk, the analytic focus of the thesis eventually prioritised the mediating role of GDPs as the core lens through which wider contradictions and scaffolding practices could be interpreted. Other products, such as the Learning Dimensions Map or playful side missions, were valuable but were set aside so that GDPs could serve as the orienting principle for both practice and analysis. Arriving at this point was not straightforward. In the cultural-historical literature, germ cells are often framed at a societal level, for example Marx’s concept of commodity and exchange (Blunden, 2020). Using GDPs in this way felt initially daunting, since they emerged from small-scale workshop practice rather than large-scale structures. While I was initially uncertain of the legitimacy of this application of the concept, I was reassured by Blunden’s (2020) interpretation of Vygotsky’s use of the idea within smaller-scale educational settings. Over time, the move proved productive. Treating GDPs as germ cells helped connect theory and practice, clarifying key contributions of the study.

The germ cell analogy was also helpful within my writing process. A thesis requires prioritisation. The research outputs described in the previous section can be seen as the husks that come away when peeling back a cob of corn, valuable outputs produced by the analytic work needed to uncover the kernel. Here, the kernel, referring to the mediating uses of GDPs, both provided focus and produced the most distinctive research outputs of the thesis. These mediational strategies, synthesised and highlighted in the table at the end of Chapter 6, provide coherence to the overall argument and serve as the orienting principle of the REEPPP framework. In addition, pattern patching relied on GDPs as the mechanism through which learner choices, technical scaffolds, and cultural references could be integrated.

In theoretical terms, this analytical move also signalled a return to the concrete, in line with the Marxist principles discussed in Chapter 3. The additional scaffolding provided by GDPs, and the synthesis of UMC and half-baked game (kynigos_modifying_2020?), specifically as a boundary object with affordances inviting completion, contributed to the creation of a specific, accessible, and coherent pedagogy applicable to the field of game making. This process of moving between the abstract and the concrete, known as dialectical development, was also reflected methodologically in the use of semantic profiles and levels of abstraction as interpretive tools in Chapter 7. The adapted process of mapping participants’ experiences of LOA in non-formal settings, which supported greater learner agency, offers a potential contribution to researching and designing pedagogies in computing education. The following section continues this thread by examining agency more directly as a core theme of the study.

RQ3: Agency and repertoires

RQ3 asked, How can the development of repertoires and agency be supported in CGD&P, and what forms does this agency take?

This question was addressed through findings in Chapter 7, where the focus developed from scaffolding practices to the ways learners developed repertoires and enacted agency within joint activity. While instrumental, transformative, and relational agency did not appear as discrete stages but as overlapping processes, they can be understood conceptually within the frame of this study as an evolution in which instrumental and transformative forms expanded the conditions for relational agency to emerge more fully over time.

Within the learning community, building instrumental agency often involved what Papert called “hard fun” (Kafai, 2018, p. 19). Programming in particular was at times difficult, frustrating, and error-prone, yet learners persisted because of both the social and structural conditions in which challenges were encountered. The harbour metaphor, advanced in Chapter 5, provides a way of understanding both participant experience and facilitation in relation to these conditions and the factors of authenticity within the technologies used and supporting documentation. The harbour walls represented the work of the facilitator in reducing the complexity of the open sea: filtering the overwhelming syntax of programming languages, smoothing access to help, and reducing reliance on professional documentation communities. Within this harbour, learners still faced the choppy waters of coding difficulties, but in a sheltered form that made persistence possible. This balance was crucial: removing challenge would have stripped away the hard fun that sustains engagement, yet leaving learners without protection would have led to discouragement. The harbour metaphor helps frame how agency was developed in this context, specifically through careful structuring to facilitate instrumental persistence.

Transformative agency was visible when participants pushed beyond given structures, adapting tools, inventing workarounds, or developing new practices that redefined what was possible in the sessions. These moments were often sparked by contradictions or gaps in the provided resources. Attention to the process of transformative agency by double stimulation (TADS) helped capture these moments of volitional action and the expressions of agency within them. TADS was also evident in my own activity as a facilitator, when I was inspired by such moments and created resources and activities that introduced designed affordances which could be used by wider groups of participants to follow pathways pioneered by their peers. The results of this process are most visible in the creation of a typology of maker types and playful side missions, which supported diverse approaches to game making (see Chapters 5 and 7) by providing optional challenges that encouraged learners to explore tangents in playful ways, and thus increased opportunities for blending repertoires between participants. The typology of maker types provided a way to acknowledge and validate different orientations to participation in ways that aimed to expand divergent forms of agency, encouraging participants to see their contributions as legitimate even when they diverged from dominant pathways. This avenue represents a promising direction for further work, potentially connecting the foundational concept of epistemological pluralism (Papert and Turkle, 1990) with Gutiérrez’s (2003; 2008) research on relational agency within social design-based experiments.

