Exploring the Use of Minecraft in Sámi Teacher Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The presented study aims to highlight how games can be implemented in Sámi education on Sámi terms instead of as a blueprint of game-based learning in other non-indigenous contexts.

The active participation of more experienced students as teacher assistants makes а good impression.

However, I have the following suggestion for the authors:

Section 4 comments the answer concerning pupils, seeing them as equal in terms of the language used. In this case, it is significant for the reader to be aware of the pupils’ profiles.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

As a whole, the text is very well written, but still, it needs some corrections. For example, see rows 585 and 612. Some questions in English language in Appendix A also need corrections.

Author Response

Thank you for the very valuable review comments. Below are respone to the suggestions made and how they are incorporated in the updated article.

• Work has been done to present the empirical results more clearly, such as adding a clear profile of the pupils. 
• The article will undergo language polishing and proofreading done by a professional to ensure the quality of the English language.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors introduce a fascinating topic adding value especially to the Indigenous fields of education and game studies. There is very little representation of Sámi gamification in both of the fields mentioned. The strength of the text is in theories and methods, explaining the topic and backing it up. However, the text looses much of its power in the results and especially the conclusions could be much improved. Having that said, in my opinion the changes are still minor to get the text in line. Here are my suggestions for the authors:

1. Introduction needs work, like proofreading (explained in the comments on the quality of English) but also matching with the results and conclusions.

2. Text would benefit from ethical discussion, especially when addressing an issue impacting Sámi communities through education. The questions arising are related to agency: this research topic probably comes from Sámi community and if so, it should be clearly stated. Also reflecting the authors’ relationship to this research could be a bit better stated. Now it focuses on ”technicality”. Also this ” We use North Sámi terms throughout the article” could be stated there, as it is related to Sámi methods.

3. Precising concepts, like ”Western education” – in the text this is in a sentence that says Indigenous education should be based on Indigenous values. There is no need to draw ”Western” into this. Or then it should be defined a bit better, as ”Western” education methods are a spectrum, some of them being closer to Indigenous principles than others. Non-Indigenous educational methods? and necessarily those are not in line with Sámi educational values.

4. Also ” Sámi content”, the target of in game creation, could be defined. If the participants in this study are mostly Sámi, it could be argued that all the in game creation is Sámi content (or can there be a case where a Sámi creates non-Sámi content?). Especially when one of the quotations say ” They love the Sámi content, ESPECIALLY reindeers and scooters.”. Participants see scooters as Sámi content, but maybe the relation between scooters and Sámi culture, the participants idea of what is cultural content and what is not, could be opened a bit more. Or is all content created seen as cultural?

4. The multilingual nature of Sáminess vs. language revitalization in education (e.g. Johansen & Markusson 2022: 'I know the world in two languages': Sámi multilingual citizenship in textbooks for the school subject Norwegian between 1997 and 2020). The latter benefits monolingual ”language bubbles”, the first can be seen as a cultural way of living as a part of the world. Therefore ” Further research is necessary to determine whether pupils who use digital games in Sámi within a school setting continue to use Sámi as a game language or are more inclined to do so, compared to using majority languages or English” is not necessarily relevant as such, or should be tied to e.g. learning contexts. As this study targets Sámi education, the add value of this type of research is, through teachers, create strong language users who see that their language has no boundaries or limitations to ”traditional local environments”. It has value that cannot be measured with comparisons e.g. between the usage of gaming lingua franca English. These ”language bubbles” can be seen already in local cultural activities, e.g. fishing and reindeer herding, and something similar can be pursued through gaming environments by doing this type of grassroot work. This is already hinted in conclusions. However, this has its limitations as well, as does the rest of the study, and these could be reflected.

5. Relativity as an Indigenous research concept. This is already hinted in the text, the relation between Sámi worldings and e.g. the land. Indigenous research paradigms see ”all that is worth knowing” in these relations between things and their co-dependencies. The authors state in the results that e.g. land-based learning is hinted to be one of the differences between non-Indigenous game based learning, but this is very little discussed. For example, ” Work with the reindeers is done in Sámi.” is a quotation from the results, hinting that there is a relation between real life reindeer herding and Minecraft reindeer herding, and the authors explain it to be the cultural ways of using language. The difference between non-Indigenous game based education and Sámi education thus is, for example, the lack of connection to the real life environment. Local reindeer herding communities mostly are strong language environments, and thus this is easy to transfer as real life cycle supports it. What if Sámi students did not have any previous experience of real-life reindeer herding, lacking also the immersive experience of a strong language environment? Or what if the students don’t know how to build a lávvu in real life? If Minecraft environments create knowledge, does that knowledge stay there or does it affect its real life equivalent? My suggestion is to dive a bit deeper in this in results and conclusions.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

- Indigenous with a capital I. MS Word marks lowercase 'indigenous' as discriminative language when referring to people. The word indigenous is reserved to e.g. plants. Check throughout the text.

- Remove one or two sentence paragraphs, especially in the beginning

- Repetition. For example, ” The reindeers were modified from cows in the overarching Minecraft project by Sara in the overarching Minecraft project”, or repeating ”techno -cultural, self -cultural, micro -cultural, and intercultural” in data-analysis in two different places. 

- spelling mistakes, like ”mathmatics”

- concider providing original text for pre-service teachers’ quotations, or at least adding the translation data (from what language and by whom).

- Also add explanatory text after quotations so that they are not left hanging for the reader. 

- Even though the text would benefit proofreading, I want to state that to some extent it is ok to show that the text is not written by native English speakers.

 

Author Response

Thank you for the very valuable feedback! Underneath is a description of changes that has been made.

 

1. Introductionis changed to match the results and conclusions.
2. The whole text has been proofread.
3. A separate subchapter on ethical issues has been added. Also, ethical dimensions has been added in the text itself.
4. Descriptions about Western education has been removed and descriptions has been made to ensure that the education is described on its own and not in comparison.
5. The "Sámi content" has been described better and there has been added a description discussing what can be described as Sámi content. A part about real-life conections and language environments has therefore been added as well.
6. Added content and reflections about language use, multilingualism and the further need for research about the long-term effect on language use.
7. Work has been done to improve the presentation of empirical findings, discussion and support for the conclusions.
8. Improvements have been made on presentation of method and contextualisation.
9. Original text has been added.