Mackey - Skill Transference DND Work Social Life

Copyright by
CHRISTA N. MACKEY
2022
Perceptions of Skill Transference From Dungeons & Dragons to Personal, Social, and Work
Life
by
Christa N. Mackey
Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative exploratory single-case study was to explore the
perceptions and social interactions of participants in an online role-playing game campaign.
Six participants were recruited from social media groups. All participants were over age 18
years and had 3 or fewer years of experience playing the traditional role-playing game
Dungeons & Dragons. Game play was conducted, managed, and observed through a virtual
tabletop simulator during the 2020–2021 COVID-19 pandemic. Methods triangulation
including semistructured interviews, journal prompts and entries, and observations were used
to gather data from the study participants and game manager. Narrative data were coded and
analyzed weekly to monitor for saturation and other quality controls. The data provided
information from the perspectives of the game players leading and cooperating as a team.
Data analysis resulted in three main themes (skill identification, social interactions, and
leadership skills) and nine subthemes (weakness identification, problem identification,
problem resolution, teamwork, delegation, conflict resolution, decision-making, emotional
response, and empathy) demonstrating new learning capacities that were transferred socially
to various life interactions. Results indicated that the participants gained the ability to
recognize learned skills and how to transfer the new knowledge and skills from the campaign
to their personal, social, and work lives. Study results increased the body of contextual
knowledge on how professionals may view learning from gamification and role play
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opportunities and their recognition and perception of how to obtain new and transferable
skills.
Keywords: role-playing games, leadership theory, skill transference, adult learning,
gamification, Dungeons & Dragons
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work would not have been possible without the support of the University of
Arizona Global Campus School of Organizational Leadership and Development. I am
grateful to everyone with whom I have had the pleasure to work during this project. Each
member of my dissertation committee provided me extensive personal and professional
guidance and taught me a great deal about both scientific research and life in general. I
would especially like to thank my dissertation chair, Dr. Deborah Bowman. Without her
guidance, I would not have been able to complete this project. Thanks also to my committee
member, Dr. Peggy Sundstrom, for her guidance. I would like to also acknowledge my
advisor, Heather Zelinski, without whom I would have likely gone insane. Finally, I would
like to also express my gratitude and appreciation to the six participants in this study for,
truly, without them, this study would not have happened.
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DEDICATION
For my parents, Alex and Gloria Mackey, who taught us that we could be anything
we wanted to be. I miss you, Dad. For my sister, Annette, who was my first hero. For my
brother, Wayne, who taught me to be strong in the face of adversity. For Ken Barnard and
Nick Chavez who never gave up on me, even when I’d given up on myself and encouraged
me to keep pressing forward. For my Aunt Joan Mackey who checked in with me, provided
encouragement, and kept me from completely giving up. For my Uncle Jim Mackey who,
unfortunately, never got to see the completion of this project (I love you and miss you). And
for Tom Baker, who unwittingly set into motion the thoughts of a 3-year-old girl who
recognized you only needed two hearts to change the world.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................. 1
Background of Study ............................................................................................................ 2
Statement of Problem............................................................................................................ 6
Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................................. 6
Importance of the Study ........................................................................................................ 7
Conceptual Framework ....................................................................................................... 10
Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 12
Overview of Research Design ............................................................................................ 13
Definition of Terms ............................................................................................................ 14
Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations..................................................................... 16
Summary ............................................................................................................................. 17
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................... 19
Search Strategy ................................................................................................................... 20
History of Applied Computer Gaming ............................................................................... 23
Leadership Development ................................................................................................ 24
Critical Thinking ............................................................................................................. 27
Transference .................................................................................................................... 29
Adult Learning Theory ................................................................................................... 32
Game Theory .................................................................................................................. 34
Historic Use of Applied Computer Gaming ................................................................... 37
History of Dungeons & Dragons .................................................................................... 41
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Dungeons & Dragons .................................................................................................. 41
The d20 System........................................................................................................... 43
Summary ............................................................................................................................. 47
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................ 49
Methodology Selected ........................................................................................................ 49
Role of the Researcher ........................................................................................................ 51
Study Participants ............................................................................................................... 52
Data Collection ................................................................................................................... 54
Procedures Followed........................................................................................................... 56
Trustworthiness ................................................................................................................... 59
Ethical Concerns ................................................................................................................. 61
Data Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 62
Summary ............................................................................................................................. 64
CHAPTER IV: RESULTS...................................................................................................... 66
Sample ................................................................................................................................ 67
Demographics ..................................................................................................................... 67
Data Collection ................................................................................................................... 68
Unusual Circumstances....................................................................................................... 69
Data Analysis and Results .................................................................................................. 69
Findings .............................................................................................................................. 70
Research Question 1 ....................................................................................................... 70
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Summary ............................................................................................................................. 78
CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION ................................................................................................. 80
Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 80
Interpretation of Findings ............................................................................................... 81
Findings for Research Question 1 ................................................................................... 81
Limitations of the Research ................................................................................................ 90
Implications for Theory and Research ................................................................................ 93
Future Research .................................................................................................................. 94
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 94
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 97
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Participant Demographics ......................................................................................... 54
Table 2: Breakdown of Data for Major Themes and Subthemes............................................ 70
Table 3: Themes and Subthemes for Research Question 1 With Supporting Literature
Excerpts....................................................................................................................... 82
Excerpts....................................................................................................................... 85
Excerpts....................................................................................................................... 87
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix A: Full List of Interview Questions and Journal Prompts ....................................112
Appendix B: Intake Questionnaire.........................................................................................114
Appendix C: Appendix C: Game Master’s Notes and Changes ............................................115
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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
Psychologists have used computer-based games for educational purposes since the
1950s (Shubik, 1968). From seminal research such as Shubik’s (1968) on simulation games
of the early computer era to Yee’s (2007) on video games and massively multiplayer online
role-playing games (MMORPGs), research in technology has dominated the field of applied
gaming for training and education in industrial/organizational psychology. Mysirlaki and
Paraskeva (2017) discussed using MMORPGs for developing soft skills in leaders of virtual
teams. Likewise, Lee et al. (2018) focused on the transferability of leadership skills from
virtual world settings into real life settings. Mysirlaki and Paraskeva identified 2001 as the
beginning of the focus in industrial/organizational psychology on virtual teams and using
MMORPGs for developing team cohesion and leadership soft skills.
Because technology advances quickly, little attention has been paid to the types of
games that preceded MMORPGs, primarily pencil and paper games, including war games,
role-playing games (RPGs), and live-action role-playing games (LARPs). Balzac (2016)
conducted a qualitative study on the transference of leadership skills from a game
environment to a nongame environment, and Merriman (2017) explored using LARPs for
teaching empathy and understanding through establishing game rules to promote such social
growth and interaction in the game Dystopia Rising.
In 1974, Gary Gygax, along with several friends, wrote guidelines for an RPG that
involved writing numbers on a piece of paper and rolling dice to determine success or failure
(Mearls & Crawford, 2014). They called the game Dungeons & Dragons. The game is
currently in its fifth edition, reflecting updated rules and guidelines, expanded classes and
class features, race features, and weapons and spell updates (Mearls & Crawford, 2014).
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Since 1974, many different genres of the traditional RPG (TRPG) have come into
being, including science fiction-based games such as Shadowrun and Rifts, horror-based
games such as Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: The Masquerade, and fantasy-based games such
as Tunnels & Trolls and Airship Pirates. LARPs also have taken the concept of role-play
and pushed it further into a tool for helping players relate to the world around them in a more
socially acceptable way (Balzac, 2016; Oh & Solomon, 2014).
After Yee’s (2007) seminal work using World of Warcraft, other researchers began to
study gamification and applied gaming, using MMORPGs, tabletop RPGs, and LARPs as
tools for education and training (Balzac, 2016; Merriman, 2017; Oh & Solomon, 2014).
Businesses have used role-play to work through problems (K. M. Brown, 2014; Sternman et
al., 2015); however, using RPG scenarios, complete with debrief, had yet to be explored in
the scientific literature. The present study was conducted to determine the perspectives of six
study participants regarding the transferability of skills learned from playing Dungeons &
Dragons into personal, social, and work life situations.
Background of Study
Since the 1950s, researchers have predominately focused on computer technologies
for developing leadership skills (Lee et al., 2018; Mysirlaki & Paraskeva, 2017; Shubik,
1968; Yee, 2007). Serious games are widely used in the military, business, and education
arena for the purpose of training and learning development (Greene, 1960; O’Brien et al.,
2014). In the 1970s, a group of people took aspects of the military strategy games and
combined them with the art of high fantasy to create a new genre of games called RPGs
(Witwer, 2015). These started as games a small group of people would play using polyhedral
dice, pencils, and paper to keep track of health, hit points, etc. As technology advanced,
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these pen-and-paper games became the basis for the MMORPGs of the computerized era
(Yee, 2007).
Research supports using video games for a variety of educational purposes, including
enhancing multitasking abilities in older adults (Anguera et al., 2013; Ng et al., 2019). Yee
(2006) reported, via survey data, the average number of weekly hours of television video
game players watched versus how many hours they played video games. The survey results
indicated a significantly higher amount of time spent playing video games over watching
television.
Yee (2006) posited that the motivational framework contributing to the apparent
desire to play video games over watching television had to do with the social aspect of the
game, stating that the data supported the hypothesis. Further, Yee stated that 22.9% of male
players (n = 2,991) and 32.0% of female players (n = 421) admitted to sharing personal
secrets with MMORPG friends, despite never having shared those secrets with anyone in real
life. Granic et al. (2014) also indicated that more time spent playing video games,
specifically, first-person shooters, increased their participants’ spatial awareness and,
moreover, confirmed long-term career success in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics areas.
From an academic perspective, video games are classified into four categories: action,
strategy, role-playing, and simulation (Braun et al., 2016). There are also subcategories in
these genres (Clarke et al., 2015): mobile (e.g., apps such as Candy Crush, Mobile Strike, or
Bingo), console (e.g., Deus ex Machina, Assassin’s Creed, or Rockband), and computer
games (e.g., Counterstrike, World of Warcraft, or The Sims). Computer games can be further
broken down into subcategories such as single player (e.g., Portal), multiplayer (e.g., Team
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Fortress 2), first-person shooters (e.g., Counterstrike), or MMORPGs (e.g., World of
Warcraft), based on the findings in Clark et al. (2015). MMORPGs such as World of
Warcraft developed from pencil and paper games such as Dungeons & Dragons, which was
the present study’s focus as a tool for training leadership and development skills.
The distinctions in game genres are important to understand in order to determine a
game’s suitability as a training and learning tool (Granic et al., 2014). Each genre has its
own benefits; for example, Portal requires the player to solve spatial puzzles to progress to
the next level (Shute et al., 2014), Team Fortress 2 requires communication and coordination
with the rest of the team in order to be successful (Lim & Harrell, 2013), Counterstrike
depends on constant situational awareness and fast reflexes (Borecki et al., 2013), and World
of Warcraft offers social interactions, leadership, and market play among many other skill
sets (Bailenson & Yee, 2008; Yee, 2006).
RPGs are a subcategory of simulation games (Braun et al., 2016). Role-play is used
in businesses for training purposes (Dohaney et al., 2015; Oh & Solomon, 2014), typically
for training sales, crisis management, or leadership scenarios. MMORPGs are also used as
virtual environment settings to train soft skills in business (Chang & Lin, 2014; Harman et
al., 2015).
Bosch-Sijtsema and Sivunen (2013) championed using MMORPGs for supporting
collaboration and communication, and several schools in Europe use RPG variations,
including LARPs, to teach subject matter (Balzer et al., 2015). Scientific journals, however,
lack information regarding the effectiveness of TRPGs for training purposes. The present
study focused on using Dungeons & Dragons to develop leadership skills in six participants
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and to explore their understanding of the training and transference of skills from the game to
their personal, social, and work lives.
MMORPGs provide preprogrammed scenarios in which choices for avenues of
critical thinking are limited by the program’s abilities. Existing research has focused on
using computer-aided games to provide players solitary environments or safe spaces in which
to make mistakes (Bailenson & Yee, 2008; Kark, 2011). As demonstrated in this section and
presented in the literature review, research on video games has oversaturated psychological
literature for decades; from Shubik’s work in the 1950s and 1960s to Weinstein and
Lejoyeux’s (2016) research on brain functions in adolescents with internet gaming addiction.
Even Yee (2007) focused his research on how MMORPGs affect a person’s perception in
nongame space.
Leadership training programs that use applied gaming, or gamification, do so by
employing serious games (games designed specifically for training rather than
entertainment), simulators, or virtual worlds (Anguera et al., 2013; Dohaney et al., 2015;
Harman et al., 2015). Researchers have quantified the results of training virtual leaders and
developing virtual teams via MMORPGs (Anguera et al., 2013; Bailenson & Yee, 2008;
Dohaney et al., 2015; Kark, 2011; Harman et al., 2015; Yee, 2006), and other quantitative
studies dominate the literature on the effectiveness of transference of skills from a virtual
world into a work setting (Ahmad et al., 2014; Kurniawan, 2008). However, qualitative
studies in which participants explored any aspects of their understanding of skill
transference, their experiences in applying the skills, and any subsequent acquisition of
related skills in their daily lives seem nonexistent.
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Statement of Problem
The general problem is a lack of qualitative information regarding participant
understanding of training interventions in traditional contexts, and specifically in the context
of applied gaming. In other disciplines, such as medicine, researchers also champion using
qualitative data to inform the quantitative data received during clinical trials (Powell et al.,
2022). Gilad (2021) noted that a lack of qualitative research can risk undermining
practitioners’ capacity to study policy-meaningful research questions that matter in real-
world contexts. Quantitative research exists in the fields of education (King, 2016) and
clinical psychology (Wright et al., 2020) supporting using traditional fantasy RPGs; however,
very few studies in the business realm exist to support using these games as tools for training
and development, and fewer still discuss the participants’ experiences. According to Gilad
(2021), a lack of qualitative research exists across many disciplines.
The specific problem is that knowledge is lacking on people’s perceptions of their
abilities to transfer skills acquired from game play into their personal, social, and
professional lives. With the nature of business shifting to a global market, virtual teams are
becoming increasingly common, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic creating forced
work-from-home situations and forced isolation and social distancing. The present study
allowed participants to supply personal insights on their understanding of the skills they
gathered from the role-play process of a video game and how and where they were able to
apply the new knowledge in their daily lives.
Purpose of the Study
The focus of this qualitative single-case study was to explore the extent to which the
study participants felt they could transfer the skills and interactions they developed and
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learned playing Dungeons & Dragons into their personal, social, and work lives. The intent
was to follow the thought and emotional processes of the participants through their daily
lives on a week-by-week basis through interviews, journal entries, and other qualitative
methods. The goal was to see how the participants viewed their skill acquisition and
development through journal prompts geared toward game-specific scenarios and also their
thoughts and feelings on their ability to transfer these skills into personal, social, and work
situations. The final goal was to comprehend study participants’ views on their personal
development with social interaction skills during the study as well as reflecting on the study
once completed. The study questions were as follows:
RQ1: How do participants describe their ability to transfer learned skills from playing
Dungeons & Dragons to their personal, social, and work lives?
RQ2: How do participants describe the significance of their ability to transfer learned
skills from playing Dungeons & Dragons to their daily lives?
RQ3: How do participants perceive their development in social interaction skills after
playing the Dungeons & Dragons scenarios?
The present exploratory case study was conducted to address the identified gap in
knowledge regarding skill transfer from game play into daily life. Six participants with
varied professional backgrounds and little to no experience with TRPGs played in five
scenarios from the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign setting, each focusing on two
overarching skills as well as individual skills.
Importance of the Study
Thumlert et al. (2018) and Hargreaves and O’Connor (2017) discussed the changing
nature of business. They also discussed the evolution of the leadership role from one that
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required presence to one that is more heterarchical, or distributed, or a leading from the
middle. With the onset of the global pandemic, businesses have had to change even further,
relying increasingly on remote work (Gardner & Matviak, 2020; Rushe, 2020; Valet, 2020).
Business and science are in a unique position to explore areas of training and
development to completely change the nature of business. Research on the use of serious
computer games and MMORPGs has been present since the mid-1950s (Shubik, 1968);
previously, Samuelson (2016) discussed the 1838 publication by Cournot delineating the
development of the classical game theory for using games as a training tool in business,
specifically economics.
Lofgren and Fefferman (2007) identified the human factor in the context of virology
in the MMORPG, World of Warcraft. After the World of Warcraft’s Corrupted Blood
outbreak in the late 2006, the team observed a strong division of participants who would
purposefully infect other players by leading infected nonplaying characters (NPCs) into low-
level areas to kill players in range and those players who would attempt to assist the infected
to heal them, despite the risks to themselves. Lofgren and Fefferman’s study laid the
foundation for the Centers for Disease Control’s ability to predict and track the spread of
COVID-19 during the 2020–2021 pandemic. The study also established a binary upon which
to develop hypotheses on how participants in the current study would react to inexperience
and inexperienced players asking basic questions about gameplay.
Focus has indeed been placed on creating serious games that reflect real-world
situations. Focus has also been placed on using MMORPGs for several types of virtual
leadership trainings and physical recovery trainings. As technology progresses, researchers
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continue to focus on alternate and virtual reality games and how they can be used as
resources for training (Kim et al., 2017; Ng et al., 2019; Symonenko et al., 2020).
Quantitatively, data have been collected and aggregated to demonstrate transferability
of skills from MMORPGs and augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR); however, few
researchers have conducted qualitative studies that involve an understanding of participants’
cognitions when applying the skills from these games to their work lives. Kruger (2016)
expressed the necessity of cognitive attitudes as a tool for helping people master their
environments and gain understanding as well as creating a way for them to express
themselves. The human mind is dynamic and must adapt quickly to the complex and ever-
changing environments (Ladouce et al., 2017). However, without insight from the
participants’ perspectives, researchers and trainers are left to guess or assume skills trainings
have accomplished their end goal.
In Blume et al. (2010), skill identification was the initial part of participants moving
forward with either closed skills (reproduction of procedure for completion of task) or open
skills (accomplishment of task using general principle). Participants were given
opportunities to communicate via journal entries reflecting their perceptions of being able to
identify skills they could employ—either closed or open skills—in the context of a truncated
Dungeons & Dragons campaign and in their personal, social, and work lives. A significant
factor of understanding how participants perceive their own social development includes the
concept of emergent leadership. T. Brown (2011) noted that RPGs disrupt the Sloan
leadership model, which relies on a single person using the four key components of
sensemaking, relating, visioning, and inventing (Ancona et al., 2007), by not having a
designated and permanent team leader. The team leader is selected by the team-up group
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based on experience, skill, knowledge, etc., providing numerous opportunities for players to
partake in leadership positions. By allowing participants to explore their own cognition of
their understanding of the skills learned during role-play, their ability to transfer and
implement the skills in their personal, social, and work lives, and their perception of the
significance of their ability to transfer and implement the skills, the present study contributed
to the existing literature on leadership development, skill transference, and applied gaming.
Conceptual Framework
The general concept of leadership theory provided the conceptual framework for the
present study. Leadership theory focuses on determining what makes good leaders
(Mysirlaki & Paraskeva, 2012), a determination that has evolved since at least 1971 (House,
1971) to more recent studies (Day et al., 2014). Day et al. (2014) asserted that much of the
literature on leadership development focuses on linking personality and behavioral
development with leadership, indicating that people who are predisposed to leadership will
strive for it and become leaders and that behavioral adjustments can be trained at a later time.
In a meta-analysis on a much-discussed topic of psychopathic tendencies in executive
leadership, Landy et al. (2019) determined that those with psychopathic tendencies seem to
emerge more frequently as leaders and are somewhat less effective leaders.
Of interesting note to the present study, the leader’s gender played a role in their
emergence as leaders. As stated in Badura et al. (2018), even after more than 25 years of
business change and progress in women’s rights, the gap in emergent leadership remains
somewhat like that reflected in the 1991 study by Eagly and Karau. Badura et al. noted that
the basis of the concept of gender difference in emergent leadership somewhat depended on
cultural differences, with Eastern cultures being less egalitarian and Western cultures being
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more egalitarian. However, Badura et al. indicated that the egalitarian factor had minimal
impact on the emergence of males over females in leadership positions.
Understanding that males tend to emerge as leaders over females brings into
consideration Landy et al.’s (2019) findings that women were penalized for displaying
psychopathic tendencies and men were rewarded. These findings, that men emerge more
frequently than women (Badura et al., 2018), that those with psychopathic tendencies emerge
more frequently as leaders (Landy et al., 2019), and that those with psychopathic tendencies
are less effective leaders (Landy et al., 2019) would seem to contradict the notion that
leadership is a predisposition and that behavioral adjustments can be trained later.
To further narrow the field of research from leadership development, the present
study particularly focused on training via applied gaming or gamification. The body of
literature indicates positive outcomes for skill transference in the proper employment of
video games, serious games, and other types of gamified learning, discussed in greater detail
in Chapter II. Specifically, the present study focused on the concept of skill transference.
For any behavioral modifications or skills training to be effective, trainees need to be able to
transfer the knowledge and skills from their training settings into their work settings (Blume
et al., 2010; Huang et al., 2017; Jeung et al., 2011).
Though the present study’s researcher would find a more pragmatic method for
understanding to be beneficial, time constraints as well as budgetary concerns prohibited
conducting a mixed methods study to examine the effectiveness of skill transference from a
game setting into work life or personal life situations. Therefore, the researcher believed that
starting with an understanding of the participants’ emotional investments—from their
understanding of the study to their understanding of the skills learned to their ability to
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actually apply these skills—set a base level of expectation for continued research into the
area of applied gaming (as a subsection of gamification) as presented in the present study;
that is to say, using existing games, specifically structured RPGs, as tools for training and
development. Hurt (2015) and Huang et al. (2017) asserted that organizations lack the ability
to help employees transfer newly learned skills from the classroom to the workroom.
Clinical nurses and some educators have provided insights via qualitative studies on their
participation in skills training and subsequent transference (Garrison, 2019; Humphreys,
2017).
Research Questions
This exploratory case study involved six participants with little to no experience with
TRPGs who played in five role-playing sessions. Initially, there was a focus on
incorporating the skills selected by the participants on the intake questionnaire; however, as
the sessions progressed, it became difficult to do so given the fluctuation of participants each
week. The game sessions were led by an experienced game master (GM) with a general
understanding of the processes and methods involved in this study. The five scenarios were
as follows: DDAL08-00: Once in Waterdeep; and Chapters I–IV of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Campaign. After each session, participants sent in journaled responses to prompts given to
them. Participants were relying on the journal prompts as questions, rather than suggestions
for them to write about, and requested a new set of prompts for the remaining 3 weeks of the
study.
The original two research questions were as follows:
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However, it became evident during the final interviews that a new question needed to be
addressed dealing with social skills and the application of those skills in both game settings
and real-world settings. The following question, therefore, was added to this study:
Data were collected from the journal prompts and a final structured interview with
each participant. The interview questions and journal prompts are in Appendix A.
Overview of Research Design
To begin this study, each participant was asked to answer a brief questionnaire (see
Appendix B). The participants were asked to select up to three skills for this study from the
list that was sent with the questionnaire. Using the data collected from the questionnaire
regarding the skills, the researcher selected two skills that were common to the group and one
skill for each participant.
The first scenario was from the official Adventures League Guild, called Once in
Waterdeep. This was a light-hearted scenario to allow the group to meet each other, meet the
GM, and for all to learn and get used to the Roll20 interface. The remaining four sessions
were from the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign, following the chapter outlines in the
book. The first scenario is a free scenario that can be downloaded from the Dungeon
Master’s Guild website (https://www.dmsguild.com); the campaign is available from most
gaming stores or in downloadable PDF format from Roll20, Drive-Thru RPG
(https://www.drivethrurpg.com), and various other online markets.
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After each session, participants were asked to submit three journal prompts for the
week. After the final session, one-on-one interviews were scheduled with each of the
participants. In the middle of the study, more journal prompts were added for the
participants to respond to, per the participants’ request. The final interviews had the same
three basic questions; follow-up questions varied based on the participants’ responses.
Definition of Terms
The following terms were used in this study:
Applied gaming: Riggs (1979) discussed creating and defining new terminology in
the social sciences. There are three ways in which new terms are named and defined:
analytic, synthetic, and normative. Whereas the term gamification exists, it does not
effectively name the concept, nor is its definition unequivocally apparent from the context of
use (Riggs, 1979).
Salman et al. (2016) defined applied gaming as simply the use of nonleisure games;
however, this definition is also not entirely accurate. In application of Riggs’s (1979)
suggestions for creating and defining new terms in the social sciences, applied gaming was
defined in the present study as using standard leisure games available at retail stores, video
game boutiques, and specialty stores for educational and training purposes.
Dungeons & Dragons: According to the official product website, Dungeons &
Dragons is a fantasy RPG that uses polyhedral dice to determine the degree of success or
failure on certain actions and relies on cooperative storytelling and problem-solving (“What
is D&D,” n.d.).
Game master (GM): The GM is the RPG facilitator. The GM moderates the
storytelling and portrays the NPCs and the enemies for the encounters.
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Gamification: Schöbel et al. (2020) defined gamification as the use of games or game
design elements in a nonentertainment context to achieve predefined and desired outcomes.
Huotari and Hamari (2017) stated the term was first used in 2008 and was then described as
using game mechanics and applying them to other situations to increase engagement.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs): Suznjevic et al.
(2008) defined MMORPGs as a player-controlled avatar in a virtual space. A virtual world,
as defined in Belanger and English (2016), is a computer-simulated world in which players
can interact via the internet. MMORPGs, therefore, are virtual worlds in which many players
interact with the world and each other, via player-created avatars over the internet (Belanger
& English, 2016; Suznjevic et al., 2008). An example of an MMORPG is the game World of
Warcraft, which is mentioned frequently throughout this dissertation.
Serious games: Humphrey (2017) defined serious games as games that extend beyond
the sole purpose of entertainment. Melthis et al. (2016) went a step further to indicate that
serious games were computer games built for nonentertainment purposes. Research supports
the notion of serious games being computer based (Shubik, 1968). Serious games, then, are
computer simulations designed to train specific skills.
Skill transference: Baldwin and Ford (1988) defined positive training transfer as “the
degree to which trainees effectively apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes gained in a
training context to the job” (p. 63). Blume et al. (2010) noted that training transferability
included the maintenance, use, and generalization of skills, knowledge, and attitudes learned
to aid in effective employee output. In the present study, the two concepts were combined to
define skill transference as the degree to which trainees can effectively maintain, use, and
generalize the skills and attitudes gained from the training context in the work context.
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Traditional role-playing games (TRPGs): Daniau (2016) defined TRPGs as “the
progressive creation in a small group of players of a type of collaborative narrative animated
by a game master, in which each player takes on a main role” (p. 424). Laycock (2015)
defined TRPGs as “games in which players pretend to be someone else, typically a fictional
character” (p. 16). TRPGs, therefore, are games in which a small group comes together to
participate in the creation of a fictional world and narrative, under the guidance of a GM
(Daniau, 2016; Laycock, 2015). Dungeons & Dragons is the predominate example of a
TRPG.
Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations
Despite the study researcher’s philosophical stances, a key study assumption was that
there are multiple realities that are subjective and socially constructed by the participants
themselves (ontology). Because reality is subjective, there is a close interaction between
what is known and the knower; in this case, the participant (epistemology). Finally, it was
also assumed that individual values and beliefs—the researcher’s or the participants’—can
influence actions taken by the participants (axiology).
The sampling procedures for this study were limited by participant availability, their
willingness to participate, and their extent of experience with the tool (game). Limiting the
field to those who possess little to no experience with the game created a pool of potential
participants with their own biases and limitations (i.e., little to no experience requires a bit of
direction in play). However, with all participants having a similar level of experience, the
researcher believed the data collected would be more indicative of a real-world setting of
employing this type of training initiative in a business. The sample pool, however, caused a
potential weakness. Because the sample was small, the study results cannot be generalized.
16
Further, the participants selected were from an interest group on Facebook, meaning there
was the potential for participant bias in trying to respond the way they believed the
researcher wanted them to (Thomas, 2017).
Finally, the present study was further limited by the amount of time available to
conduct the study itself. Loh et al. (2015) discussed the length of time used in numerous
studies focused on applied gaming. To streamline and expedite data collection, the present
study was limited to one group of six participants who met once per week for five 4-hr
gaming sessions, then individually with the researcher for an interview lasting approximately
30–90 min.
Summary
Business is becoming more global, and virtual teams are an important part of most
businesses (Marlow et al., 2017). Since the 1950s, researchers have predominately focused
on computer technologies for developing leadership skills (Lee et al., 2018; Mysirlaki &
Paraskeva, 2017; Shubik, 1968; Yee, 2007). Serious games are widely used throughout the
military, business, and education for training and learning development (Greene, 1960;
O’Brien et al., 2014). In the 1970s, however, a group of people put together a game that took
aspects of the military strategy games and combined them with the art of high fantasy to
create a new genre of games called RPGs (Witwer, 2015). These started as games a small
group of people would play using polyhedral dice, pencils, and paper to keep track of health,
hit points, etc. As technology advanced, these pen-and-paper games became the basis for the
MMORPG genre of the computerized era (Yee, 2007).
Where Chainmail and Dungeons & Dragons began, games such as Ultima Online,
EverQuest, and World of Warcraft picked up and deepened the immersive experience.
17
Businesses adapted to the technology of these computerized RPGs and moved forward
without considering the impact that a colocated (or pen and paper) game could have on their
employees. Many computer games are considered sandbox games in that there are not very
many ways to solve a quest or puzzle. With a TRPG, players have unlimited choices and
often find that they need to adjust their plans on the spot during their battles. In the present
study, the researcher collected a list of skills each participant wanted to develop for their
personal and potential career growth and then explored participants’ thoughts on their
abilities to grasp the skills and transfer them into their day-to-day lives.
Using games for training and planning can be traced back to before modern times
(Greene, 1960; O’Brien et al., 2014). Subsequent chapters in the present study contain
examinations of the history of serious games for training purposes and discussions of the
history of Dungeons & Dragons, the RPG upon which modern MMORPGs are based. By
understanding the history of gaming and RPG, the researcher demonstrated the effectiveness
of using games—including role-playing—for training purposes in a business and leadership
context.
The study structure itself, an exploratory case study, was examined in the context of
the academic literature in the field of applied gaming. The methodology was also further
delineated and defined in the context of the study, complete with the research questions and
justifications of them. Further, the study itself was analyzed for validity and weaknesses, and
the researcher addressed the study assumptions, limitations, and delimitations. Further
explanation of the study purpose and aims also addressed the research gap discussed in
Chapter II.
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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reflects the foundational research that established the need for the
present study. Gaps in the current literature are identified, and the foundational theories upon
which the present study was built are provided. The comprehensive literature review adds
validity to scholarly works by demonstrating the analysis and synthesis of existing theories
and the applying previous results to the area of focus. Information is provided on how the
research was conducted, including key words searched. Following this is a comprehensive
literature review that focuses on the role of training in businesses, active engagement, adult
education, game theory, and serious games for training purposes.
Psychology developed as a science approximately 150 years ago. Along with it came