Turning then to relational agency in greater detail, within my research process instrumental agency was augmented by the results of transformative agency, which in turn enriched the social fabric of participation in the form of relational expertise (see Chapter 7). To represent the complex picture of how relational agency developed, I articulated a stage-based process through the relational agency by repertoire blending (RARB) model, capturing the generative outcomes of this process. I advance this model cautiously as a research output, as while it has been useful in developing my understanding, the field of agency development is extensive, even within the domain of education, and there is a possibility that this work overlaps with existing studies. For this reason, I look forward to refining and developing the representation of this model in collaboration with other researchers in the field and sharing this interpretation with practitioners.

To help in the latter process, the metaphor of jamming also emerged as a research output. Jamming evokes both musical improvisation and the collaborative, supportive ethos of a musical jam session, where a space is organised to facilitate people joining in, learning from peers, and contributing to a collective creative process. In this CGD&P context, jamming described how workshops, particularly during playtesting, became spaces of playful improvisation where repertoires were blended in ways that built skills of community participation as well as technical competencies. This metaphor complements relational agency by repertoire blending by emphasising the communal and improvised dimensions of relational agency.

The findings related to RQ3 show that agency in CGD&P was not only about individual mastery but also about relational processes of blending repertoires. The relational agency by repertoire blending (RARB) model synthesised this trajectory, while side missions, maker types, and the metaphors of harbour and jamming provide conceptual tools relevant to both researchers and practitioners. In reviewing these findings, I recognise an intuition that, beyond the use of GDPs, there may still be a deeper kernel of the pedagogy that derives not from any single type of scaffolding but from the creation of conditions for repertoires to be imported, blended, and validated, as articulated in the RARB model. While this thought is promising, it lies outside the remit of this thesis and thus provides a bridge to the broader contributions and future directions discussed in the following section.

Summary of research outputs

The table below summarises the conceptual, methodological, and practical outputs of the study and highlights their key contributions and significance.

Type	Output	Summary / Significance
Conceptual	Relational agency by repertoire blending (RARB)	Model explaining how repertoires are blended across social, cultural, and technical planes; connects to relational agency.
Conceptual	Play paradox reframing	Interprets tension between learner freedom and curriculum structure as productive rather than problematic.
Conceptual	GDPs as germ cells	Establishes GDPs as mediating concepts linking abstract theory with concrete pedagogy.
Methodological	Levels of abstraction (LOA) mapping	Maps learners’ experiences to visualise abstraction and concreteness as interpretive tools.
Methodological	Contradiction mapping and design narrative	Merges CHAT and DBR approaches for iterative, participatory analysis.
Methodological	Hybrid vignettes	Combines transcript, context, and reflection to foreground participant perspectives.
Practical	REEPPP scaffold	Balances open-ended creative choice with accessible, structured pathways.
Practical	Harbour metaphor	Framework for understanding technical and pedagogical structuring and managing challenge in non-formal settings.
Practical	Jamming metaphor	Describes improvisational, collective learning and relational agency.
Practical	Typology of maker types	Recognises diverse learner orientations and validates divergent forms of participation.
Practical	Game making documentation tools	Includes GDP cards, open documentation hub, and Quick Start templates supporting replication and adaptation.
Practical	Learning Dimensions Map	Matrix connecting learner pathways with curricular computing concepts.

The outputs outlined above reflect a concern that became increasingly central through the research process, namely how inclusive practice in CGD&P can be understood as an ongoing act of holding space for diverse forms of participation. With these contributions in view, the following section turns to their wider significance, considering how the ideas and frameworks developed here might inform practice and future research.

