A Framework for Researching Sound Within Educational Games

Using an ecological, player-interactivity approach to game sound, this paper describes a research
framework for sound in educational games. This analysis describes the prior attempts to create research
frameworks for sound for educational multimedia and presents perspectives from game studies, film theory, and sound perception to ground a phenomenological discussion of sound in educational games. In discussing this framework, the shared essential meanings from a phenomenological study of sound in educational games are applied within a phenomenological sound listening framework. I use this framework to reflect how participants’ experiences were affected by the ways they used game interfaces, interacted with game characters, experienced game narrative, and described the game’s environment. This framework further illustrates the possibility space for potential experiences of sound in gameplay as determined by the choices players make, the game’s state of play, and the degree of synchresis present between what players hear and what they see as they play.