the area of industrial and organizational (I/O) psychology. As technologies advanced, so did
their use in business, and, by necessity, the field of I/O psychology progressed with them.
The 1950s saw the development of computing technology, and several I/O
psychologists began exploring how these systems could be used for improving employees
(Shubik, 1968). They began developing simulation games and serious games to help train a
variety of tasks in individuals ranging from military troops to university-level business
students (Shubik, 1968). As technology advanced, so did the world of computer-based
games. Today, MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft are used for training in areas such as
team dynamics and critical thinking (Chang & Lin, 2013).
The following literature review is an exploration of topics related to leadership
development, critical thinking, skill transference, adult learning theory, and game theory.
There is also an overview of Dungeons & Dragons, one of the first tabletop RPG developed
and the basis for the development of virtual world games such as World of Warcraft. This
19
overview includes a discussion of theoretical and anecdotal applications of the game’s use to
various learning situations.
Search Strategy
Randolph (2009) created a chart delineating the process of a systematic literature
review. From asking the research questions to presenting findings, the literature review
provides a solid foundation and demonstration of the understanding of the body of research
already in existence (Boote & Beile, 2005; Randolph, 2009). Based on the rubrics provided
in Boote and Beile (2005) and Randolph, the subsequent sections delineate the search
strategy used for the present study.
Randolph (2009) broke the review process into five stages: problem formation, data
collection, data evaluation, analysis and interpretation, and public presentation. Within these
stages, four characteristics exist: research questions asked, primary function in review,
procedural differences that create variation in review conclusion, and sources of potential
invalidity in review conclusions. Using this information, many of the searches for literature
to review in this study were conducted by using key words, terms, and definitions, which
were part of the data collection stage. To determine relevancy, searches focused on methods
involving the exclusive use of RPGs, including virtual worlds, live action, and traditional.
Simulation and serious games were also considered to establish the history of using games
for training. The searches were limited to an approximate 10-year period, 2010–2020.
Because technology advances quickly, a 10-year period was foundational for establishing a
baseline and determining obsolete information.
To determine which documents constituted seminal works, sources cited in
dissertations and peer-reviewed literature, along with the main takeaways from the works,
20
were reviewed, resulting in identifying House (1971) and Gerstner and Day (1997) as
seminal works as both presented leadership theories still in practice and identified the
theories as based on previous research. Both House and Gerstner and Day were cited in
Mysirlaki and Paraskeva’s (2012) research on leadership in massively multiplayer online
games (MMOGs) or virtual teams. Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson’s politeness
theory was cited in Chang and Lin (2013), which is the original study upon which the present
study was based.
Understanding a theory and knowing what the theory is called are two different
things. Asking Google Scholar the question, “Can you solve a problem by not actively
thinking about it?” with a date range of 2013–2018 yielded one result, which was a resource
on multiracial and monoracial identifying based on stereotypes/limited thought. A situation
in which people could think differently than what they normally do was created in the present
study. The same question on Google yielded a blog post on the website Psychology Today
on the study technique in which an individual actively disengages from a problem for a
designated amount of time, then returns and successfully progresses through the problem
(Rock, 2012). Because Psychology Today is not peer reviewed, however, these concepts
were then used to search for a study method called 20/10 via Google Scholar.
Kelley and Watson (2013) discussed intermittent periods of stimuli and no stimuli
they applied to long-term memory processes and education. Extrapolating from their study,
spending a limited amount of time (e.g., 20 min) focusing on a problem and breaking it
down, then walking away from the problem for a limited amount of time (e.g., 10 min) would
yield the most benefit in accomplishing tasks such as committing to memory training
initiatives developed during training sessions.
21
The University of Tennessee–Chattanooga’s Walker Center for Teaching and
Learning yielded a document regarding critical thinking (“Critical Thinking and Problem-
Solving,” n.d.), which spawned a search for the term critical thinking definition with date
ranges of 1990–1999, 2000–2009, 2010–2019, and 2020–current. The purpose of the
different date ranges was to establish seminal works. Several articles identified in this search
mentioned Wade (1995) in citations. The search yielded a total of five usable results.
Keywords and terms for searching articles included the following: skill transferability
factors training, critical thinking + hiring managers, human capital theory, game theory,
evolutionary game theory, leadership development + game theory, serious games, AR/VR for
training, MMORPGs + training, applied gaming, gamification, games for business, MMO
(massively multiplayer online) + leadership development, video game addiction, Dungeons
& Dragons history, Dungeons & Dragons evil, and TRPG and business.
This literature review covers the historic use of games for business and leadership
development, going back to the 1950s, when the first business games were developed (see
Shubik, 1968). More modern theories on leadership development appeared to have begun
with a study by House (1971) discussing the path goal theory for creating better leaders.
Others built on that foundational theory until the theories stated in Day et al. (2014), which
sought to separate the leader from leadership.
Because of the informative aspect of this research, the review includes an extensive
review of older articles, dating back to the 1950s. To determine articles to review, the focus
was on computer technology and computer games, when computer games were introduced as
part of business training, how the games developed and their purpose, and when the nature of
computers games and applied gaming shifted from simulation to other forms of gaming. The
22
articles used in this portion of the literature review are scholarly articles retrieved from
reputable journals published in the United States. There were no scholarly articles found on
Dungeons & Dragons in the context of business use; therefore, a limited number of resources
detailing its history and development were used.
Articles in the supportive theory category were limited to English-language peer-
reviewed journal publications and scholarly journals dating to 2010. Technology has
changed in the past 10 years, but the theories on which this research was based have not. The
range, therefore, encompasses newer theories of motivation and contrasts other established
theories with recently emerging ones. In total, 139 references were used in preparing this
document.
History of Applied Computer Gaming
It is appropriate to begin this comprehensive literature review with an historic
overview of the field of applied computer gaming. The first programable computer, the Z1,
was created in 1936 by Konrad Zuse; Alan Turing also proposed his Turing machine in that
year (Computer Hope, 2022). IBM introduced its first commercial scientific computer, the
701, in April 1953 (Computer Hope, 2022). These dates are germane to the study of applied
games because journal articles regarding the effectiveness of computer-based simulation
games for different training purposes began appearing as early as the late 1950s and early
1960s (Guetzkow, 1959; Shubik, 1960).
As technology improved, so did the games associated with each era. From Pong in
the 1980s to Overwatch, released in 2016, video games developed at a rapid rate. The
research done with them developed at a similar pace. To provide continuity and relevance to
the present study, there are discussions of key leadership development theories and critical
23
thinking, transference of skills, adult learning theories, and game theory. To fully understand
the tool used in this study, there is also a discussion of Dungeons & Dragons, mostly
reflecting material from authorized publications from Wizards of the Coast, the game’s
makers and distributors. Finally, the background of the field of applied gaming is discussed
in the context of industrial and organizational psychology to address the gap in the research
that informed this study.
Leadership Development
Leadership theory seeks to determine the answer to the question of what makes a
better leader (Mysirlaki & Paraskeva, 2012). In 1971, House suggested that the path–goal
theory would make a better leader. In 1997, Gerstner and Day suggested the leader–member
exchange theory would advance leadership development (Day et al., 2014). Day noted a
distinction between developing leaders and developing leadership. The first focuses on
development of individuals, whereas the latter focuses on development of the process of
development (Day et al., 2014).
Day et al. (2014) also asserted that the focus in the existing literature tends to link
personality and behavioral development with leadership. People who are predispositioned to
strive toward leadership will then be leaders, and behavioral adjustments can be made with
short training sessions to correct or improve behaviors (Day et al., 2014). Further, Day et al.
stated that these training interventions focus on proven approaches to solving known
problems. Unfortunately, however, in the changing business world, the problems tend to be
more complex and vaguely defined, which causes traditional short training interventions to
be less effective (Day et al., 2014; Mysirlaki & Paraskeva, 2012).
24
The dynamics of leadership involve multiple levels that can produce top-down and
bottom-up outcomes at various levels of analysis (Dinh et al., 2014; Yammarino & Danserau,
2011). Dinh et al. (2014) argued that leaders can guide the behavior of groups by
establishing ethical (or unethical) norms and modeling behavior, good or bad. However,
leaders can also affect intrapersonal constructs, which allow individuals to adapt their
behavioral response in varying situations (Lord et al., 2011), creating an even more complex
and dynamic form of leadership.
Intrapersonal and interpersonal skills are both necessary in a leadership role (Lord et
al., 2011; Yan, 2014). Some skills are considered universally desirable across almost all
professions (Yan, 2014). In fact, researchers have noted that soft skills such as analysis,
critique, synthesis, and multilayered communications are weighted more heavily than hard
skills, which are job-specific skills (Yan, 2014). Specific soft skills, such as critical thinking
or creative problem-solving, can be learned through experiential games (T. Brown, 2011;
Yan, 2014).
The Sloan leadership model developed by Ancona et al. (2007) identifies four key
capabilities for leaders in a global setting: sensemaking, relating, visioning, and inventing.
Complex online games include skills reflected in the Sloan model (T. Brown, 2011). In an
online game, leadership is not a permanent position; as such, there are many opportunities
that present for players to lead. Team-up groups determine the team leader by experience
playing, skills required, and abilities the players possess; guild leaders support their players’
development via multiteam events (T. Brown, 2011). Those who play online games have an
expectation of trial and error, of understanding they can attempt and fail without serious
repercussions (T. Brown, 2011; Vella et al., 2020).
25
Nelson (2016) identified the game cycle of user judgment: User judgment affects user
behavior, which then impacts game feedback. Game feedback then affects user judgment.
User judgment has been discussed as both a motivational tool (Garris et al., 2002) and
training development tool (T. Brown, 2011).
Lee et al. (2018) discussed the transferability of leadership training through using
MMORPGs via mediation after the training. Similar results occurring in tabletop situations
were hypothesized for the present study. Because role-playing has been used successfully in
businesses for years (P. Brown & Levinson, 1987; Rodriguez & Boyer, 2018; Rudra et al.,
2011), and understanding how MMORPGs have demonstrated a viability as a leadership
training tool (T. Brown, 2011; Chang & Lin, 2013; Dell’Aquila et al., 2017; Lee et al., 2018;
Nelson, 2016), a hypothesis in the present study was that TRPGs would have the same
viability with transferable leadership skills as MMORPGs.
Levine and Moreland (1991) discussed several factors of team dynamics, including
that of shared cognition. Hesse et al. (2015) stated that shared cognition was integral to
collaborative problem-solving. The leader, therefore, is tasked with facilitating a situation in
which all members can contribute collaboratively to the problem at hand.
The culture of a group or team can play a role in the leader’s effectiveness (Levine &
Moreland, 1991). The leader must be aware of a team’s customs, including their routines,
accounts, jargon, rituals, and symbols. Team members will develop routines for their
everyday procedures. As an example, Zurcher et al. (1966) noted that a team of sorority
kitchen and dining room workers created elaborate comedy bits to help alleviate boredom
and pass their time.
26
Teams that are dynamic face rapid changes and can therefore experience changes in
emergent leadership over the course of a project (Curral et al., 2017). Complexity leadership
theory views leadership as an emergent collective process that results from an interaction of
administration, adaptability, and enabling (Curral et al., 2017). Sousa and Rocha (2019)
identified game-based learning (GBL) as a tool in which primary skills developed in an
emergent leadership capacity with a dynamic team are motivation, facilitation, coaching,
mindset changing, and communication. Curral et al. (2017) noted that complexity leadership
theory relies on communication.
Whereas there are ways to use verbal and written communication in an online setting
for various virtual worlds, Dungeons & Dragons relies on the need for verbal communication
and deep social interaction (Witwer, 2015). Nonverbal communication is integral to the
success and failure of a team of players (Bailenson & Yee, 2007). In addition to nonverbal
communication is the need for collaborative problem-solving (Hesse et al., 2015), which is
addressed in the next section. Chapter III, the methodology chapter, outlines how the issue
of nonverbal communication was adapted for and addressed in the present study via using
technology to comply with state-mandated shelter-in-place orders during the global COVID-
19 pandemic.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a leadership skill prized by many hiring managers (Davidson,
2016). The term critical thinking relates to three different approaches to definition, each with
a different focus (Desai et al., 2016). The philosophical approach focuses on the qualities
and characteristics of critical thinking, rather than the behaviors (Lai, 2011).
27
In Pearl et al. (2019), the qualities and characteristics of critical thinking are the
general umbrella category for the concept of critical thinking. Pearl et al. determined five
main categories for conceptualizing critical thinking: “being systematic, having strong
business sense, considering multiple solutions, considering implications, and identifying
problems and potential solutions” (p. 116). Lai (2011) stated that the psychological approach
focuses on actual thought, rather than the process of thinking, as well as on defining critical
thinking by behavior and actions, which would fall under the Pearl et al. categories of being
systematic, problem/solution identification, and consideration of implications. Finally, the
implementation of the educational approach described by Kennedy et al. (1991) seeks to
apply Bloom’s taxonomy’s three highest orders—analysis, synthesis, and evaluation—as the
representation of critical thinking, aligning with the same three categories of being
systematic, problem/solution identification, and consideration of implications.
Critical thinking has been encouraged in students since before the common age
(Natale & Ricci, 2006). Greek philosophers encouraged their students to explore concepts
and ideas and question and analyze what they were told (Desai et al., 2016; Natale & Ricci,
2006). Johnson and Hamby (2015) noted an overabundance of problematic definitions of
critical thinking. Natale and Ricci (2006) defined critical thinking as the ability to explore
and investigate the assumptions, biases, and decisions of others, regardless of who the
individual is and what position they hold in society.
In a review of Fisher and Scriven’s 1997 book, Critical Thinking: Its Definition and
Assessment, de Glopper (2002) noted that Fisher and Scriven defined critical thinking as “the
‘skilled, active interpretation and evaluation of observations, communications, information,
and argumentation’” (p. 247). In the definitions listed here, as well as in other definitions
28
found in the literature, the key components of critical thinking hinge on the concept of active
evaluation. As such, there are eight characteristics of critical thinking: asking questions,
defining a problem, examining evidence, analyzing assumptions and biases, avoiding
emotional reasoning, avoiding oversimplification, considering other interpretations, and
tolerating ambiguity.
Hesse et al. (2015) discussed the differences between collaborative problem-solving
and cooperative problem-solving. Collaborative problem-solving employs the full use of
social skills, but cooperative problem-solving requires that participants simply divide the task
among themselves. Hesse et al. also noted that collaborative problem-solving requires a
shared mindset, plan, and goal for the problem.
According to Witwer (2015), games such as Dungeons & Dragons rely on
collaborative problem-solving to be successful. Though no longer a primary focus in the
present study, this information was retained in the literature review to help expand the body
of knowledge in applied gaming for critical thinking and leadership development. Rather
than exploring these key aspects, the present study focus was instead on the participants’
perceptions of their transference of these and other skills from a game setting to their home,
work, or school lives.
Transference
Transference is a nuanced and extensively researched topic. Transference of skills
from training has evolved into an important topic in human resource development (Blume et
al., 2010; Huang et al., 2017; Jeung et al., 2011). Baldwin and Ford (1988) defined positive
training transfer as “the degree to which trainees effectively apply the knowledge, skills, and
attitudes gained in a training context to the job” (p. 63). Blume et al. (2010) noted that
29
training transferability included the maintenance, use, and generalization of skills,
knowledge, and attitudes learned to aid in effective employee output. Baldwin and Ford
further developed a model for the process of training transference, which was described in
terms of training input factors, training outcome factors, and conditions of transfer (Hurt,
2015). Hurt (2015) and Huang et al. (2017) asserted that the problem in the training industry
is the lack of ability for organizations to assist employees in transferring the newly learned
skills from training.
Huang et al. (2017) further divided transference into near transference and far
transference. Applying the training to the next day’s procedures (temporal proximity) or
having a work environment that is similar to that of the training environment (physical
similarity) fall into the category of near transference; far transference, therefore, would be
application to a more future situation or a more distinct work environment (Blume et al.,
2010; Huang et al., 2017). Blume et al. (2010) also discussed the difference between
acquiring a skill that encompasses a broad set of situations in a similar context of complexity
as the training (lateral transfer) and how an acquired skill affects the acquisition of more
complex, but related, skills (vertical transfer).
Blume et al. (2010, 2017) and Huang et al. (2017) also discussed closed skills, or the
reproduction of a procedure to complete a task, and open skills, or the ability to accomplish
the task using a general principle. Open skills have a higher degree of predictor-transfer
relationships. This higher degree is likely due to other contextual situations such as
motivation, work environment, supervisory support, etc. (Blume et al., 2010, 2017; Huang et
al., 2017).
30
Research, particularly on the use of applied gaming or gamification skill transference,
has yielded mixed results. Adams et al. (2016) explored the benefits of using the game
Portal in a short duration to improve cognitive readiness for studying physics. Taking their
study idea from Shute et al.’s (2015) study, which had demonstrable results in cognitive
function for participants who played Portal 2 for 8 hr, Adams et al. found that an hour of
exposure to Portal did not significantly affect the cognitive abilities of participants to prepare
for a lesson on physics.
However, the limited exposure in Adams et al. (2016) may be inadequate for any sort
of skills training. According to Josh Kaufman, author of The Personal MBA: Master the Art
of Business, a person needs roughly 20 hr of training to develop a skill (Schawbel, 2013). In
Adams et al., only 1 hr was dedicated to improving cognitive focus via Portal, a game that
uses spatial manipulation and critical thinking to solve problems. Upon completion of the
hour of game time, the participants were then taught a physics lesson but were unable to
grasp the higher-level concepts. Adams et al. determined that the length of time was
inadequate, but no research indicating the minimum amount of time required in a game for
transference to occur existed at that time. Following Kaufman’s advice, the present study’s
researcher determined to adhere to the roughly 20 hr to train a skill from never used to
adequate by selecting five scenarios that ran up to 4 hr each.
Other fields have found skill transference to be adequate when using simulations and
video games, such as in the computer networking field (Marquardson & Gomillion, 2019),
nursing (Pront et al., 2018), and education (Navarro-Remesal, 2017; Ouellette et al., 2019).
Length of time spent exposed to the game and the concepts and skills required for the game
appear to be the key component in this research.
31
The present study’s focus was on exploring the extent to which participants felt they
could transfer the skills they developed and learned in game scenarios into their personal,
social, and work lives. The intent was to follow the thought and emotional processes of the
participants in their daily lives on a week-by-week basis through interviews and journal
entries. To synthesize the focus and purpose, open skill transfer in a vertical transfer
environment was used, selecting skills the participants wished to develop, placing these skills
in a fictional game environment, and allowing them to explore their own ability and
ingenuity for transfer, reflecting research in Blume et al. (2017) and Huang et al. (2017).
Adult Learning Theory
Employability is defined as the ability for a person to qualify for, acquire, and retain a
job and qualify for lateral or upward mobility in the internal or external job market
(McPherson & Wang, 2014; Raemdonck et al., 2012; Yan, 2014). Societies, especially
European societies, are noticing significant demographics shifts as younger generations have
fewer children but life expectancy increases, resulting in an increase in an older employable
population (Franz & Scheunpflug, 2016; Raemdonck et al., 2012). McPherson and Wang
(2014) also noted that access to certain workplace training opportunities is partially related to
the social context of the supervisor–employee relationship, which can be affected by other
perceptions, including socioeconomic status. Lundvall et al. (2008) noted that business
leaders assume employees with prior higher education are better equipped to engage in
learning. Therefore, low-qualified employees, those without formal education, tend to
receive workplace learning opportunities such as new hire orientation and job-specific and
safety training (McPherson & Wang, 2014). Fewer opportunities for educational
development can adversely affect the organizational productivity, especially in areas with a
32
large generational gap, as seen in many European countries (Franz & Scheunpflug, 2016;
Raemdonck et al., 2012).
It is important to engage older employees, as well as those who lack prior formal
education. Kenner and Weinerman (2011) discussed the applicability of tacit theory and
informal theory as they related to adult learners (25 to 50 years of age) in an undergraduate
setting. According to Kenner and Weinerman, tacit theory states that adult learners acquire
their higher level thinking skills from peers, teachers, and the local culture; the skills are
likely to be deeply ingrained into them, making it difficult to change. The provided example
of tacit theory was that of a fictional adult college student named Alexis who had started
work in a manufacturing plant out of high school (Kenner & Weinerman, 2011). The plant
shut down during the economic crisis, and Alexis decided to return to college to improve her
opportunities. However, upon arrival, she realized she lacked the skills with which to learn
the information. Tacit theory would indicate that Alexis’s previous ways of learning via rote
memory were not appropriate for classes that required critical thinking and arriving at her
own conclusions.
Kenner and Weinerman (2011) also noted that adults who appeared to be successful
in their communities were likely to have patterned their behaviors after other successful
community members or members in their peer group. Informal theory states that adult
learners possess a rudimentary concept of the high-level skills and have a distinct thought
process regarding how to use them. Much of the development of these skills is done
informally through peer groups at work and can be seen in the advancement of employees
who work in blue collar and trade jobs (Kenner & Weinerman, 2011).
33
Self-directed learning emerged around 1970, along with andragogy, as a model for
teaching adult learners (Merriam, 2001). Both models, however, hyperfocus on the
individual learner to the point of ignoring the sociohistorical context of the learner. As time
progressed, more focus and attention were placed on the learning context (Merriam, 2008).
Merriam (2008) also noted that the understanding of adult learning has shifted from a purely
cognitive process to a more multidimensional process: For the brain to make meaningful
connections, the learning needs to be associated with a physical, embodied experience
(Taylor & Lamoreaux, 2008).
Interestingly, Urval et al. (2014) identified that traditional instructional methods in
medicine involving lecture with slide presentation and practical labs failed to address the
needs of preadult undergraduate students who identified as multimodal in their learning
styles. If preadult learners seem to learn best from more holistic approaches to their
education (e.g., multimodal instruction), then adult learners should also benefit from a more
integrated approach to their learning (Merriam, 2008; Urval et al., 2014).
Game Theory
Gao et al. (2018) defined game theory as “a mathematical framework for the analysis
of the decision-making of multiple self-interested agents, whose choices will lead to mutual
effects on each other’s payoffs” (p. 241). In Gao et al., a risk-assessment game was
established between a chemical company and an insurance company. The more the two
agents worked together to minimize environmental risks, the better the payoff for both
parties. Marden and Shamma (2017) defined game theory as the study of mathematical
models of cooperation and conflict between rational agents or decision makers. Combining
these definitions, game theory was defined for the present study as a mathematical
34
framework from which science can analyze the decision-making processes of multiple parties
whose choices are interdependent upon each other (Gao et al., 2018; Marden & Shamma,
2017).
Game theory was originally conceptualized by Cournot in the 1830s (Samuelson,
2016). Classical game theory does not resemble the evolutionary game theory currently
employed by economists and some social scientists (Newton, 2018; Samuelson, 2016).
Samuelson (2016) and Newton (2018) delineated the Nash equilibrium subset of the Cournot
model (Nash, 1950); however, Newton further defined it to become the evolutionary Nash
program, which linked evolutionary game theory and cooperative game theory.
Newton (2018) detailed the mathematical equations behind several coexisting
models; however, the present study’s researcher’s understanding of his mathematics is
limited. Synthesizing from Newton, with assistance from Hwang et al. (2018), the
evolutionary Nash program relies on social contracts between two or more players in which
there is zero payoff for miscoordination and a payoff for an efficient execution of a
bargaining contract that considers the highest wealth and the lowest wealth of a coalition.
Many MMORPGs are developed based on the Nash equilibria (Wooders et al., 2003),
however, this fails to take under consideration the human factor. Lofgren and Fefferman
(2007) studied the human factor in the cooperative virtual game World of Warcraft when a
software update for the game created a bug in which a full-blown epidemic spawned,
creating one of the best real-time human factor mapping studies regarding epidemiology
(Ahmad et al., 2014; Girish, 2019; Oultram, 2013). The blending of cooperative game theory
with evolutionary game theory, therefore, does account for the human factor in transactions.
However, Braun et al. (2016) explained the theory better by simply stating that the behaviors
35
of one agent depend on the behaviors of the other(s). As seen in Lofren and Fefferman
(2007) and Girish (2019), players in World of Warcraft unwittingly spread the Corrupted
Blood plague to others out of seemingly altruistic motives (e.g., healing dying players) or
through baiting other players and intentionally infecting them (e.g., infecting nonplaying
characters who cannot die—the only way to stop the spread of the plague).
Games provide many benefits for education and training (Sousa & Rocha, 2019).
GBL has provided evidence shown to be effective across various fields such as health care,
education, and military. Wright et al. (2020) used GBL in an application of Dungeons &
Dragons for morality training, Sousa and Rocha (2019) sought to use GBL for improving
leadership skills, and Staňková et al. (2019) chose to study GBL to optimize cancer
treatments.
Part of what makes GBL an effective learning and training tool is the participant’s
ability to fail with only minor consequences to them personally and socially (Sousa & Rocha,
2019). Staňková et al. (2019) determined that GBL was the best way to train oncologists
how to treat mutating cancer cells, stating that “[c]ancer therapy is a Stackelberg game”
(para. 32). RPGs, as a specific GBL tool, have been found to support development of various
social skills and also to support moral integrity and provide a safe space for exploring
choices (Wright et al., 2020).
Lippitt (1953) defined role-playing as an action method of both teaching and learning
and described the activity as fun at any age. A proponent of role-play in the nursing field,
Lippitt sought direct application of the role-play to the situation (e.g., a patient preparing for
surgery). RPGs as discussed in the present study were not available prior to the late 1960s.
However, the practice between the role-plays discussed in Lippitt and the RPGs discussed in
36
this study are similar. Historically, role-play and GBL have been go-to methods for training
across various fields.
Historic Use of Applied Computer Gaming
Greene (1960) described business games as tools for diagnosing business problems,
rather than optimization tools. At the time Greene’s article was published, computerized
games were already being used in collegiate settings for teaching business students executive
level skills (Green, 1960; Shubik, 1968). McRaith and Goeldner (1962) noted that most
games of the time designed to train leadership skills ignored functional leadership. Instead,
most games focused on the lower management categories. By 1963, business games used in
university training programs for leadership development had become extremely popular
(Klasson, 1964). Of 107 universities surveyed, 64 of the 90 respondents verified using
business games, to some extent, in their business programs (Klasson, 1964). According to
Klasson (1964), two of the responding schools began using games in 1956, which is when
the first computerized simulations were developed.
In the 1960s, retail management games seemed to be the focus of several articles
(Greene, 1960; McRaith & Goeldner, 1962; Schellenberger, 1965). These games were
designed to help new managers adapt in an ever-changing business environment
(Schellenberger, 1965). Schellenberger (1965) included a one-page paper and pencil game to
demonstrate the ease with which management games could be created and used.
Computerized games complete the mathematical calculations for the player; the game given
in Schellenberger included formulae that players needed to calculate on their own. Pen and
paper simulations, particularly in the military, had been in use since approximately the mid-
37
1800s (Schellenberger, 1965); the development of computerized simulations served to
progress training and technology (McRaith & Goeldner, 1962).
Faria (1976) argued that the purpose of a business simulation game is to provide a
way for business students to see the effects of their decisions in a dynamic environment. The
computerized simulations from the middle of the 20th century provided a way for students
and leadership alike to develop their decision-making abilities in an ever-changing business
world. Greene (1960) described games for business as having four distinct characteristics:
rules, structure, competition, and feedback. Wolfe (1975) found that business simulations,
however, were only as effective as the team participants formed. McKenney and Dill (1966)
determined that dissatisfaction with poor results during simulation games resulted in a
reduced effort, which in turn created even poorer performance and lower satisfaction by the
simulation’s end.
Simulations were still a fashionable way to train leadership and business skills during
the 1960s and 1970s. Faria (1976) identified three well-known businesses––General
Electric, United Airlines, and Johnson & Johnson––who used applied gaming to train their
employees. By the 1980s, simulation games for leadership training were commonplace
enough that they fed into pop culture in the form of Star Trek II: Wrath of Kahn, where
viewers were introduced to the Kobayashi Maru scenario (Bennett et al., 1981).
The Kobayashi Maru scenario is also known as a no-win scenario. In the movie,
Starfleet Academy cadets in the leadership track must play through a scenario in which the
Kobayashi Maru, a civilian ship, has entered Klingon neutral one airspace and become
disabled. A Starfleet ship entering the Klingon neutral one would create an interstellar
incident; therefore, the cadet must decide whether to attempt the rescue, endangering their
38
own ship and lives, or ignore the distress calls and leave the Kobayashi Maru to suffer its fate
at the hands of the Klingons (Bennett et al., 1981). The purpose of this scenario was to test
the character of the future Starfleet captains. No-win scenarios have become popular ways of
testing business ethics in several different areas of business (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2010;
O’Brien et al., 2014).
Console video games started becoming more popular toward the end of the 1970s and
the beginning of the 1980s. Gibb et al. (1983) discussed behavior and personality issues
claimed by those who desired legislation to restrict access to video games and arcades. After
comparing high and low users of video games by sex, Gibb et al. determined that there was
no evidence to support claims that video games encouraged anger, antisocial behaviors,
social isolation, or compulsivity. Chambers and Ascione (1987) determined that aggressive
video games did not necessarily trigger aggressive behavior; however, they also noted
several factors that could have potentially skewed the findings, including negative emotions
that could suppress prosocial behaviors (e.g., frustration).
Worth noting is the fact that literature in the 1980s seemed to take a rather abrupt
term to focusing on potential negative outcomes of video games (Ellis, 1984; Shenkman,
1985; Soper & Miller, 1983) rather than on using the newer technologies for the benefit of
education and training. Speculating on the abrupt change in tone toward demonizing
electronic entertainment, the effect would be to convince conservative parents that electronic
forms of entertainment were evil and “stimulate neither reasoning nor the imagination”
(Shenkman, 1985, p. 27). It is during the 1980s that the negative stereotype of the gamer
seems to have been established (Kowert et al., 2014; Williams, 2005).
39
The 1990s saw the rise of a new type of game: MMOGs (Doyle, 1999). Games such
as EverQuest, Asheron’s Call, and Ultima Online were being developed that allowed
interaction on a global scale. Specifically, these three games are MMORPGs, which allow
players to take on a role and act as that character would act in any given situation. However,
not everyone who played these games had the ability to act as their character would.
Multiuser Dungeons or multiuser dimensions (MUDs) were also popular games during the
1990s. These games were text based rather than graphics based and echoed some of the early
1980s simulation games and TRPGs.
Doyle argued for combining MUDs with MMORPGs to provide a better user
experience. The reasoning was that players who are engaged and able to make choices based
on how their character would behave will foster a better social environment, which would
have numerous applications, including use as a training tool for social situations (deWinter et
al., 1999; Doyle, 1999). These MUDs and MMORPGs of the 1990s paved the way for the
development of titles that are still widely played, including Blizzard Entertainment’s World
of Warcraft, released in 2004.
Yee (2007) discussed player use of self-representation in the form of the avatars
created for the games. Deindividuation occurs in online settings, such as MMORPGs,
because of the anonymity provided by the virtual world. Thus, players take social cues from
others’ perceptions of their avatars. In World of Warcraft, if a person chooses to play a
gnome, other players expect the gnome to speak childishly and quickly while discussing
robotics and gadgets. If a person chooses to play a dwarf, other players will anticipate the
character to, essentially, be Scottish. Kaufmann et al. (2014), as well as Kirschner and
Williams (2014) discussed the extent to which cultural awareness and social networking
40
could be accomplished via virtual world settings, including MMORPGs. Thomassen (2014)
analyzed the use of the MMOG Second Life to establish real-world-like scenarios in which
soldiers could learn cultural awareness and sensitivity in a controlled and safe environment.
Storti (2009) advocated for using virtual teams in cultural diversity training, for which
Kirschner and Williams and Thomassen advocated and demonstrated positive correlations.
For 60 years, researchers have studied the use of computer-aided gaming in the form
of simulations, video games, and MMORPGs for improving soft skills (Bailenson & Yee,
2007; Granic et al., 2014; Lim & Harrell, n.d.; Shute et al., 2015). These games provide a
semisafe environment with anonymity and the ability to be or say anything (Yee, 2007).
Little, if any, scholarly information was found, however, on the dynamic of TRPGs such as
Dungeons & Dragons in which players are forced to use their imaginations and can see and
physically interact with their fellow players. To provide an effective correlation between
MMORPGs and TRPGs, an overview of TRPG history is required.
History of Dungeons & Dragons
The following discussion relies heavily on two primary sources for historic
information. These sources are the only ones currently in print that are authorized by
Wizards of the Coast as factual and accurate sources of information about Dungeons &
Dragons and its creator, Gary Gygax.
Dungeons & Dragons
In 1974, the first Dungeons & Dragons RPG was published by Tactical Studies Rules
(TSR), the publishing company created by Gygax, author of Dungeons & Dragons. Prior to
writing the rules for Dungeons & Dragons, Gygax worked as an insurance underwriter and
wargame hobbyist (Witwer, 2015). Gygax and his friends took the concept of the wargame
41
simulators used by the military and created a set of rules in which players could control
armies and recreate historic battles, sometimes with different outcomes than the actual wars
(Witwer, 2015).
During the 1960s, simulation games were played via computers (Greene, 1960;
Klasson, 1964). The programs used for the simulators, according to Klasson (1964),
consisted of computations and quick ways to communicate with team members. Gygax,
however, wanted to play these wargames face to face (Witwer, 2015). He started a get
together in 1968 in the Lake Geneva Horticultural Hall in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. This get
together was called the Lake Geneva Wargames Convention, or GenCon, for short (Witwer,
2015). GenCon is currently in its 55th year of operation and has grown from the 30 people it
started with to over 10,000 people.
In 1971, Gygax was asked to edit the rulebook being developed by Guidon Games for
the game Chainmail. Gygax had coauthored the rulebook’s 60+ pages and was happy to
supply more detail on combat rounds and create the first-ever hero in a wargame (Witwer,
2015). Up until 1971, wargames were played with armies; in the update to Chainmail,
Gygax had allowed for individuals to fight in battles. Another feature of Chainmail that
helped to pave the way for the eventual creation and publication of Dungeons & Dragons
was the 14-page supplemental material at the back of the ruleset for Chainmail. It provided a
very loose framework for magic use and creatures based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the
Rings series.
The new rules also allowed for players to recreate Tolkien battles such as the famous
Battle of the Five Armies from The Hobbit. The appeal of the medieval fantasy wargames
addition helped to generate the ideas for what would become Dungeons & Dragons. Much
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of the information available from the early days of Dungeons & Dragons comes from Witwer
(2015) and Peterson (2012) because they were personal friends of Gygax. As such, they are
the two who have written the most recent authorized books regarding TSR/Wizards of the
Coast and Gygax.
The d20 System
Witwer (2015) discussed the development of the polyhedral dice system. Originally
looking for a better way to determine outcomes in the wargames, Gygax looked to
icosahedral dice, a 20-sided polyhedral, to provide a 5% chance on potential outcomes. Once
he had a sustainable way to generate the possible outcomes, in the form of the icosahedron
dice, he was able to simplify the combat system and game mechanics for Dungeons &
Dragons as well as provide the foundational system for all RPGs—traditional and MMOGs
alike—that were based on the d20 System.
The d20 System was simple enough for children to understand and use, and the
reception of the play tests between 1972 and 1973 provided excellent feedback (Witwer,
2015). Unfortunately, in the early 1970s, the U.S. economy was in a disastrous state, having
just come out of the Vietnam War and still trying to fight the Cold War with the Russians.
Wargame sales were declining, and the two major wargame publishers, Avalon Hill and
Guidon Games, were not unaffected by that decline. Eventually, Gygax would partner with
Don Kaye to form TSR and self-publish the 150-page ruleset for Dungeons & Dragons.
In 1982, TSR released its first video game products, including its computer version of
the boardgame Dungeon! However, 1983 saw the rise of negative gamer stereotypes
(Williams, 2014). Williams (2014) discussed the scapegoat theory of people assigning blame
to new media of the day to cope with their own guilt regarding parenting choices. The first
43
event that gave Dungeons & Dragons players a black mark was in 1979 when a 16-year-old
child prodigy went missing from his dorm room at Michigan State University (Allison, 2014;
Peterson, 2012). The student was eventually found in the tunnels under the university where