Significance of this study and future directions

This section addresses the significance of this thesis for research, practice, and policy. Rather than separating these by audience, the discussion is organised thematically to avoid the artificial untangling of threads that were closely interwoven throughout the research. Design, facilitation, and reflection evolved together within each phase, making a thematic structure a more authentic way to capture their interconnections. The topics begin with issues grounded in computing education and gradually widen in scope to consider broader educational and social implications.

Each topic broadly follows a structure that moves from the main finding to its relation to existing research, followed by implications for practice and policy, and concluding with suggested directions for future research. This approach keeps the discussion grounded in evidence while showing how ideas travel across different layers of activity. Limitations have already been discussed in Chapter 4, allowing this section to maintain a positive, forward-looking focus. A table at the end summarises the key directions and opportunities for extending and testing the project’s outcomes in new contexts.

Managing complexity and abstraction in computing education

Throughout the project, the tension between abstraction and concreteness recurred as a key design problem. The findings of Chapter 6 show how GDPs helped manage this navigation between poles and the inherent complexity by providing visible, manipulable representations of systems and computational concepts. The study extends existing research in this area by demonstrating how levels of abstraction (LOA) can be mapped in non-formal, learner-led settings, a previously identified gap (Sentance, Waite and Kallia, 2019). Using screen-capture and spoken interaction analysis to trace semantic waves offered a novel way to analyse participant experience. While the trajectories observed were often chaotic, this mapping provides an initial contribution to the use of LOA as an interpretive tool in non-formal education and points to future research on how structured facilitation might guide learners towards mid-level conceptual connections.

Recent discussions within the TPEA community, including my contribution to Advancing Education (Chesterman, 2025)¹, confirm that these tensions are not limited to non-formal contexts. Current UK computing qualifications continue to privilege abstract knowledge over creative project work, limiting opportunities for learners to engage with tangible, personally meaningful computing experiences. Teachers who value creative digital making often have to overcome systemic tensions related to assessment, tensions that are reflected in the structural contradictions addressed through REEPPP and LOA mapping. This reinforces the need for pedagogical models that balance conceptual rigour with creative, project-based learning. In this light, the approaches developed through this study offer practical and conceptual tools that could inform ongoing curriculum reform efforts and teacher professional development.

At the policy level, curricular frameworks need to do more to recognise the diversity of learners’ experiences and to encourage flexible designs that accommodate hands-on, concrete working methods. Such flexibility would help redress the imbalance between abstract knowledge and creative digital making and would support inclusive pathways into computing education. These ideas are developed further in the following section, which considers pattern-based and project-based approaches as complementary strategies for achieving this balance.

For practice, the resources created as part of this research and made available through the online facilitators’ toolkit² offer immediate ways for practitioners and families to apply these ideas. The toolkit includes adaptable materials that can guide both facilitators of non-formal spaces and families supporting learners at home through the completion of a CGD&P project.

Mapping tools such as the Learning Dimensions Map and the LOA visualisations also hold promise for educators seeking to make complexity visible and discussable. As indicated above, further research would be beneficial to refine their potential application. This could include the development of LOA mapping techniques across formal and non-formal settings using the analytic approaches outlined in Chapter 7; deeper investigation of how the Learning Dimensions Map might be integrated into facilitation resources; and exploration of how mapping could be used as a reflective tool to help learners connect practical game design with underlying computational concepts.

The theme of scaffolding learner experience outlined in this summary connects closely with the next topic, which considers how pattern-based approaches can enrich project-based learning.

Pattern-based pedagogies within project-based learning

The study demonstrates how project-based learning (PBL) principles were enacted through pattern-based structures within the pedagogical design developed for this research. Regarding research outputs, Chapter 5 introduced a four-stage pedagogy specific to this context, alongside a curated collection of patterns and supporting documentation structured for novice learners. The REEPPP framework (see Chapter 7) generalised this structure and the associated patterns of use it provoked into a model applicable beyond CGD&P, thereby contributing to PBL approaches more broadly. These outputs and the related discussion within this thesis thus extend several strands of research activity.

The four-stage model, the configuration of pattern-oriented resources, and the REEPPP framework together illustrate how intermediate-level scaffolding can support the experience of complex, project-based making through diverse forms of mediation. This thesis also provides a detailed case study of their implementation. Most directly, this work addresses a gap in the application of design patterns in computing education in the UK (Waite, 2017), enhances the approach of Scalable Game Design (2015; 2019) by placing flexible learner pathways at the heart of the process, and extends the strand of research exemplified by Eriksson and colleagues (2019) (see Section 6.5) by applying the process of a co-curated pattern collection within a setting of novice makers.

