Conclusion
Our analysis of Monkey Tales’ appropriation by children has led to more nuanced understanding of how players cope with the design strategies embedded in an educational game. Based on this specific case study, we tackled the wider question of the relation between educational games and the home context, showing how and why children develop tactics that oppose or subvert this model user behavior.
We acknowledge that in this article, we focused on one particular case study, and involved only a relatively small number of respondents: this means we cannot provide a generalizable picture of the appropriation processes of educational games at home. While the interpretive method used in this research is useful for researching the relation between user behavior and technology of a limited group, it is not suitable for use with large user groups. The method is especially applicable in in-depth, small-scale user trials of a specific application, such as the user study conducted with the educational game reported in this article. As such, the method relies on its ‘ecological’ validity by providing detailed, longitudinal data of the respondent group. In line with the aim of the study, we have shed light on how players’ interpretations and playing styles differ, suggesting that a better, richer understanding of the appropriation processes of educational games has important implications for both the evaluation and design of educational games.