Liberal studies students' conceptions of "edutainment"

Abstract

This study attempts to discover and describe students’ conceptions towards edutainment (i.e. the integration of education and entertainment) in Liberal Studies, the application of a novel educational notion in a novel subject. Seventeen junior secondary and senior secondary students from the practicum school where the researcher worked were interviewed individually for around half an hour. The teaching and learning activities focusing on various edutainment genres and elements (e.g. the use of multimedia, ICT, and games) throughout the LS lessons was point of departure to unfold students’ conceptions of edutainment in the interview. Open-ended questions on what is edutainment and what edutainment means to the informants were asked to enable students to express their ideas. Five conceptions of edutainment were found. The revealed conceptions were of different degree of complexity and found to be in hierarchical order and formed an outcome space which showed students’ conception of edutainment. Students interviewed demonstrated intra-contextual shifts in conceptions and changes in focal awareness amidst the interviews. On one hand, the conceptions of edutainment perceived by the students in this study surprisingly contained rudiments of the concepts of edutainment developed by the educational theorists; on the other hand, students’ conceptions of edutainment were found strongly associated with the Hong Kong educational context. The students’ conceptions of edutainment are greatly shaped by the ways in which the tasks were framed in the learning and teaching contexts. The conceptions revealed provide implication and insight for teaching and learning to benefit students in Hong Kong.