Designing Contextually: An Investigation of Design-Based Research to Promote Situated Irish Language Identity through Virtual Reality

摘要

The Irish language is a minority language within the island of Ireland with only 5% of speakers using it daily outside the education system. This paper presents the results of the third case study in a mixed methods design-based research experiment with the aim of improving the situated Irish language identity of Irish language learners. A situated virtual reality game was designed by the researchers in order to improve Irish language identity among its players. We outline the design decisions of the game along with the results of a five-week study with a context group of Irish language learners. Data gathered through the iterative process of the design based research cycles has informed the design decisions of the study. The study evaluates the change in attitudes, ideal self and vocabulary retention as a result of interaction with the virtual reality game.