The latter contribution regarding a learner-focused pattern collection has parallels to the earlier concept of a Constructopedia (see Chapter 2). Whereas Constructopedias traditionally aimed for comprehensive catalogues of artefacts and exemplars, this study suggests that smaller, curated collections, apart from being more sustainable to maintain, may be pedagogically more valuable. The implication is to resist the impulse to collect endlessly and instead focus on developing targeted, well-documented, and context-specific pattern collections that learners and facilitators can use through the diverse mediational strategies outlined in this study.

Additionally, the underlying principles at work extend naturally to other domains of production, where recognisable features and affordances can act as patterns or templates that guide adaptation and remix processes. The findings are therefore relevant beyond computing, particularly within wider research on the facilitation of project-based learning (PBL). This approach builds on literature (see Section 2.3.2) that identifies different forms of scaffolding within PBL and the defining characteristics therein. The findings blur the distinction between hard and soft scaffolding, showing that structured pattern menus can be designed to be adaptive and learner-centred. As such, the direction of this thesis contributes to a broader understanding of how to balance freedom and structure in PBL.

While there is potential for the broad application of pattern-based pedagogies within UK education, implications for policy are less direct, given the ongoing challenges surrounding the status of PBL in formal settings. Additionally, my findings have limited relevance to some of the wider, persistent challenges that continue to affect PBL implementation. Institutional barriers to adopting open-ended, project-based learning, such as rigid assessment frameworks, accountability pressures, and limited curriculum time, remain significant obstacles in formal education contexts. These constraints shape how far approaches such as those developed in this study can be adopted at scale.

In terms of practice, the implications for facilitators arise particularly from the diverse possible uses of pattern-based approaches discussed in Section 6.5. To maintain clarity, these are presented together with insights from subsequent sections later in this chapter. However, certain aspects of practice stand out as particularly significant and warrant further exploration. These include examining how pattern-based approaches might be applied using alternative game-making toolsets and conducting comparative studies across different software environments. There is also scope to extend the pattern-based approach beyond game making to other forms of media production, such as radio or television news reports, or short-form digital content like YouTube reaction videos, where creative work similarly involves the adaptation and remix of recognisable templates and structures. Together, these directions point towards the broader question of how agency and movement of repertoires can be supported across settings, a theme explored in the following section. ### Supporting agency and movement of repertoires across settings to aid inclusivity

The findings of Chapter 7 addressing agency, in particular the mapping of development across instrumental, transformative, and relational dimensions, were developed into the model of relational agency by repertoire blending (RARB). The discussion of this process detailed how facilitation can nurture agency by validating diverse repertoires and providing shared mediational tools. Side missions framed through drama and maker-type typologies exemplify strategies that sustain engagement without enforcing uniform pathways. As previously discussed, my interpretation of these findings extends existing work in this area (Papert and Turkle, 1990; Gutiérrez, 2008) and provides a case study of an adapted instantiation of a social design-based experiment (SDBE) (Gutiérrez and Rogoff, 2003).

The focus on inclusivity inherent in the SDBE process, aligning with the growing emphasis on inclusion in computing education (Hayes and Overland, 2023), prompted reflection on the issue of designing for neurodiversity. As this specific thread emerged later in the research process, it is explored here as an implication for practice and as an area for future research. The outputs of this research, particularly frameworks such as REEPPP and RARB, mirror key tenets of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework (Meyer, Rose and Gordon, 2014) in the way they embody concrete exploration, shared objects of activity, personal connection, and varied means of expression and representation (Sanger, 2020).

The overall findings illustrate how inclusive design can be enacted through flexible scaffolds that invite multiple forms of participation. In practice, facilitators can use these frameworks to create settings where learners import their own repertoires, collaborate, and express agency in personally meaningful ways. The outputs of this research offer practitioners tools and strategies to counter barriers related to cultural dimensions of exclusion (see Section 1.2.5) in practical rather than aspirational terms. Regarding inclusion and neurodiversity, particularly in formal settings, the findings suggest a shift away from assessing and accommodating individual learners’ needs in isolation. Instead, considerations of difference can be embedded within the diversity of pathways available to all learners through the overall learning design (Sanger, 2020).

