Effects of playing the video game Her Story on multiple dimensions of creativity in EFL writing – An international replication study

Abstract

Abstract This international replication study demonstrates how playing a video game is related to multiple dimensions of creativity in foreign language writing. In this research project, university students were asked to interact with a commercial murder mystery video game, Her Story, and produce a piece of creative writing, which was a replication with a new data collection of the original study by Lee (2019). The reason for using this digital game was to provide an authentic learning opportunity for students and analyze whether digital game-based learning facilitates creativity in EFL writing. This replication, involving 25 university students from Poland and 25 university students from Spain, is a media transfer study based on the students transforming one media format (video game) into another (writing). The results demonstrate that the use of a video game with an ambiguous storyline prompts discovery (specific curiosity) and could be the determining factor for producing original, quality ideas in writing even when holding a negative view of one’s creativity. The findings also indicate that the choice of genre and a viewpoint in writing may influence the level of elaboration in the texts produced by students.