he had gone into hiding because of his well-documented mental illnesses and drug addiction.
He committed suicide in 1980, and the game Dungeons & Dragons was blamed for both his
disappearance and his death (Allison, 2014; Peterson, 2012).
Two years later, another high school-age student took his life due to depression for
not being able to fit in with his classmates; however, this student’s mother blamed Dungeons
& Dragons for his death, going as far as to try to sue the principal of the school as well as
TSR. Both court cases were dismissed, but the mother insisted that Dungeons & Dragons
was a wicked game that used real voodoo magic and curses and taught children how to
dabble in the occult (Allison, 2014). She set up the campaign Bothered About Dungeons &
Dragons (BADD) in 1983 and spent almost 10 years trying to convince anyone who would
listen to her that Dungeons & Dragons would cause impressionable youth to kill themselves
or each other (Allison, 2014; Peterson, 2012). The organization went as far as to seemingly
exonerate serious crimes by saying the perpetrators of the crimes were acting under the
influence of Dungeons & Dragons and that it was this singular cultural influence responsible
for the crimes, not the committers of the crimes (Peterson, 2012).
Most of the information surrounding Dungeons & Dragons is anecdotal, not
scientific. Rather than using science to debunk claims BADD made against the game, there
was an attempt to discredit BADD’s founder instead (Stackpole, 1990). Williams (2014)
addressed the issues of the early 1980s sociopolitical climate, noting that the conservative
Reagan administration was in its early rise to power in 1981 and 1982. The 1970s were
44
perceived to be a decadent and morally bankrupt era, and the Reagan administration built its
campaign on the irresponsibility of the single mothers, derogatorily termed welfare queens
(Gilens, 1999). The political agenda created a sort of guilt for the working mothers who
dared to leave the home to earn money for their family (Williams, 2014). Without the
perceived control over their children, the children could become truants and delinquents;
playing video games or gathering in small groups to play fantasy role playing games were
some of the worst things that could happen in conservative America (Williams, 2014).
Peterson (2012) pointed out that much of the controversy surrounding Dungeons &
Dragons came from a perceived inability to separate fantasy from reality. The first death
associated with Dungeons & Dragons, for example, was touted as a young man who had
blurred the lines between fantasy and reality and chose to live in a fantasy world rather than
the real world (Peterson, 2012). Other deaths would follow, all of which had a similar thread
of mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, or a combination of all of the above—
including the highly publicized murder of Lieth von Stein in 1988 (Berg, 1991).
Parker and Lepper (1992) determined that fantasy game settings were beneficial to
teaching complex skills such as computer programming languages. Anecdotal stories esteem
Dungeons & Dragons for teaching skills such as math, economics, resource management,
critical thinking, and problem-solving. Clements (2015) addressed the use of Dungeons &
Dragons, specifically, in the training of cultural awareness, stating, “[TRPGs] force players
to explore the ideas of self and other, to chart the space between, and to decide how much
space there really is” (p. 3). Because Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy setting, race comes
in the form of various species, including human, elves, dwarves, orcs, half-elves, and others
(Clements, 2015; Witwer, 2015). Some stereotyping of these varied species occurs in the
45
game, making it an ideal way to discuss racism, classism, and other forms of prejudice and
bias (Clements, 2015).
Thumlert et al. (2018) discussed the possibility that MMORPGs were not actually
new training grounds for leaders and that leadership in the 21st century has instead evolved
from MMORPGs. Thumlert et al. and Hargreaves and O’Connor (2017) discussed the
changing nature of business and the evolution of the leadership role from one that required
presence to one that is more heterarchical, or distributed, or a leading from the middle. With
the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic, businesses have had to change even further,
relying increasingly on remote work (Gardner & Matviak, 2020; Valet et al., 2020).
Business and science are in a unique position for exploring areas of training and
development to completely change the nature of business. Research on the use of serious
computer games and MMORPGs has been present since the mid-1950s (Shubik 1968);
before this, Cournot developed the classical game theory in the late 1830s for using games as
a training tool in business, specifically economics (Samuelson, 2016). Focus has indeed been
placed on creating serious games that reflect real-world situations; focus has also been placed
on using MMORPGs for several types of virtual leadership and physical recovery training.
As technology progresses, researchers continue to focus on alternate and virtual
reality games and how they can be used as resources for training (Kim et al., 2017; Ng et al.,
2019; Symonenko et al., 2020). Quantitative data have been collected and aggregated to
demonstrate transferability of skills from MMORPGs and alternate/virtual reality games;
however, there are few qualitative studies that involve an understanding of the participant’s
cognition when applying the skills to their daily life. How participants understand and apply
46
the skills they developed from a socially distanced tabletop RPG, the precursor to
MMORPGs, was explored in the present study.
Summary
Skill transference and the personal significance of being able to transfer skills from a
training—any training—to a work setting is not often studied in the social sciences.
Focusing on developing a solid set of soft skills (e.g., analysis, critique, synthesis,
communication, etc.) could have the positive effect of increased employee confidence and
desirability in the ever-changing job market (Yan, 2014). Being able to use tools that interest
adult learners—such as games—can assist employees in pursuing their own personal career
development opportunities that are sometimes not available via their employers (McPherson
& Wang, 2014).
Games such as World of Warcraft have a multigenerational appeal (Kurniawan,
2008). Because World of Warcraft is somewhat based on Dungeons & Dragons, individuals
can extrapolate a similar appeal. As Raemdonck et al. (2012) and Franz and Scheunpflug
(2016) noted, training across multiple generations—appealing to the older as well as the
younger—is of significance when training employees. Practitioners must be able to develop
engaging trainings that will appeal to all age groups.
By using a TRPG such as Dungeons & Dragons, the present study’s participants
might have richer interpersonal interactions, as described in Lord et al. (2011), despite the
need for social distancing. Many of the adventures involve collaborative problem-solving,
which employs interpersonal skills and critical thinking (Hesse et al., 2015; Witwer, 2015).
Using concepts in Blume et al. (2010, 2017) and Huang et al. (2017), the participants in the
47
present study explored their abilities to transfer select skills from the game setting into their
daily lives.
The focus on analog RPGs and the qualitative exploratory research in this study
bridged the gap in the scientific literature regarding the effectiveness of an analog system for
skills training and development. This study also added to the body of literature on skill
transference, providing insights from the participants’ perspectives of their understanding of
skill transference and their perception of how well they can transfer those skills in a vertical
environment, which will be discussed in detail in Chapter III. Further, this study added to the
body of scientific literature on the use of games as training tools, exploring the concept of
analog, open world games as a means for developing interpersonal skills as well as resource
and time management, critical thinking, and others, especially in the context of a socially
distant world due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Gardner & Matviak, 2020; Rushe, 2020;
Valet, 2020).
48
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
The following chapter is a detailed description of the steps and processes involved in
data collection and analysis for this study. This section provides the bridge for the research
gap by addressing the specific problem of exploring participants’ descriptions of their self-
perception of the transferability of specific skills to daily life via gamification.
Transferability was assessed through focused interviews and collected journals from the
study participants. Therefore, it was the participants’ perceptions of transferability that were
measured in this qualitative study.
Chapter III begins with a discussion on the selected methodology, the selection
process, and the justification for using exploratory case study methodology. This is followed
by sections on the researcher’s role, the study participants, data collection, and data analysis.
The chapter concludes with procedures to maintain trustworthiness and address ethical
concerns.
Methodology Selected
Educational research reflects three approaches: quantitative only, qualitative only,
and mixed methods (Castellan, 2010). The methodology choice stems from the questions
researchers want to answer. The purpose of quantitative research is to explain causation of
changes through objective analysis (Firestone, 1987). Qualitative researchers seek to
understand the changes from the perspective of the participants involved (Firestone, 1987).
The present study’s researcher selected qualitative methodology to explore how participants
were able to identify and express their abilities regarding skills learned and developed during
game play and transferring these skills from a TRPG setting into their personal, social, and
work lives.
49
Firestone (1987), Castellan (2010), and Eby et al. (2009) concurred that the
ontological and epistemological position, coupled with the researcher’s theoretical
perspective, is what defines approaches to research. The ontological position of naive
realism, meaning reality can be understood using appropriate methods (Moon & Blackman,
2014), was taken in the present study. The study’s epistemological position was
subjectivism, in which meaning exists with the subject and the subject imposes meaning on
an object. Finally, the theoretical perspective most closely aligned with a combination of
postpositivism, the perspective that multiple methods are necessary to identify a valid belief
because all methods are imperfect, and pragmatism, which is the perspective that all
necessary approaches should be used.
Based purely on the ontological and epistemological positions and the researcher’s
theoretical perspective, this study should have been a mixed methods study. However, as
stated in Firestone (1987) and Castellan (2010), the questions drive the research method. In
the present study’s case, the context also drove the research method.
Because of the limitations discussed in Chapter I regarding shelter-in-place orders
and compliance with social distancing recommendations during COVID-19, the present
study’s original format was no longer a viable option. Therefore, the focus shifted to the
basic question regarding transferability of skills and on how the study participants felt they
felt the training initiative helped or did not help them address specific skills. As further
justification for this study approach, Yin (2009) defined case study as an empirical enquiry
that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in-depth in its real-life context. The
phenomenon in this setting was that of skill transference, the real-life context being that of
transference from a TRPG. The research questions reflected how participants felt and
50
perceived their experiences and provided opportunities to explore deeper, meaningful
insights into their own situations.
Role of the Researcher
In qualitative studies, the researcher’s key role is that of observer (Smit &
Onwuegbuzie, 2018). Robey and Taylor (2018) laid the groundwork to establish the concept
of the practitioner–scholar in which the observer is both a student of scientific rigor and a
practitioner of pragmatic necessity. The practitioner–scholar uses scientific rigor to resolve
research questions but also seeks to solve the problems with implementable solutions.
Smit and Onwuegbuzie (2018) noted that observations rely on the ability of the
researcher, which is typically filtered by researcher bias and the lens of what is familiar. To
minimize researcher bias in the present study, methods triangulation was used in the form of
participant journal prompts, participant interviews, and researcher observations, thereby
acting in the role of direct observer, following three observational procedures described in
Smit and Onwuegbuzie:
• descriptive observation––observation of everything, taking nothing for granted
• focused observation––observation focused on well-defined entities for
observation
• selective observation––observation focused on specific general entities
During the sessions, the researcher made notes in a reflexive journal regarding
interactions by participants or situations that arose during the session and how the
participants handled the situations. Four types of data were collected and triangulated to
achieve saturation: information from interviews, journal prompts, survey data, and the
researcher’s filed observations.
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Study Participants
The context for this study was framed in the lockdown environment of the COVID-19
pandemic, meaning that every aspect of the study was conducted online. Participants
interacted via their home computers or mobile devices using high-speed internet. The
general population was adults who had been employed prior to the pandemic but found
themselves furloughed or laid off at the onset of the COVID-19 lockdown. The specific
population was adults who were interested in playing Dungeons & Dragons who had fewer
than 3 years of experience playing the game. The study setting was the researcher’s home
office, via the tabletop simulator Roll20, with the addition of audio-only communications via
Zoom. Each participant logged into the sessions via their own home computer or mobile
device, which also required them to have a microphone and speakers.
Business professionals have used role-play to learn novel approaches to problems or
to practice specific skills (Dohaney et al., 2015; Harman et al., 2015). According to the
Bureau of Labor and Statistics (2020), despite the closure and shutdown of the U.S.
economy, as of May 2020, there were approximately 160,740,000 employed persons in the
United States. There are no data available to determine what percentage of the population
also play or have played Dungeons & Dragons. Obviously, it would be ill-advised for a
study of this capacity to set about to research even an appropriate fraction of these
employees. Therefore, the study focus was on six relatively inexperienced players who were
looking to advance their careers or boost their job search strategies.
The number of participants was selected based on the optimal number of players for
the official Adventurer’s League scenarios (three to five players), and the GM’s comfort
level for managing combat among players (up to seven players). A total of nine players were
52
recruited; however, one never played, one withdrew for personal reasons, and one played in
only one game. The only scenario that had more than six players was Session 0. The
researcher and the GM agreed that it was an effective way to get everyone familiar with each
other, the GM, and the software system. The first session did not involve combat and was
social skills heavy.
The sample population was first selected by placing a notification in the Facebook
group Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, which, at the time of recruitment, had a membership
of 157,200, according to Facebook. Using snowball sampling, the researcher also posted the
same recruitment statement to a personal website so others could link to the recruitment
statement via Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and the subreddit LFG (looking for group). No
participants were known to the researcher prior to the study.
The sample population mirrored the larger population in age, gender identification,
and geographic location. The sample size may have limited generalizability of study results.
Future studies involving several groups may provide more generalizable results and answer
some deeper questions. To preserve study requirements, nine participants were recruited to
ensure a total of four to six players per session, in accordance with the recommended number
of players by Wizards of the Coast (publishers of the Dungeon & Dragons 5th Edition
materials) and the GM’s comfort level for ease of combat and immersion in the game.
Though the total number of participants recruited were nine, one never attended any
of the sessions, one attended only one, one attended two, one attended four, and five attended
all five sessions. In total, there were five participant interviews and 11 submitted journal
entries, with each individual journal containing three to five entries.
53
The participants were required to be novice players having fewer than 3 years’
experience with Dungeons & Dragons. Two participants were recently graduated and
looking for work, one was a high school teacher, one was a library assistant, one was a
personal shopper, and one was involved in programming. The top three skills to develop
among all participants from the eight offered were interpersonal communication, time
management, and resource management. Other participant demographics are shown in Table
1.
Table 1
Participant Demographics
Characteristic No.
Gender
Male 2
Female 2
Nonbinary 2
Age range (in years)
18–25 2
26–35 2
36–45 0
46–55 2
56+ 0
Career level
Entry level 2
Intermediate level 2
Midlevel 1
Senior level 1
Executive level 0
Data Collection
Prior to data collection, approval to conduct this study was obtained from the
University of Arizona Global Campus’s institutional review board. Informed consent
54
documents from all participants were received. Demographic information was collected
upon receipt of the executed informed consent documents.
After each session, the participants were given a list of journal prompts and asked to
write responses to three of them. One participant consistently sent responses; the other five
responded sporadically. The journal topics allowed the participants to explore themes and
ideas from the sessions and deepened the understanding of how the participants can transfer
the skills and reflect on their abilities. After the final session, the researcher followed
Seidman’s (2006) third interview technique, the reflection of meaning. During this
interview, participants were asked how they felt about skill transference, specific skills the
participants transferred, and the impact those skills had or will have on their career paths.
Turner (2010) identified three styles of qualitative interviews: informal
conversational, general, and standardized open ended. Standardized open-ended interviews
are structured in the way the questions are worded (Turner, 2010). Participants in the present
study were asked identical open-ended questions, which allowed them to contribute as much
or as little detailed information as they desired. Asking open-ended questions also allows the
researcher to ask more probing questions as follow-ups (Turner, 2010). Based on the
interview structures presented in Seidman (2006) and the definition of three styles in Turner
(2010), standardized open-ended interviews were chosen for the present study to provide the
appropriate data for answering the research questions. Responses to the interview questions
also resulted in developing a third research question.
Once journal prompts were received, they were immediately uploaded to NVivo
coding software, and an auto coding process followed. The themes generated by the auto
codes did not significantly change until the new prompts were given. Once again, after
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generating auto codes from the first two participant journals with the new prompts, no new
themes or subthemes emerged. In the final interviews, the most notable theme to emerge was
that of social interactions and social skills. The researcher chose to probe participants further
on their experiences and allow them to elaborate at will on the concept of social interactions
and how they were able to transfer different social skills into their daily lives.
Procedures Followed
After initial expression of interest via email, all potential participants were contacted
via email, briefed on what would be required for the study, and asked if they wanted to
continue with the informed consent. Upon acceptance of the study requirements, the
participants were sent informed consent documents to read, sign, and indicate consent for
audio recording. Upon return of the executed documents, each participant received a link to
a SurveyPlanet.com survey to complete with the following questions, in addition to
demographic information such as age range and gender identification:
1. What is your profession?
2. What is/are your career goal/s?
3. What are the top 3 skills you would like to improve to start moving toward
obtaining your career goal(s) (choose 3 from below)?
4. How much experience do you have with Dungeons & Dragons?
The intent of asking these questions was to incorporate the common skills into each
session while also selecting individual skills for each player. Because of scheduling
conflicts, withdrawals, and emergencies, which participants would be playing from week to
week was unknown. Instead, the GM was instructed to choose three common skills to work
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into the scenarios while the researcher took field notes on the observable interactions during
the sessions.
The GM started Session 0 with DDAL08-00: Once in Waterdeep. This was a Session
0 scenario from 2019 in the Series 8 Adventure’s League series. Eight of the original nine
participants were present, and they all played so they could learn about the GM, each other,
and the Roll20 platform. After that session, six players attended the remaining four sessions,
and they all played in the scenarios.
Only three participants were consistently at each session. The sessions were
originally scheduled for five consecutive Saturdays. However, conflicts emerged. The final
scenarios schedule was as follows (all times are Pacific Daylight Time):
• Saturday, June 12, 2021, 12 p.m.–4 p.m.
• Saturday, June 19, 2021, 12 p.m.–4 p.m.
• Sunday, June 26, 2021, 12 p.m.–4 p.m.
• Saturday, July 3, 2021, 12 p.m.–4 p.m.
• Friday, July 9, 2021, 5 p.m.–9 p.m.
Initially, the sessions were to be every Saturday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. PDT due to
researcher and GM availability. However, there were two schedule changes that resulted in
one player missing each session.
During the sessions, the GM asked the participants if they had any questions or
addressed housekeeping issues, including talking over one another and allowing the GM to
have the final say on questions regarding the rules. The researcher was a silent observer
during the sessions, only making text-based comments to congratulate ingenuity or comedic
timing. The researcher took detailed field notes and kept track of time to remind the GM to
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take breaks and when the session was approaching its terminus. Most participants were
happy to stay and chat after the sessions. However, the GM and the researcher did not
participate in these conversations.
Using the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign setting, the GM went chapter by
chapter, opting to break the chapters into two to three sessions. The GM found that Chapter
II involved some factors that were not germane to the study and therefore opted to skip the
Chapter II scenarios. At the beginning of Chapter III, the GM also noted that he needed to
make a few modifications to the scenarios to help the adventure make sense with the team in
place as well as the scope of the study. Details of his modifications are shown in Appendix
C.
Because of team choices and dice rolls, the GM had to skip a significant portion of
Chapter III and pick up with the beginning of Chapter IV because the participants were able
to avoid several of the preplanned conflicts. At the time, the GM noted that the participants’
inexperience could have led them to make observations and choices more experienced
players would not have. After each scenario, the researcher sent the participants a prompts
list with a recap of the scenario, a reminder of the next session, and encouragement and
gratitude for their participation.
Upon receipt of the participants’ journal entries, the researcher coded the journals via
NVivo auto coding. At the end of the final session, the researcher scheduled interviews with
the six participants; however, only five responded. Of the five conducted interviews, four
had additional questions regarding social skills. All journal prompts and interview questions
are shown in Appendix A.
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Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness in qualitative research is established via credibility, dependability,
confirmability, and transferability, as well as ethical procedures as discussed in Yin (2009).
Credibility in the present study was established via triangulation, one of the most frequently
used methods in qualitative research for addressing issues of credibility (Cope, 2014; Moon
et al., 2016). The specific approach was method triangulation. Using the researcher’s
reflexive journal kept as observational data, journal prompts, final interviews, and survey
data, there were enough data to triangulate and explore them, identify answers to research
questions and interpret the data as they reflected the participants’ involvement in this study.
This type of triangulation is referred to as method triangulation (Carter et al., 2014). The
reflexive journal provided memory triggers for different observations and situational notes,
which informed the researcher during the in-depth interviews at the end of Week 5, a
technique Carter et al. (2014) similarly employed in their embedded multicase study.
According to Moon et. al (2016), there are four types of triangulation—method,
investigator, theory, and data source. Cope (2014) focused on using methods triangulation
for qualitative research. Methods triangulation involves using multiple data sources to draw
conclusions (Cope, 2014; Moon et al., 2016), which in the present study were participant
interviews, observation notes, journal entries from the participants, and the researcher’s
reflexive journal.
Jentoft and Olsen (2017) stated that triangulation not only follows the classic
definition found in sociology and psychology literature but also can have the navigational
definition applied when dealing with data analysis. Classically, triangulation is meant to
support a finding by using several independent measures that agree with the finding (Jentoft
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& Olsen, 2017). If using the navigational definition, as Jentoft and Olsen suggested, then
triangulation becomes a technique for drawing a single point from many.
Both of these definitions were valid and relevant to the present study. As discussed in
Chapter I, the researcher identified the preferred research approach as a combination of
postpositivism and pragmatism. Triangulation tends to be more used by positivists,
postpositivists, and constructionists (Carter et al., 2014; Moon, 2019). In Moon (2019),
postpositivism is defined as “belief that there is a single reality with hidden variables that
prevents us from fully understanding phenomena and there are no absolutes in nature” (p.
106).
Cope (2014) defined dependability as the constancy of data over similar conditions.
Korstjens and Moser (2017) suggested researchers create an audit trail, which Cope defined
as “a collection of materials and notes used in the research process that documents this
researcher’s decisions and assumptions” (p. 90). Including an audit trail provides
transparency and allows future researchers to replicate a study and obtain comparable results
(Cope, 2014; Korstjens & Moser, 2017). The audit trail for the present study consisted of
research notes, field notes, journal prompts, and interview transcripts and is only available
upon request from faculty or verified researchers conducting this same study.
Korstjens and Moser (2017) distinguished confirmability from dependability by
pointing out that dependability pertains to the aspect of consistency, whereas confirmability
pertains to the aspect of neutrality. Data interpretation should not reflect the researcher’s
preferences, bias, or viewpoints. To demonstrate confirmability, Cope (2014) recommended
using rich quotes from participant data to demonstrate and depict emerging themes in the
data. These quotes are found in Chapter IV.
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Though not specifically called out in the literature, the researcher did not read or
familiarize themself with any of the scenarios for this study. The researcher purchased the
campaign setting in both digital and hard copy form and gave them directly to the GM to
read and prepare. At no time did the researcher glean any prior knowledge of the campaign
scenarios used in this study, indicating a lack of bias for how the scenarios were both run and
played.
Transferability is the ability of applying findings to other settings or groups (Cope,
2014). If individuals who were not part of the study and other study readers can find
meaning in the study results, or can associate the results with their own experiences, then the
study is considered to have transferability. Cope also noted that the criterion of
transferability may only be relevant if the intent of the research is to generalize. Many
nonscientific narratives exist regarding the use of TRPGs for training and education
purposes. The present study may attain the criterion of transferability to a specific target
audience of educators, trainers, and employees who play TRPGs as pastimes and would be
interested in learning more about the scope of this research.
Ethical Concerns
Once each participant was confirmed, they were sent a copy of the informed consent
document. The document was sent to individual email addresses via Adobe Sign, with
indicators where they needed to sign or give consent. Once the participants signed the
informed consent forms, they were automatically returned to the researcher for review. The
participants were then sent a link to a SurveyPlanet.com questionnaire to collect prestudy
information. After completing the questionnaire, each participant was invited to take 60 min
with the researcher to create a character for the study. Not all participants needed 60 min for
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character creation. This length of time was chosen to allow for looking up information that
was not native in Roll20 (such as backgrounds and background descriptions) and adding it to
the character sheets.
Once characters were created, participants were instructed to change all display
names in Zoom and Roll20 to their character name. Unfortunately, account names were still
visible in the general area of Roll20. To give everyone as much privacy as possible, a direct
link was sent to the game room every week to bypass the general area where names could be
read. The direct link worked well to bypass the area where the account names were listed for
Roll20. If a participant logged into Zoom and had not changed their username, the
researcher allowed approximately 30 s for them to change their own name. If they had not
done so by then, the researcher went ahead and changed their name in Zoom. Most times, no
one really noticed.
All collected data, including informed consent documents, were stored on a USB
memory stick and will be maintained in a safety deposit box for 5 years. During the study
and writing process, all information was also stored in a folder inside the researcher’s
Dropbox account. No participants were referred to by their names, ages, or any other self-
identifying information. Interviews were conducted one-on-one via Zoom; journals were kept
in either Google Docs or sent directly in the body of emails to the researcher’s school email
address. Observational notes during sessions were recorded via Scrivener and saved to
Dropbox.
Data Analysis
Belotto (2018) presented a detailed account of how to conduct qualitative data
analysis. Because data for the present study were gathered from multiple sources, including
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interviews, participant journals, and direct observations, the researcher coded the narrative
responses. Belotto noted that coding can be daunting and cumbersome and suggested
following the coding procedures in Saldaña (2009).
Saldaña (2009) identified finding repetitive patterns in human affairs as documented
in the collected data as one of the primary goals in coding data. Belotto (2018) described his
struggles with coding and recommended researchers use codes that align with the research
questions to be answered. Doing so helps to reduce the number of potential codes and
provides context in which to create code categories that relate to the research questions.
In the present study, auto-generated codes in NVivo were first used to observe any
emerging themes before the researcher analyzed all the data by hand and generated a
codebook based on the exact research questions, as suggested in Belotto (2018). The
researcher used methods triangulation to ensure data accuracy and reduce researcher bias, as
suggested in Cope (2014), Korstjens and Moser (2017), and Belotto (2018), before
developing a narrative to express the data that emerged.
All data from journal prompts, field notes, and interviews were loaded into NVivo,
and auto codes were generated for all data. Once all data had been auto coded, the researcher
went through the data and coded phrases based on common themes that emerged in the data.
Finally, all data were analyzed against the research questions to determine if the research
questions had been answered sufficiently for this study. The auto codes provided
hierarchical categories while the researcher-generated codes provided the themes and
subthemes for the categories. Outlier data were considered and taken into the context of the
participant and the scenario. Discrepant data cases were immediately triangulated with the
researcher’s field notes and, where possible, the final interviews.
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Data saturation occurred during Week 4 of the prompts. The researcher chose to
continue with collecting data. Much of the data overlapped but effectively demonstrated the
participants’ abilities to describe their abilities to transfer the skills and the significance and
importance of doing so.
Once data analysis was complete and enough information was collected to complete
the presentation of findings, the researcher deleted the data from NVivo and retained the files
on the USB drive. Using their own reflexive journal kept as observational data, journal
prompts, final interviews, and survey data, the researcher had enough data to triangulate and
explore the data, correctly identify answers to the research questions, and properly interpret
the data in terms of the study participants.
Summary
Because of the shelter-in-place orders during COVID-19, the originally proposed
quantitative study had to be changed to a qualitative study. The researcher conducted an
exploratory case study via Roll20, a virtual tabletop program for RPGs, and Zoom, an audio-
video communication program widely used in businesses, involving a total of six participants
with fewer than 3 years experience playing the RPG Dungeons & Dragons. Initially, the
intent was to focus on each participants’ preselected skills, but this focus was expanded to
allowing the participants to explore skills that were not listed as part of the study.
The research results were expected to answer the questions of how the participants
perceived their abilities to transfer learned skills from the game to their personal, social, and
work lives and how the participants described the significance of their ability to transfer
learned skills from the game to their daily lives. But the data began to reveal more
information on certain social skills being of more importance than the preselected skills from
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the intake questionnaire. A new research question was developed to incorporate useful data
not considered prior to the start of the study.
After the final session of play, participants were interviewed using techniques in
Seidman (2006). The interviews had the same basic questions. However, each follow-up
question was tailored to the participant and based on previous answers to the main interview
questions.
During the 5-week duration of this study, the researcher sent journal prompts to
participants to answer, based on the game session of the week. The researcher addressed the
four components of trustworthiness—credibility, dependability, confirmability, and
transferability—by keeping an audit trail of all journal responses, interviews, interview
transcripts, observation notes, and a reflexive journal, reflecting guidance in Cope (2014) and
Korstjens and Moser (2017), using methods triangulation Cope, 2014; Moon et al., 2016),
using rich quotes (Cope, 2014), and providing context and setting to allow for nonparticipant
individuals and readers to find meaning and application of the study results to their own
experiences. Once the data were collected, the researcher analyzed the data, first by
generating autocodes in NVivo and then generating a code book and content analysis table
(see Belotto, 2018) to assist in developing the study’s narrative and address the research
questions. Results from analyzing the data collected for this study are discussed in Chapter
IV.
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CHAPTER IV: RESULTS
The purpose of this qualitative exploratory single-case study was to explore
participants’ perceptions of their abilities to recognize skill transference and to express their
feelings and thoughts about skill transference from RPGs in general, but specifically from
Dungeons & Dragons to their daily lives as an avenue toward self-improvement and
potential leadership development. Chapter I contained details on the specific problem and
research topic under investigation in this study. Chapter II was a review of extant literature
on role-playing, RPGs, and the benefits and downfalls of their use, as well as providing
literature on several theories on the use of games in training and education. Chapter III
provided details on the methodology used to conduct the study.
Chapter IV consists of descriptions of how the research plan was executed during the
study and the results of analyzing the data collected for this study. The results are presented
as they relate to the study’s research questions. The study results may contribute to the
existing body of academic literature by providing insights into participants’ thoughts and
feelings regarding skill transference and interpersonal communication. This chapter contains
three main sections: sample, data collection, and data analysis, and a chapter summary.
The following research questions were addressed through data collection and
analysis:
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Sample
A sample of eight participants was sought to ensure at least four active participants in
every session for this study. Using snowball sampling, the researcher posted and reposted to
multiple social media outlets, including Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and asked
personal contacts to repost the recruitment statement. This recruiting resulted in 14 inquiries.
Of them, two were personal friends of the researcher and were automatically eliminated, and
three were unwilling or unable to complete the assignments. The remaining nine agreed to
the project and filled out informed consent forms. Of them, one never showed, one withdrew
for mental health reasons, and one never came back to subsequent sessions, resulting in a
total active sample size of six.
Demographics
The demographic information collected revealed that participants were evenly
distributed among the 18–25 years age group, the 26–35 years age group, and the 46–55
years age group. According to the collected demographic information, there was also an
even split of players among male, female, and nonbinary gender identification. Two
participants were intermediate level in their career paths, one was midlevel, and one was
senior level. Two participants were unemployed at the time of the questionnaire, both of
whom were recent college graduates and listed as entry level on the intake questionnaire.
The participants represented various industries including video/mobile games, user
experience analyst, high school teacher, library sciences, and operations management.
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Of the proffered skills list, the top three skills were interpersonal communication,
time management, and resource management. The next top two skills were networking and
goal setting. Other skills of interest were oral presentation, creative problem-solving, and
decision-making. All participants had 3 or fewer years of experience playing Dungeons &
Dragons, with most of the experience being because of COVID-19 pandemic beginning in
2020 and lasting through 2022. Some participants had never played; others played weekly in
at least one game since the onset of the lockdown in March 2020.
Data Collection
Data collection included three sources of evidence: semistructured open-ended
interviews, weekly journal entries, and the researcher’s observation notes. This allowed for
methodological triangulation, which increases the dependability of the analysis.
Once consent was provided, the researcher began with an intake questionnaire to
collect contact and demographic information and to gauge interest in soft skills to address
during the gaming sessions. After the intake questionnaires were completed, each participant
spent approximately 1 hr creating a character in the Roll20 platform with the researcher.
This researcher’s role was that of guide and data entry when certain information was not
readily available in Roll20 (e.g., background choices, character flaws, etc.).
After the first session, called Session 0, the participants were emailed a list of journal
prompts for them to reflect upon and respond to. These prompts became the primary data
source for collection over the next 5 weeks. During Week 3, the participants requested new
prompts to help them produce new and better information for the research due to the fact they
were responding to three prompts each week and had cycled through them a few times. Both
sets of journal prompts can be found in Appendix A. Upon completion of the fifth and final
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session of the study, each of the six participants was sent an offer to schedule a structured
interview lasting no more than 90 min. These interviews lasted approximately 20–30 min.
Each interview had the same questions; however, follow-up questions were based on points
made by the participants in previous questions.
Unusual Circumstances
All of the original participants were aware play sessions would take place on
Saturdays from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, except where schedules conflicted.
One participant resided in Russia but never made it to a game session; one participant resided
in England and made it to all but one session. The goal of recruiting eight participants was to
ensure there were four players every session. After recruiting a total of nine players, each
session had five to six players. One participant sent journal prompts every week; the rest
sent them randomly throughout the study. Of the six active participants, five agreed to the
interviews.
Data Analysis and Results
Data collected from the semistructured interviews and journal prompts were imported
into NVivo. Autocodes were generated for an initial collection of data. The researcher then
went through and created codes from the text for recurring themes. The themes naturally fell
into hierarchical categories, with the top three being skill identification, social interactions,
and leadership. Each theme had three subthemes corresponding to deeper emotional
connections and higher order thinking. Each of the subthemes that emerged from the data are
discussed next to correspond to a specific research question. All themes and subthemes,
however, worked together to answer each research question.
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Findings
The findings are presented by individual research question and include both main
themes and subthemes related to each question. Table 2 provides a visual representation of
the data that follow.
Table 2
Breakdown of Data for Major Themes and Subthemes
Main theme No. of Subtheme No. of references Research

