The digital era for ideation – BSc Thesis
Title: The digital era for ideation – A study of ideation for game design students in Swedish educational institutions post pandemic
Authors: Fredrik Edström, Nikola Pepivani
Institution: Stocholm University (SU), Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV), Sweden
Date and language: Spring term 2022, English
Type: Thesis at BSc level degree project 15 HP (sv: Självständigt arbete på grundnivå [kandidatexamen])
Key words: Ideation, Collaboration, Remote work, Digital tools, Communication
Advisor: Mirjam Palosaari Eladhari
Abstract
Ideation is the act of producing new ideas and can be done either individually or in a group environment. Although ideation can be done individually, it is usually conducted in collaboration with others and is often done in a physical environment. When the pandemic struck in early 2020, people in Sweden were urged to isolate as much as possible to reduce the spread of the virus. As such, much of the work at schools and jobs had to move to a remote environment. This study explores the challenges and the opportunities that are posed for game design students when working with ideation in a collaborative online setting.
The goal of this thesis is to identify the problems as well as opportunities that surface due to remote education and how different areas of remote ideation and collaboration affect the game design students studying in Swedish higher education. The game design students’ experience of remote ideation and collaboration in Swedish educational institutions is an area that requires more research, and the issues they are facing when working in this fashion thus need more exploration.
Through survey as a research strategy, a total of ten semi-structured deep interviews followed by a thematic analysis of the transcriptions of those interviews were conducted, following which a set of three main themes – ‘social interaction’, ‘remote group projects’ and ‘digital ideation and collaboration’ were created. This suggests that there is a different number och challenges and opportunities for each individual, but that there are some common conclusions that can be drawn. The logistic differences that remote ideation brings compared to physical ideation and collaboration can be seen as advantageous, meanwhile, the psychological aspects that arise from remote education and not meeting each other in person appear to be more challenging in nature.
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