Policy implications in this domain are clearer than in previous sections. Equity should operate as a guiding design principle rather than as an accommodation for perceived deficit. Adopting a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) orientation can help schools, universities, and community organisations move beyond compensatory models towards genuinely flexible environments that support a spectrum of learner differences.

Returning to non-formal settings, policies on widening participation in STEM should continue to value and support grassroots activities taking place in community spaces, libraries, and club-based formats as legitimate educational environments. Policies that recognise and support home-educating families and groups are also needed, reflecting a growing area of demand. By 2024, the number of home-educated learners had more than doubled since 2016³, reflecting in part families’ search for more inclusive pedagogies not always available in schools (Parsons and Lewis, 2010). Such contexts also provide important testbeds for innovation and deserve greater recognition and support from research communities.

Future studies could trace how agency and repertoires evolve over longer trajectories, particularly as learners move between informal and formal contexts. Collaboration with educators in other disciplines could refine and test the RARB model further. Longitudinal designs would help examine how scaffolds such as GDPs and side missions sustain participation and identity development over time, and how they advance inclusive design goals within formal computing curricula. Further research might also explore how REEPPP aligns with UDL principles across settings, especially for learners with ADHD, autism, or dyslexia.

A focus on inclusion and neurodiversity, in particular, may provide a strategic anchor for sustaining future research activity. Based on my experience of delivering PBL in higher education, I have observed that enthusiasm for project-based learning in the UK has declined in recent years due to policy retrenchment and workload pressures that favour knowledge-based curricula. At the same time, inclusion and UDL have gained increasing prominence. Because UDL and PBL share core principles of flexibility, authenticity, and learner agency, positioning pattern-based approaches within an inclusion agenda may offer a more effective route for ongoing advocacy and research.

Summary of implications for practitioners

To make these implications accessible, they are summarised here in concise bullet points. This format offers a quick reference for all readers and may be particularly useful for practitioners when read alongside the detailed discussion in Chapter 5 and the resources in the online facilitators’ toolkit.

• Build on learners’ repertoires of practice, connecting home interests and gaming conventions to technical development.
• Use half-baked games as shared starting points that provide both structure and scope for adaptation.
• Co-curate a library of gameplay design patterns (GDPs) and code examples drawn from learner requests to enable autonomy and remix processes.
• Encourage flexible collaboration and regular playtesting, creating feedback loops that sustain motivation and dialogue between participants.
• Integrate playful and narrative strategies, such as drama prompts or side missions, to open diverse routes into participation and exploration of making identities.
• Support multiple forms of agency, enabling persistence (instrumental), innovation (transformative), and repertoire blending (relational).
• Balance scaffolding and choice through curated pattern menus and maps of learner dimensions that reduce frustration without restricting creativity.
• Adopt facilitation metaphors, such as harbours or improvisational musical jam sessions, to frame the educator’s role as supportive rather than directive.

Summary of future research directions

While future research avenues have been discussed in the preceding section, Table 8.2 consolidates these possibilities into a concise summary of interlinked areas for further work.

Area of extension	Future research and practice focus
Understanding abstraction and complexity in learning	Further development of LOA and Learning Dimensions mapping to trace how learners move between concrete and abstract representations across formal and non-formal computing contexts, using multimodal analysis of talk, gesture, and artefact use.
Pattern-based pedagogies in project-based learning	Application and comparison of pattern-based approaches across different creative coding and media-making environments, including investigation of how educators and learners co-curate, adapt, and sustain small pattern libraries within project-based learning settings.
Agency, inclusion, and participation across contexts	Longitudinal research examining how repertoires and agency develop across transitions between informal and formal learning, and how frameworks such as RARB and REEPPP support inclusive participation across varied learner trajectories.
Inclusive design, learner difference, and neurodiversity	Future work exploring how the pedagogical approaches developed in this study align with neurodiversity-aware perspectives.

While the range of possible future directions outlined above is extensive, reflecting the breadth of issues surfaced through the research process, it is neither realistic nor desirable to pursue all of them. Instead, several priority areas emerge that align closely with my past experience and likely future professional trajectory.