references question
Skill 25 Weakness 20 1
identification identification
Problem 40 2
identification
Problem resolution 22 3
Social 32 Teamwork 22 1
interactions
Delegation 40 2
Conflict resolution 21 3
Leadership 22 Decision-making 10 1
skills
Emotional response 6 2
Empathy 6 3
Research Question 1
The first research question asked how the participants described their ability to
transfer learned skills from the game to their personal, social, and work lives. Analysis of the
data in the interview transcripts and the weekly journal prompts demonstrated the increase in
the participants’ abilities to identify the skills they found themselves using in the game and
how they adapted the skill usage to these aspects of their lives.
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There were 25 references to skill identification throughout the data. Specific skills
listed by participants included weakness identification (20 references), problem identification
(40 total references), and problem resolution (22 references).
Main Theme 1: Skill Identification
The first main theme to appear was the participants’ ability to present and articulate
the skills they were using and how they were incorporating them into their daily lives. Five
of the six participants sent in journal prompts or were interviewed. All five were able to
describe specific skills they used in the game. They were also able to provide examples of
how they used these skills in their daily life and what, if any, improvements came along with
the skills over the course of the five weeks.
One participant, Calandra (character name), indicated the following: “Developing my
ability to play D&D has already helped me become more decisive, more honest, and open
about my thoughts and feelings, and more vocal about needing help—especially in a group.”
During his one-on-one interview, Mayhewn provided the following insight when asked about
his ability to transfer skills:
I would say yes, [skill transference] did occur, mainly along the lines of quickly
responding to a problem and trying to come up with a solution, and also in trying to
talk to others and make deals with them . . . Critical thinking, which the first thing
definitely relevant for this researcher’s particular job.
Subtheme 1: Problem Identification
Four of the five participants interviewed specifically discussed problem identification
as part of skills identification. These participants indicated an increased ability in critical
thinking and break down of problems (deconstruction). Pavel, one of the participants,
identified their ability to break down a problem and assign the parts to the rest of their team:
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Let’s get the hardest things done first before something falls out from under us, then
deal with the easy parts . . . If I see someone struggling with a small part of the
problem that they were dealing with on their own, I’d help them immediately.
There were 32 references to social interactions throughout the data. Specific skills listed by
participants included teamwork (22 references), delegation (40 total references), and conflict
resolution (21 references).
Main Theme 2: Social Interactions
The second main theme to emerge from the data was the participants’ ability to
describe how the social aspects of the game transferred to their daily lives. Four participants
expressed various thoughts on certain social encounters. Fina stated that “Using
[interpersonal communication] skills within the game feels easier since the risk of an
awkward encounter doesn’t seem to be as devastating.” Pavel recounted a moment in the
adventure where they de-escalated combat by simply talking to their perceived enemy: “I
can’t believe I actually started to undo combat just by talking to the guy. As the rest of us
also got into the conversation, we all contributed to creative problem-solving.”
Subtheme 1: Teamwork
Pavel’s statement was one of 11 references made among four of the five participants
interviewed. Hereck stated,
D&D is a collaborative game. The only way to win, such as it is, is to create a good
story with the other players. And the only way to do that is to act as a team. As
much as Hereck would love to go at each issue with his axe and pound it into
submission, there are times he needs to step back and allow others to apply their
talents to it, as theirs might be superior to his in various instances.
During the final interview, Hereck further commented,
So, people are helping others. People are asking for help. People are offering help.
Sometimes, it’s good. Sometimes, it’s not good advice. But it helps people ask for
when they need help, people who offer too much help are sometimes chided for that
and put in their place. And that also teaches a valuable social skills lesson: Your
opinion is not the only one that matters.
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Remarking on a situation from the game and how a specific choice caused some team
tension, Fina stated, “I could have included my team in my thinking so that they better
understood my intentions.”
There were 22 references to leadership skills throughout the data. Specific skills
listed by participants included decision-making (10 references), emotional response (six
references), and empathy (six references).
Main Theme 3: Leadership
The third main theme to emerge from the data was the participants’ ability to describe
the leadership skills they discovered during game play and transfer these skills to their daily
lives. All five participants interviewed mentioned leadership skills in their journal prompts
and interviews.
Subtheme 1: Decision-Making
All five of the participants interviewed discussed decision-making skills as part of
their experiences within the game. Pavel noted,
I was actually shocked that I managed to take the reins last session and led the group
forward. In this development that I’ve had by playing, I realized I could actually
apply it to this researcher’s life, such as having a creative solution to a problem.
Pavel also noted that the development of soft skills was a new process for them and that
playing the game definitely provided them with a safe space to practice.
The main themes and subthemes were intertwined in answering the research
questions. Specifically, the theme of leadership was so intertwined among the three research
questions that it was difficult to separate out subthemes. Pavel, Calandra, and Fina
discovered they had more leadership qualities than they thought and were excited about the
prospect of developing these skills further in other games. Mayhewn and Hereck identified
negative leadership qualities in themselves and discussed ways to address them.

