October 2, 2019
Burenheide ups his game with gaming journal
Inspired by the gaming phenomenon "Dungeons and Dragons" and intellectually curious about the connection between role-playing games and learning, a College of Education faculty member has upped his game by creating PhD&D Journal, an online open-access journal for academicians to better explore this subject.
Brad Burenheide, associate professor of curriculum and instruction and PhD&D Journal editor, said the articles in the inaugural edition were written by four members of the PhD&D advisory/editorial board. The titles are "A Cognitive Analysis of Role-Playing Game Immersion"; "Dungeons & Dragons in the Classroom: Roleplaying"; and "Metagaming in Tabletop Role-Playing Games." The journal will use a rolling production online and invites submissions in an open format.
As editor, Burenheide believes the true power of this exploration will be through collaboration.
"The role-playing game has a lot to offer various branches of academia, and we want to explore these benefits for a true multi-disciplinary community that sees the game not just as a pastime, but as a means to engage, help and train individuals in various matters," he said. "This is a rich field of potential academic study. We not only want this to be a meaningful and rich delving into a myriad of subjects, but we want to form relationships between individuals from different fields."
Members of the PhD&D advisory/editorial board are David Allen, associate professor of curriculum and instruction; Spencer Clark, associate professor of curriculum and instruction; Darrin Coe, associate professor of psychology at North Central University; Seth Licktieg, doctoral student in curriculum and instruction and instructor at Emporia State University; and Suzanne Porath, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction.
Information about the larger PhD&D effort can be found on the virtual community's website "where a bunch of academics play, study and research D&D!"