The first concerns project-based learning in higher education, particularly within education-focused programmes, where questions of how structured project support can foster varied forms of learner agency remain salient. The second concerns work in the field of neurodiversity. While this study has highlighted inclusive participation without categorising learners by diagnostic labels, future work could more explicitly explore how the pedagogical approaches developed here align with neurodiversity-affirming perspectives. This represents a direction for future alignment and investigation, rather than a claim that neurodiversity was a primary analytic focus of the present study. This would include examining how elective pathways, remix-based learning, and low-pressure participation support learners whose needs and ways of working are not suited to linear, assessment-driven computing curricula. Such work would benefit from closer engagement with neurodiversity scholarship and from collaboration with learners and families who identify with neurodivergent experiences.

The final priority centres on the creation of DIY media, including websites, video, and radio reports, a form of practice that has been integral to my work with campaigns and community groups and which can be further informed by the pedagogical approaches developed in this thesis. Consideration of how these processes might be adapted for younger participants, particularly young people in home-education or other informal settings, sits within this strand rather than as a separate priority. The reasons underpinning these choices are explored in the following section.

Having outlined the study’s contributions, implications, and future directions, I now turn to a more explicitly reflective close, returning to questions of ethos, practice, and personal trajectory.

Final reflections

The preceding sections have summarised the study’s contributions and implications and identified strands for future work. In this final section, I shift from synthesis to reflection, drawing together elements of personal trajectory, research ethos, enacted practice, and wider academic significance. I begin by reflecting on the positional and ethical commitments that have shaped the research process, before considering how these commitments have been enacted across different contexts of practice. I then turn to how this work continues beyond the thesis, before closing with a final synthesis that situates the study within broader debates on inclusive pedagogy.

Reflections on ethos, positionality, and openness

This research is grounded in a practice-based, activity-oriented stance that reflects my own trajectory as a practitioner and researcher. I came to this work already oriented towards forms of collective action and participation, shaped by earlier involvement in activist and community organising and an inherent focus on questions of access, voice, and sustainability. While this research is not political in a party or campaigning sense, it represents a continuation of that orientation through educational practice, where facilitation, design, and documentation become ways of working towards more inclusive conditions for participation. The work described in this thesis took place at the boundary of institutional research and the non-formal context of home education. As I reflect on the significance of this research in non-formal education, my thoughts are drawn to the issues faced by many community-based contexts often characterised by uneven access to resources, shared and repurposed infrastructure, and a reliance on local initiative and volunteer labour. Working and living in post-industrial towns in the North of England brought these conditions into sharp focus, highlighting the need to design learning activities that could be sustained and adapted using what is available, rather than relying on idealised or institutionally prescribed models. From this perspective, questions of inclusion, sustainability, and agency were practical concerns shaped by the overall the ethos of the activity.

This section has two broad strands; an active stance to researcher positionality, and a commitment to openness. Regarding positionality, rather than planning an intervention and asking others to deliver it, I chose to lead facilitation directly to maintain close alignment with underlying design principles and ensure responsiveness to participants’ needs. My dual role as facilitator and researcher influenced the findings in important ways. While this commitment enriched the research, it also carried risks. Immersion in the sessions gave me insights into learner struggles and improvisations that might otherwise have been missed, but it also risked bias, particularly in the selection of certain learner narratives through the use of vignettes to communicate participant experience. Additionally, while the triangulation of data sources—combining 360° video, screen recordings, artefacts, and reflective journals did not remove subjectivity, it made it more visible and accountable. Reflecting on this position through Stetsenko’s (2014) concept of the transformative activist stance (TAS) helped reassure me regarding my level of engaged participation, including both facilitation and analysis. Rather than striving for detached neutrality, a TAS position argues that research should engage directly in shaping activity towards more just and inclusive directions. Recognising that such involvement carries the risks of bias identified above, I follow Stetsenko in treating the pursuit of positive educational and social change as a justification for such an active engagement, particularly in this generative stage of research. This framing helped me to understand facilitation not only as part of the research context but as an integral component of the research practice itself.