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Research Question 2
RQ2 was, How do participants describe the significance of their ability to transfer
learned skills from playing Dungeons & Dragons to their daily lives? Thematic analysis of
the journal prompts and five interview transcripts, as previously stated, led to the emergence
of three main themes: skill identification, social interactions, and leadership skills. These
main themes were acknowledged in the scope of the first research question. Therefore, this
section is an exploration of the subthemes for each of the main themes as they relate to the
research question.
Main Theme 1, Subtheme 1: Weakness Identification
With the emergence of the main theme of skill identification, the first subtheme to
appear was weakness identification. All five participants identified weaknesses through their
journal prompts or interview transcripts. Calandra noted the following:
During one of my turns, I had the opportunity to act, but didn’t . . . I often do that in
situations where I am unsure of this myself. I do nothing instead of trying something
that may work because no result is better than a failing one.
Fina also noted an example from their daily life: “I feel like my ability to identify the specific
situations where [resource management] would be useful is very high. I am usually able to
keep track of what’s needed and when and how things should be divided.” Pavel stated:
I’m still very iffy on applying, let alone identifying, soft skill placement, sadly. But I
know a bit more about applying now as I keep playing. However, identifying it can
be difficult for me as I tend to get overwhelmed when I try to think of what skill to
apply.
Main Theme 2, Subtheme 2: Delegation
The second subtheme to emerge fell under the main theme of social interactions.
Four of the five participants discussed delegation as part of their journal prompts. Mayhewn
described a situation in their work environment and suggested:
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If Mayhewn was working where I do the issue would either be too much work or an
upcoming deadline. In either case Mayhewn would try to get in contact with his
fellow testers to see if anyone was free and could pick some of it up. If that was not
possible, he would talk with his line manager and see if the deadline could be
extended, and if not if he could get paid extra for doing overtime, probably using
guidance to help be persuasive.
Hereck also discussed a situation in the game and expressed the character’s thought process
for handling a situation in the game involving enchanted brooms: “He recognized that the
brooms were a nuisance, but that others present had some skills that could be applied to
dealing with them, whereas the threat to the life of the man in the well was much more
immediate.”
Main Theme 3, Subtheme 2: Emotional Response
The second subtheme to emerge under the main theme of leadership skills was
emotional response. Four participants discussed this subtheme in their journal prompts.
Hereck provided an example of their character’s reaction to a real-life situation: “For
example, if he was driving when my truck broke down, he might well have taken his axe to
the engine and then found alternative transportation.” Fina described the general game
situation with their feelings on it:
My character is faced with the challenge of working with team members who have
overbearing personalities. My first instinct is to push against this through passive
aggressiveness or anger. My character needs to work with this team and must trust
them to help her when needed so I look for other ways to handle it.
The participants had several opportunities in which to explore their emotional
responses to various situations in the game scenarios as well as outside of the scenarios.
During this researcher’s observation, players were chatting with each other after one of the
sessions. There was a discussion of families and COVID-19. One of the participants
apologized for bringing down the mood of the game after the GM commented that the
researcher lost their own father to COVID-19 in December 2020. The GM responded by
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stating, “Within the process of spending time together as characters and as people, we love
and support each other.”
Though the GM responses were not specifically coded into the data, the statement
reinforces the answer to the question regarding the significance of skill transference by
demonstrating a rationally emotional response to a participant who was unable to move
forward in their processing of emotions. This participant would eventually drop from the
study for unrelated mental health issues.
Research Question 3
RQ3 was, How do participants perceive their development in social interaction skills
after playing the Dungeons & Dragons scenarios? This research question emerged from the
data and the thematic analysis of the journal prompts and interview transcripts of the five
participants who completed these items. The three main themes that emerged––skill
identification, social interactions, and leadership skills––were acknowledged in the scope of
the first research question. Therefore, the following section is an exploration of the
subthemes for each of the main themes as they relate to the third research question.
Main Theme 1, Subtheme 3: Problem Resolution
Four of the five participants discussed problem resolution in the context of the game
and their daily lives. Hereck expressed, “I have often had to step back and let others apply
their talents, to make the experience of customers better, to improve the flow of business, or
to look at a problem from a perspective I had not considered.” Pavel stated, “If I see
someone struggling with a small part of the problem that they were dealing with on their
own, I’d help them immediately.” Calandra offered the following as a direct answer to the
research question: “Developing this researcher’s ability to play D&D has already helped me
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become more decisive, more honest and open about this researcher’s thoughts and feelings,
and more vocal about needing help, especially in a group.”
Main Theme 2, Subtheme 3: Conflict Resolution
Emerging as a subtheme under the main theme of social interactions, three
participants discussed conflict resolution in their journal prompts and interviews. Pavel had
the most to say about conflict resolution: “I can’t believe I actually started to undo combat
just by talking to the guy.” Hereck discussed the concept of role-playing various characters:
Role playing different characters with different personalities and backgrounds enables
me to put myself in other people’s shoes, so to speak, and see a situation from their
viewpoint as opposed to just my own. This is often useful in conflict resolution,
which in the hospitality industry is very important.
Fina expressed a situation in which their character employed a skill they themself would like
to develop further to assist in acquiring a position in their degree field: “If I could develop
this skill [of networking] further and spend time creating relationships with these
professionals, I would have a much better chance of getting a foot in the door.”
Main Theme 3, Subtheme 3: Empathy
The final subtheme to emerge under the main theme of leadership skills was that of
empathy. Two of the five participants discussed this important social skill. In follow-up to
Fina’s emotional response regarding the general game situation, they stated,
I look for other ways to handle it. Step 1, choose this researcher’s battles. If our goal
is the same, it can be better to let the other person take the lead. Step 2, don’t lose
myself within the group. Make sure that this researcher’s choices are this
researcher’s own and I stand for the things I choose. Step 3, be understanding. This
person may be using this as their only chance to feel in charge. If it isn’t hurting me
and this researcher’s goals, I should let them enjoy their own time to lead.
Hereck said, “One thing that D&D shows me is how to put this researcher’s self in another
person’s frame of mind and see how it differs from this researcher’s own.” Hereck further
stated,
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I work in customer service and have often dealt with less-than-pleasant people. Some
customers can be downright awful. Much like Hereck, many of them are blunt
objects that speak. But the ability to view a situation from a different point of view
helps me to see how they might be perceiving the situation.
Dungeons & Dragons is a social game and relies on social interaction and
communication among the players and GM. The emergence of the third research question
came as a direct result of the interview with Hereck, who had much to say about general
social skills. Pavel also provided data on social skills development, leading with a discussion
of mental health development focused on autism in their interview. They stated,
I’m autistic. So, a lot of it ends up being somewhat difficult, but due to RPGs and
tabletops specifically, I feel like I’m getting a lot more confidence in this researcher’s
use of language skills, in the use of language to paint a clearer picture of what I would
like from people or paint a clear picture of what I could do for people.
Summary
The purpose of this qualitative single-case exploratory case study was to explore how
the participants identified and described their ability to transfer skills from the game to their
personal, social, and work lives and to discover what, if any, growth occurred during the five
sessions. Chapter IV provided the presentation of findings from the thematic analysis of
journal prompts and final interviews with five study participants. A total of 12 themes were
generated by a thematic analysis of journal prompts and final interviews. Three main themes
and nine subthemes were established to address the study’s three research questions.
Most of the participants identified situations in which they were able to transfer skills
used in the game to their daily lives. Some examples presented included increased awareness
of others’ perspectives and the ability or inability to identify specific skills to employ in
various situations. The participants identified the significance of being able to transfer skills
from the game to daily life by discussing weaknesses in themselves and recognizing areas in
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need of improvement. Most participants were also able to identify an increase in specific
skills such as decision-making and teamwork.
The third research question developed from the data and focused on the participants’
perceptions of their social skills in the game and how they transferred these skills to their
daily lives. Three of the five participants were able to articulate their personal development
in areas such as conflict management and leadership skills by playing the game and
interacting in a safe space with other people. The participants reported an increase in their
awareness of skill transferability from the game to their daily lives, and several expressed an
interest in using RPGs to further develop their skills. Chapter V is an explanation of the data
presented in Chapter IV and a discussion of the study implications, limitations, and
recommendations for future research.
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CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION
The purpose of this qualitative single-case study was to explore how and to what
extent six study participants were able to transfer skills learned and developed from
Dungeons & Dragons to their personal, social, and work lives, along with their perceptions
of their newly acquired social interaction skills. Chapter V contains a discussion of the study
findings as they relate to the literature reviewed for this study and the theories used. Study
limitations, implications for theory and research, and future research opportunities are also
presented. The chapter ends with conclusions regarding the findings and how the findings
contribute to the larger body of literature.
Research Questions
Three research questions guided this study:
Thematic analysis was used to develop and extract meaningful themes from the
responses participants gave through journal prompts and interviews. Using Saldaña’s (2009)
coding procedures, three main themes and nine subthemes were identified. Social
interactions and social skills development were indicated with themes such as involving
others, group work, decision-making, and problem resolution. The participants noted that as
they played in the sessions, they were increasingly more able to identify problems and
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personal weaknesses and take the opportunity to delegate and involve others in the situations.
According to the data, the participants found the study to be significant to their lives and
indicated a desire to continue using RPGs to positively contribute to their own personal
development and the development of students and children. In this chapter, the themes are
discussed in relation to past theories and the literature. Recommendations, implications, and
conclusions are also presented.
Interpretation of Findings
In this section, the results of the current study are discussed along with the supporting
literature related to the concepts explored or investigated over the course of this study. Given
the length of time from the start of the study to finish, the academic databases were recently
searched for the newest empirical data and supporting literature deemed valid. The purpose
of this section is to confirm or deny the key findings of this study with previously recorded
information on skill transference from MMOGs. As shown in Table 3 and in Peterson (2012)
and Witwer (2015), the intentions of the original Dungeons & Dragons developer provided
evidence to the accuracy of the concepts put forth that RPGs provide a safe space for
participants to explore cooperative opportunities and receive immediate feedback on their
choices and the consequences of those choices.
Findings for Research Question 1
RQ1 was, How do participants describe their ability to transfer learned skills from
playing Dungeon & Dragons to their daily, social, and work lives? This research question
was answered with main themes of skill identification, social interactions, and leadership and
subthemes of weakness identification, teamwork, and decision-making.
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Table 3
Themes and Subthemes for Research Question 1 With Supporting Literature Excerpts
Theme and subtheme Literature excerpts

