A case study on the psychological changes of a doctoral student participating in a Scientific Game Jam

Abstract

This presentation discusses the process of the psychological change by a doctoral student who participated in a Scientific Game Jam. In this hackathon-style event, multiple teams come together to create video games in 48 hours, using doctoral research as the theme. The first author, who is a doctoral student, and the second through seventh authors formed a single team and developed a game. In this study, we conducted a retrospective analysis by examining the first author's interview responses directed to the eighth author, reflecting on the experience and analyzing the changes in their mindset. The central narrative underscores that doctoral students, despite possessing expertise in their research fields but limited familiarity with game development, acquire a wide range of new insights into science communication and game development techniques through the game jam. We further observe that despite feeling conflicted about not being able to achieve a fully satisfactory level of quality due to technical and time constraints, they discover an intrinsic enjoyment in using each member's specialized field of knowledge to create a video game.