Openness has been both a methodological and ethical principle throughout this study. Templates, pattern libraries, and documentation were released as Open Educational Resources (OER), modelling the reciprocity central to social design-based experiments. The resources created through this project therefore have the potential to be taken up and adapted by wider communities beyond the immediate participants. Since the study originated from requests within the home-education community and was shaped by the ongoing needs and contributions of several cohorts, its outputs should in turn benefit that community directly. This commitment to openness was influenced by my earlier involvement in documenting software practices for activist and campaign groups, and in collaborative open-source publishing through the FLOSS Manuals network (see Chapter 1). The relationship between FLOSS Manuals and this research process has been mutually sustaining. Although I initially used the FLOSS Manuals infrastructure to publish outputs, over the course of the project I adopted an evolved, hybrid publishing toolset that embodies decentralisation and collaboration in a more sustainable way (see Appendix E). Conducting this research also helped me to clarify which aspects of the FLOSS Manuals process I wanted to carry forward, in particular an orientation towards documentation that supports project-based learning, helping users learn technologies through meaningful creative projects rather than manuals organised around static feature lists.

Reflections on enacted practice

At this point, the discussion shifts from stance and infrastructure to the ways these commitments have been enacted within specific contexts of practice. One such context emerged through my co-founding of the educational social enterprise Scavenger Labs in 2019, which has provided an ongoing space in which to enact and sustain forms of practice aligned with the ethos developed through this research.

The main project of Scavenger Labs has been Todmorden Makery⁴, a general-purpose community workshop bringing together families, volunteers, and learners of all ages. As a space for peer learning and inclusive participation, the Makery has offered a longer-term context in which to observe and validate approaches that balance openness with structure, recognise diverse repertoires of practice, and work collectively towards familiar yet flexible public outcomes. The ways in which regulars and occasional visitors interact during drop-in sessions could themselves be understood as further instances of relational agency by repertoire blending (RARB) in action, reinforcing the arguments developed in this thesis. The experience of founding and facilitating the Makery alongside completing this thesis has been valuable, as it both embodies the relational and participatory ethos of the research and has helped to confirm the continuing relevance of these methods for building inclusive, creative learning communities in wider settings.

Alongside community-based practice, I have continued to enact this pedagogical ethos within higher education, primarily through teaching on education-focused programmes that incorporate project-based learning. Working in this context involves navigating structural constraints, including workload pressures, tightly specified curricula, and assessment regimes that limit the time available for extended, exploratory projects. These conditions shape what can be sustained in practice and require ongoing negotiation. Despite these constraints, it has been possible to work collaboratively with colleagues to design and deliver project-based units that promote learner agency, shared inquiry, and reflective practice. In a reflective blog post co-authored with colleagues teaching project-based learning in education studies, we highlighted the role of flexible scaffolding in project work to collective agency development within constrained institutional environments (jones_reflecting_2025?). Such work has tended to emerge through co-teaching, shared planning, and dialogue, rather than through formal curricular change. These experiences have also clarified the limits of what I am able to undertake alongside teaching, research, administrative responsibilities, and sustained community engagement. In the same way that this research was deliberately situated in informal learning contexts, where openness, flexibility, and shared ownership could be enacted more straightforwardly, my ongoing practice is likely to remain weighted towards such settings. While I intend to continue working within higher education where opportunities arise, I have become more cautious about the extent to which its institutional conditions can sustain the forms of practice explored in this thesis, and about where my own capacities are best directed.

JAMM Labs as a focused continuation of practice

Turning to next steps, rather than extending the academic possibilities outlined above, this section focuses on how the work continues through my ongoing community-focused practice. Over the course of completing this thesis, driven by the time pressures of university teaching and family life, my role at Todmorden Makery has shifted from day-to-day leadership to more of a support role. A strong community of workers, volunteers and supporters remains in place, allowing the Makery to continue evolving as a shared community space. Within this context, and with the completion of this PhD in sight, I have begun to develop a more focused strand of work to carry forward aspects of the ethos explored in this study. While continuing to draw on the experience of work at the Makery, and still located in the same workshop, this new initiative reflects a shift of emphasis, with a stronger focus on outward-facing activity, including networking and partnership work with organisations across West Yorkshire, East Lancashire, and Greater Manchester, and extending to longer-standing forms of DIY media production that have informed my community and campaign work. Following one of the metaphors that runs through this thesis, this initiative is called JAMM Labs.