Main theme 1: Skill In Blume et al. (2019), skill identification was the initial part of
identification participants moving forward with either closed skills (reproduction of
procedure for completion of task) or open skills (accomplishment of
task using general principle). As sessions progressed, participants
expressed their increasing ability to look at a situation through the
context of the game and select appropriate actions to problem-solve
(open skills).
Subtheme 1: Weakness In the same degree as skill identification, participants were able to express
identification their abilities to identify areas where open skills (Blume et al., 2019)
would be helpful to their completion of tasks or even problem solve.
Main theme 2: Social Lofgren and Fefferman (2007) identified the human factor in the virtual
interactions world of World of Warcraft. The team noted the strong division of
those who would “troll” others by leading infected nonplaying
characters into low-level areas to kill everyone and those who would
attempt to assist the infected to heal them.
Subtheme 1: Teamwork Staňková et al. (2019) and Wright et al. (2020) noted that game-based
learning supports development of various social skills, supports moral
integrity, and provides a safe space for exploring choices. Dungeons &
Dragons is, specifically, a cooperative game that requires teamwork
and social interaction to succeed (Parker & Lepper, 1987; Witwer,
2015).
Main theme 3: Leadership T. Brown (2011) noted that role-playing games disrupt the Sloan
leadership model by not having a designated and permanent team
leader. The team leader is selected by the team-up group based on
experience, skill, knowledge, etc., providing numerous opportunities
for players to partake in leadership positions.
Subtheme 1: Decision-making In the case of the participants, they were able to make full use their social
skills in coming to an effective (or ineffective) decision (Hesse et al.,
2015). Through talking over the possible solutions, they shared a
mindset, plan, and goal for resolving the problem at hand, allowing
them to come to a collective decision for action (Hesse et al., 2015).
In Blume et al. (2017), skill identification was the initial part of participants moving
forward with either closed skills (reproduction of procedure for completion of task) or open
skills (accomplishment of task using general principle). As the sessions progressed,
participants expressed their increasing ability to look at a situation through the context of the
game and select appropriate actions to problem-solve (open skills).
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Exploring the responses to journal prompts and interview transcripts, participants
articulated and defined the skills they learned from the game that they were able to use in
their daily lives. They were able to use both skill identification and weakness identification
to their advantage and were able to express positive outcomes after extended play.
Participants were also able to document their understanding of how these skills could assist
them in their career trajectories, whether the trajectories were at the job-seeking level or the
promotion level (see Chapter IV).
At the beginning of the study, the participants documented frustrations about their
inability to identify skills to apply in specific situations. By the end of the study, they
expressed an improvement in identifying skills in the scenario to use and were beginning to
be able to perform the same task in their daily lives. Blume et al. (2017) and Huang et al.
(2017) indicated that the ability to use vertical transfer of open skills has a higher predictor–
transfer relationship, owing to similarities in most contexts where the skills are applicable
(e.g., creative problem-solving).
The present study’s findings indicated that the participants were able to articulate and
describe their ability to transfer skills by explicitly highlighting their perceived inability to
identify skills in a given moment and then demonstrate their perceived improvement in skill
identification by the end of the 5 weeks, sufficiently answering the research question. The
researcher theorized that individuals normally do not think about the learning tasks or skills
intentionally, only when specifically prompted or requested, hence the improved ability to
apply, focus, and improve. The findings satisfied the answer to the research question based
on the general problem of MMORPGs providing solutions versus TRPGs where the solutions
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need to come from collaboration (Whitwer, 2015) and social interactions (Blume et al., 2017;
Lofgren & Fefferman, 2007; Lord et al., 2011; Staňková et al., 2019; Wright et al., 2020).
Lofgren and Fefferman (2007) identified the human factor in the virtual world of
World of Warcraft. The team noted the strong division of those who would “troll” others by
leading infected NPCs into low-level areas to kill everyone and those who would attempt to
assist the infected to heal them during the Corrupted Blood outbreak, which became one of
the most studied cases in epidemiology and was referenced during COVID-19 planning and
preparation.
Applying the Corrupted Blood outbreak to the present study, it was possible to
identify the human factor among the participants when one participant chose to step outside
of themself and take a leadership position in the team. The team supported the choices the
participant made and began to assist in the interaction to clarify meaning when the lead
participant was unclear.
RQ2 was, How do participants describe the significance of their ability to transfer
learned skills from playing Dungeons & Dragons to their daily, social, and work lives?
Analysis of the interview transcripts and journal responses showed that the participants were
able to articulate their opinions and thoughts on the significance of their ability to transfer
skills from the game to daily life. This research question was answered with themes
involving the main themes of skill identification, social interactions, and leadership skills and
the subthemes of problem identification, delegation, and emotional response. Table 4 shows
the themes and subthemes and excerpts from the literature in support.
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Table 4

identification participants moving forward with either closed skills (reproduction of
procedure for completion of task) or open skills (accomplishment of
task using general principle). As sessions progressed, participants
context of the game and select appropriate actions to problem-solve
(open skills).
Subtheme 2: Problem Pearl et al. (2019) clearly remarked that identifying problems was one of
identification the five crucial steps in critical thinking. A second step also employed
by participants was presenting multiple potential solutions before
deciding on the direction to go.
Main theme 2: Social Lofgren and Fefferman (2007) identified the human factor in the virtual
interactions world of World of Warcraft. The team noted the strong division of
those who would “troll” others by leading infected nonplaying
characters into low-level areas to kill everyone and those who would
attempt to assist the infected to heal them.
Subtheme 2: Delegation T. Brown (2011) and Yan (2014) identified soft skills such as critical
thinking, team leadership and creative problem-solving as skills that
can be learned through experiential games—specifically, the games
challenge the Sloan leadership model by not having a permanent and
dedicated leader. Instead, the team delegates the leadership position to
the most qualified player.
experience, skill, knowledge, etc., providing numerous opportunities
for players to partake in leadership positions.
Subtheme 2: Emotional In some cases, participants were able to identify where their emotional
response response would have resulted in poor decisions or outcomes both in the
game and in their daily lives. Extrapolating from Merriam (2008), adult
learning is a multidimensional process which also involves emotions
for the brain to make meaningful connections.
Participants were able to identify the specific skills they employed and describe
scenarios in their daily lives where they could use these skills. One participant focused on
collaborative problem-solving (Hesse et al., 2015) as one of the skills they developed during
the study. They discussed the importance of that skill to their self in relation to the mental
health issues they generally faced.
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Participants’ abilities to identify emotional responses was a subtheme identified in the
data. In some cases, participants were able to identify where their emotional response would
have resulted in poor decisions or outcomes both in the game and in their daily lives.
Extrapolating from Merriam (2008), adult learning is a multidimensional process that also
involves emotions for the brain to make meaningful connections.
During their interview, another participant also elaborated on the social aspect of the
game, which Witwer (2015) stated was the focus of the resolution of role play sessions. Two
participants believed using RPGs was significantly important for developing certain social-
based skills such as persuasion, nonverbal communication, and conflict resolution, as
acknowledged in Bailenson and Yee (2007). Participants were also able to identify key
moments in their daily lives where transferring skills from the game to their personal
situations was significant in resolving their tasks. Literature indicates, and the present
study’s findings support, that RPGs, both TRPGs and MMORPGs, are valid tools for
developing and training leadership skills and abilities in safe environments (T. Brown, 2011;
Parker & Lepper, 1987; Wright et al., 2020; Yan, 2014). Further, Pearl et al. (2019) clearly
remarked that identifying problems was one of the five crucial steps in critical thinking. A
second step that the study participants also employed was presenting multiple potential
solutions before deciding on the direction to go.
RQ3 was, What are the participants’ perceptions of personal development in social
interaction skills after playing the Dungeons & Dragons scenarios? The third research
question developed from the data gleaned in the final interviews. This research question was
answered with themes involving the main themes of skill identification, social interactions,
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and leadership skills and the subthemes of problem resolution, conflict resolution, and
empathy. Table 5 shows the themes and subthemes and excerpts from the literature in
support.
Table 5
identification participants moving forward with either closed skills (reproduction
of procedure for completion of task) or open skills (accomplishment
of task using general principle). As sessions progressed, participants
context of the game and select appropriate actions to problem solve
(open skills).
Subtheme 3: Problem Lord et al. (2011) discussed the aspect of leadership in which a leader
resolution can affect intrapersonal constructs within a group or team, which
then allows the group or team to adapt their behavioral responses in
varying situations, creating a more complex and dynamic form of
leadership.
Main theme 2: Social Lofgren and Fefferman (2007) identified the human factor in the
interactions virtual world of World of Warcraft. The team noted the strong
division of those who would “troll” others by leading infected
nonplaying characters into low-level areas to kill everyone and
those who would attempt to assist the infected to heal them.
Subtheme 3: Conflict P. Brown and Levinson (1987), Rodriguez and Boyer (2018), and
resolution Rudra et al. (2011) noted that role-playing in a business setting has
been used for years; one of the areas business role-playing is used is
in conflict resolution training.
experience, skill, knowledge, etc., providing numerous
opportunities for players to partake in leadership positions.
Subtheme 3: Empathy As stated in Hesse et al. (2015), collaborative problem-solving
requires the full use of social skills, including a shared mindset,
plan, and goal for the problem. Extrapolating from those
requirements, one could assume that there is also a shared empathy
among the participants and that empathy could further extend to the
nonplaying characters or enemies being faced in the game situation.
This would factor into the participants’ abilities to act with justice,
mercy, or other action.
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Participants had opportunities presented to them during the sessions where they could
take the lead in a situation. There were some minor challenges when these situations arose
that were handled in the moment (such as one person talking over another); however, the
participants seemed able to navigate team conflicts well. One participant discussed the
significance of their developing social interactions due to mental health issues, including
autism spectrum disorder. Two participants identified the potential of TRPGs being used
with children to teach social skills and collaborative problem-solving.
T. Brown (2011) and Vella et al. (2020) identified the principle of freedom to fail in
the use of online games, and one participant also mentioned this principle during their
interview. During observations of the sessions, the researcher noted the team dynamics and
emerging leaders during the sessions, which Curral et al. (2017) discussed at length. Their
findings were important to note in the present study because the emerging leaders spoke
toward their social awkwardness or mental health issues. Lord et al. (2011) also discussed
the aspect of leadership in which a leader can affect intrapersonal constructs in a group or
team, which then allows the group or team to adapt their behavioral responses in varying
situations. This creates a more complex and dynamic form of leadership, supporting the
present study’s subthemes of conflict resolution and problems resolution.
The participants’ abilities to articulate their acknowledgement of their perceived
development in social skills satisfies the intent of RQ3. The advancement from feeling lost
and alone to taking the opportunities presented to be involved in the leadership of the team
coincides with research presented in T. Brown (2011), Hesse et al. (2015), Parker and Lepper
(1987), Staňková et al. (2019), Witwer (2015), and Wright et al. (2020) stating that
cooperative learning in a safe setting, such as an RPG, produces opportunities for participants
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to act and react without fear of social stigma or negative workplace consequences. The
findings from this study regarding the data-driven research question furthered findings from
T. Brown and Vella et al. (2020) by providing a much-needed view from the participant-
player viewpoint of how the concepts of empathy (a subtheme) in the constraints of gender
presentation to the group affect team dynamics and emergent leadership.
Unusual Findings
During the final interview, Pavel mentioned how the training and focus on skills,
especially those in the social realm, proved to be vital to their development as a person on the
autism spectrum and who also possesses several other mental health issues. As indicated in
Pavel’s comment, neurodivergent people need safe spaces to try different social interactions.
Dungeons & Dragons is a distinctly social game, requiring teamwork, networking, and other
social interactions (Witwer, 2015). Valorozo-Jones (2021) noted that neurodivergent players
may seem like they are able to collaborate and work in groups and teams; however, they tend
to frequently defer to others’ wants and needs and prioritizing others over themselves.
Calandra stated, “Developing my ability to play D&D has already helped me become more
decisive, more honest, and open about my thoughts and feelings, and more vocal about
needing help—especially in a group.” Pavel’s affirmation was the following:
I’m autistic . . . but due to RPGs and tabletops specifically, I feel like I’m getting a lot
more confidence in my use of language skills, in the use of language to paint a clearer
picture of what I would like from people.
The fact that a participant was able to link neurodivergency with leadership
development in the context of a role-playing setting was unusual and spoke to the
participant’s developed skills of problem identification and problem resolution. This finding
was not something the present study’s researcher considered when discussing the evolved
research question with participants during their final interviews. The researcher is also
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neurodivergent and hypothesized that many RPG players, in particular those who play high
fantasy and horror genre RPGs, are also neurodivergent. Neurodivergency was not a topic in
the scope of this study; it does, however, suggest avenues for future research, as delineated
later in this chapter.
Limitations of the Research
This study reflects several limitations. Key among them was the sample size. Initial
participant recruitment efforts only yielded three responses. Snowball sampling—sharing the
recruitment post across various social media outlets—was then encouraged, which resulted in
six additional responses.
Of the original participants, one never played in any of the sessions, one withdrew for
mental health reasons, one played in one session, and the other six played in anywhere from
two to five sessions each. Losing these players increased the lack of large-scale data, which
limited the generalization of the qualitative findings. Qualitative findings, in and of
themselves, are limited in terms of generalization; the loss of participants only compounds
the issue for the present study.
The amount of allowable experience became a liability during the play sessions. Two
participants had never played Dungeons & Dragons. One participant was also a dungeon
master (which is the same as a GM) for another group, despite only playing for 1 year,
meaning the participant understood the game to the extent that they could facilitate scenarios
and campaigns—a managerial level in a business context. Two participants played in
multiple games per week since the start of quarantine in March 2020, meaning they were able
to have consistent play time for 1.5 years prior to the start of the study, which is uncommon
in typical TRPG settings. Three participants played in weekly tabletop RPGs that included a
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Dungeons & Dragons game, which again is unusual and deviated from a stereotypical group.
As for experience with Roll20, all but the GM and two participants had experience with
Roll20 to various degrees. This could have bias implications for the data. However, as with
all qualitative data, it is difficult to analyze the credibility and validity of the data because it
is subjective.
There were some technical issues during Session 0 (the first session to introduce the
players to each other and their play styles). The GM had difficulty loading the maps and
tokens needed for the game into Roll20. A significant portion of time was taken so the GM
could figure out how to insert the necessary items for the game.
After the first session, the GM chose to seek out a teacher for Roll20 and spent
approximately 2 hr learning the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the software between
Session 0 and Session 1 of the study. By engaging with someone who possessed more
experience, the GM was able to learn the system quickly and provide a smooth session for
the next dedicated game night. The participants also managed to skip over most of the
prepared scenario in Session 3, forcing the GM to run the beginning of the next scenario
unprepared. This situation can be common in the game, depending on how the team works
together and whether the members allow for engaging NPCs in dialogue that potentially
could eliminate combat. Everyone handled the sudden change very well, and the participants
expressed how much fun they had during that session. This situation required expert
knowledge to understand not only the data collected but also the detriment to credibility and
validity of the data collected.
The questionnaire administered to the study participants provided several skills
germane to leadership development that they could select from. However, this could have
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introduced a bias into the study since there was no request for feedback or suggestions from
participants. Qualitative research is also often limited by fewer funds and less time;
however, it also costs a significant amount of time and energy to manage, gather, and analyze
the data.
This study was originally designed as a mixed methods study involving a comparison
between virtual TRPGs and in-person TRPGs. However, the pandemic created a situation in
which players were forced to default to virtual worlds. This particular and unique situation
caused a limitation in how participants were recruited. The original idea of fewer than 3
years of playing because TRPG groups have trouble scheduling consistent games was
retained; however, the pandemic allowed for people to play in multiple games per week,
increasing their familiarity with the game and system.
As seen in Kenner and Weinerman (2011), soft skills development is done informally,
and as Wright et al. (2020) noted, RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons are informal. As
Taylor and Lamoreaux (2008) stated, for the brain to make meaningful connections in the
adult learning process, the learning needs to be associated with a physical, embodied
experience, which, as Wright et al. stated, is how Dungeons & Dragons works. Based on
emergent data from this study, there is a lack of information on neurodiversity in adult
learners, especially in the workplace. Of the articles reviewed for this study, most were on
cognitive disabilities in children and adolescents or focused on more severe neurodivergence
such as autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, etc. Few journal articles seemed to
address more common neurodivergent issues such as ADHD or childhood PTSD, which are
common psychological issues stemming from hyperactivity in the brain or childhood trauma.
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Implications for Theory and Research
Wright et al. (2020) stated that RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons could be tools for
training and development of moral judgment. Their study focused on gathering quantitative
data to determine if moral development occurred in the two test groups. There was, however,
no feedback from the participants on how they felt about the experiment or how they
perceived their own development. Pragmatically speaking, it is necessary to understand
participants’ thoughts, opinions, and feelings when it comes to training initiatives, especially
if the initiatives are to be considered for implementation in a nonacademic setting. Since
Wright et al. focused primarily on the quantitative side of research, the present study’s
qualitative aspect balances and confirms Wright et al.’s findings.
Pavel, a participant in the present study, discussed at length issues with
neurodivergence and expressed how they believed RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons and
Call of Cthulhu had helped them in displaying more neurotypical social skills. They
admitted they were not where they would like to be in their development of neurotypical
social skills, but RPGs provided them the opportunity to safely try interactions that may have
more negative consequences in the real world. They also expressed how being able to
sample these behaviors in the game setting resulted in the opportunity to discuss why
something worked or did not work and the opportunity to analyze the interaction in an
introspective way to understand the reasons what they chose to do worked or did not work.
More research in neurodiversity and training using RPGs is needed.
The present study’s researcher acknowledges the many references to Pavel in this
document. The multiple references are not because Pavel’s insights were more important
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than others, it was that Pavel consistently provided more data than the others in the weekly
journals.
Future Research
Based on the present study’s findings, additional research on how RPGs in the
context of leadership and talent development could fall under the category of diversity,
equity, and inclusion initiatives by addressing questions aimed toward neurodivergency is
indicated. Anecdotally, many people who play RPGs self-identify as neurodivergent.
Neurodiverse or neurotypical self-identifying gamers could provide populations for
numerous studies, including replicating the current study with a specific subset of self-
identified gamers from various professional backgrounds. Future replications of this study
could focus on specific professional-level groups such as executives, middle management,
supervisors, and leadership trainees. A compare/contrast case study could then draw more
data to further determine the viability of RPGs as training tools in an organizational
development setting.
Further, conducting this study as originally intended—as a mixed methods study—
could provide even more insights as the participants’ responses and reflections would inform
any test data that would come from skills-based assessments conducted before, at midpoint,
and after the study. There are many avenues to explore; future research is definitely needed,
and there are more possibilities than can be presented here.
Conclusion
COVID-19 caused a shift in how people interact. The world became smaller as
people were able to connect in virtual spaces. One of the unforeseen subcultures to grow
during the pandemic was that of virtual tabletop gaming, which allowed people to interact
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with other humans while keeping socially distant. It was also a way for people to develop
certain soft skills if they paid attention to doing so.
The purpose of this qualitative exploratory single-case study was to explore the
thoughts and feelings on skill transference from five sessions of Dungeons & Dragons. The
skills specified on the intake questionnaire were chosen specifically due to their leadership
qualities. Journal prompts over the 5 weeks and a final in-depth interview with five of the
participants were used to collect data regarding their perceptions of their abilities to identify
and transfer skills from the game scenarios to their daily lives. The study addressed three
research questions regarding participants’ perceptions of their ability to transfer skills and,
specifically, their feelings on their personal development of social interactions. The
participants identified skills they were able to transfer and describe scenarios in which they
found themselves doing so. There was no measurement of increase of skill ability, only the
participants’ perceptions.
Two participants specifically mentioned using RPGs as a means for developing social
skills in children and those with autism spectrum disorder, among other neurodiversity. The
participants reported feeling able to use skills from the game in their daily lives by the
conclusion of the study. However, several were initially uncertain and frustrated by not
being immediately capable of doing so.
Further research into using TRPGs for the neurodiverse population would not be
remiss. This study added to the greater body of knowledge by demonstrating the human
aspect of skill transference in an applied gaming setting and offering practical applications in
the realm of the neurodivergent population for leadership development through TRPGs.
95
Leadership development that focuses on the whole person and engages the participant in their
own learning has the greatest critical success.
96
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Appendix A: Full List of Interview Questions and Journal Prompts
Journal Prompts, Weeks 1-3
1. Your character is faced with a challenging problem. Describe how they face the
problem and break it down into steps.
2. You are at work or school and are faced with a challenging problem. Describe how
you would face the problem, as your character, and break it down into steps.
3. You are preparing a meal for your family and friends. Each component has a different
time requirement—up to 2 hours—and different oven temperatures. Describe your
process for ensuring all the food comes out and remains hot.
4. Describe your understanding of using skills from the game in a work or school
setting.
5. Describe your overall feelings on the significance of being able to use the skills from
the game in your work or school life.
Journal Prompts, Weeks 3-5
1. On the intake questionnaire, you listed your top 3 skills that you wanted to work on
during this study. The selection of skills was as follows: Interpersonal
Communication, Networking, Decision Making, Creative Problem Solving, Time
Management, Resource Management, Goal Setting, Oral Presentation Skills.
Reviewing these skills, please identify a skill that you used in the game this week and
discuss how you were able to use it during your week at school or work (whether or
not it was one of your selected 3).
2. How do you feel about your ability to identify situations where the specific skill
would be useful and necessary?
112
3. How do you feel developing this skill will help you progress towards your career
goals?
4. In general, we talk about soft skills that are transferrable throughout our lives. These
soft skills include concepts such as time management, creative problem-solving, goal
setting, etc. (the skills we discussed at the beginning of this study). What are your
thoughts or feelings on the importance of developing these skills for leadership
positions?
5. Identify one situation from the scenario that you feel you could have done better and
explain what you would have done differently. This can be a choice you made in the
moment, or it could be an observation of another participant’s choice and what you
would have done differently. If you can identify a soft skill to employ, please do so.
Interview Questions
1. Overall feelings of ability to transfer skills?
1a. How do you think those skills will help you in your career trajectory?
2. Overall feelings on significance of skill transference?
3. How do you feel about using a game such as this to train certain skills?
3a. How do you feel about a virtual setting vs. an in-person setting?
3b. Do you think there is a hindrance in a virtual setting where you lack certain non-
verbal cues?
4. In your opinion, what is the most important social skill you learned from an RPG?
5. What is a social skill you would like to learn from an RPG?
6. What was the most significant social interaction in our game and what impact
did it have on you?
113
Appendix B: Intake Questionnaire
1. What is your current profession?
2. What is/are your career goal/s?
3. What are the top 3 skills you would like to improve to start moving toward
obtaining your career goal(s) (choose from below)?
4. What is your experience with Dungeons & Dragons?
Skills
Interpersonal Communication
Networking
Decision Making
Creative Problem Solving
Time Management
Resource Management
Goal Setting
Oral Presentation Skills
114
Appendix C: Game Master’s Notes and Changes
1. Chapter 2 contains a good bit of faction content. This content was not used for
this study since it would slow the progress and was not germane to training-focus of
the study.
2. In Chapter 4, the GM must select an order in which to approach 10 scenarios.
They are listed as Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. It was during this chapter
that one of the sessions was truncated by clever teamwork. The path chosen was
Spring; the encounter missed was: The Alley.
115
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perceptions and social interactions of participants in an online role-playing game campaign.