The ethos of JAMM Labs centres on wellbeing, critical digital literacy, and environmental awareness, and draws on longer-standing strands of my practice described earlier in this thesis⁵. In Chapter 1, I outlined work rooted in activist and campaign contexts, where digital media making often carried an urgent, time-bound orientation. JAMM Labs reflects a shift away from that immediacy towards a more educational mode of practice, oriented around sustained participation, learning over time, and work with children, young people, and families. Its principles draw on universal design for learning and person-centred education, alongside a strong commitment to free and open-source values, while still recognising the need for critical engagement and, at times, digital resistance when technologies constrain rather than support people’s potential. This ethos is already being explored through pilot initiatives⁶.

While JAMM Labs has a clearer focus on young people in the approximate age range of 8 to 16 years, it is not conceived as an age-segregated programme. In practice, this work depends on the involvement of adults as volunteers, mentors, and co-participants, and on the presence of a wider community culture around making, repairing, and repurposing technology. Activities such as shared maintenance of hardware, engagement with open-source tools and Linux-based systems, and informal learning through doing are understood as collective practices rather than youth-only provision. In this sense, JAMM Labs retains a deliberately intergenerational orientation, in which young people participate within a broader ecology of shared activity. This reflects continuity with the intergenerational dynamics explored throughout the thesis, where learning emerges messily through participation in joint activity across differences in age, experience, and expertise, rather than through neat instructional roles. Workshops emphasise playfulness, choice, and peer feedback, often culminating in informal community events that connect families, volunteers, and partner organisations. At their heart is joint activity around a shared object, frequently a familiar media form such as a game, news report, or music piece. These shared focal points sustain collaboration while allowing individual creativity and diverse repertoires to flourish. This approach aligns closely with open-source educational cultures, including traditions associated with FLOSS Manuals, where learning is supported through making, sharing, adaptation, and collective ownership rather than through closed or proprietary systems.

At times, I find the scale of the challenges we face at a societal level overwhelming. I live and work in an area of West Yorkshire where the economic and civic decline associated with post-industrial Britain is starkly visible. Yet these same towns also host community cafés, libraries, and arts projects that continue to hold space for connection and creativity against the odds. Encounters with such initiatives have reinforced for me that the task of creating and sustaining inclusive community spaces is part of a wider social struggle, enacted through everyday practices rather than grand solutions. This study is, in part, a tribute to those who sustain such spaces, and to the hopeful processes of participation they make possible. The idea of holding space also informs JAMM Labs. While I remain sceptical about the redemptive power of technology itself, its structures and activities can still convene people, support participation, and provide opportunities to experiment with inclusive approaches. In this sense, game making and digital media function not as ends in themselves but as shared focal points for community and communication. The harbour and jamming metaphors remain useful ways of understanding how challenge, safety, improvisation, and collective learning are held in balance. JAMM Labs therefore represents a continuation and reorientation of the thesis ethos, with research flowing outward into creative, collaborative, and inclusive educational practice within these conditions.

Final synthesis and significance

In closing, and returning briefly to the academic frame, this final section draws together the study’s central contributions and their broader significance. The central research problem of this thesis has been how inclusive pedagogy for computer game making can be designed and sustained. Through the use of mid-level frameworks such as gameplay design patterns (GDPs) within the REEPPP process, and the conceptualisation of relational agency through repertoire blending (RARB), the study has demonstrated ways in which learners’ diverse repertoires can be recognised and valued. Methodological innovations, including contradiction mapping within a design narrative, hybrid vignettes incorporating 360° video data, and a full-cycle open resource ethos, have shown how research can embody the principles of reciprocity and inclusion.

The significance of this work extends beyond computer game making. At a time when computing curricula risk narrowing around technical skills and efficiency metrics, this thesis demonstrates the value of approaches that highlight participation, creativity, and reciprocity. This thesis suggests that if such inclusive pedagogies are not supported and extended, learners in home education and community contexts may continue to find themselves poorly served by narrowly defined models of computing education.

In closing, this thesis suggests that game making can serve as a model for wider educational futures in which diverse forms of expertise, creativity, and agency are recognised and valued. This ending is an invitation to educators, researchers, and communities to continue experimenting, collaborating, and imagining ways of learning together. I hope it inspires others to continue the work of widening participation in digital making, sustaining inclusive pedagogies, and holding space for learners and communities.

Chapter References