tabletop simulator during the 2020–2021 COVID-19 pandemic. Methods triangulation

leadership skills) and nine subthemes (weakness identification, problem identification,

problem resolution, teamwork, delegation, conflict resolution, decision-making, emotional

Keywords: role-playing games, leadership theory, skill transference, adult learning,

gamification, Dungeons & Dragons

Arizona Global Campus School of Organizational Leadership and Development. I am

member of my dissertation committee provided me extensive personal and professional

truly, without them, this study would not have happened.

recognized you only needed two hearts to change the world.

Background of Study ............................................................................................................ 2

Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................................. 6

Importance of the Study ........................................................................................................ 7

Conceptual Framework ....................................................................................................... 10

Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 12

Overview of Research Design ............................................................................................ 13

Definition of Terms ............................................................................................................ 14

Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations..................................................................... 16

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................... 19

Search Strategy ................................................................................................................... 20

History of Applied Computer Gaming ............................................................................... 23

Leadership Development ................................................................................................ 24

Critical Thinking ............................................................................................................. 27

Adult Learning Theory ................................................................................................... 32

Game Theory .................................................................................................................. 34

Historic Use of Applied Computer Gaming ................................................................... 37

History of Dungeons & Dragons .................................................................................... 41

The d20 System........................................................................................................... 43

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................ 49

Methodology Selected ........................................................................................................ 49

Role of the Researcher ........................................................................................................ 51

Study Participants ............................................................................................................... 52

Data Collection ................................................................................................................... 54

Ethical Concerns ................................................................................................................. 61

Data Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 62

CHAPTER IV: RESULTS...................................................................................................... 66

Data Collection ................................................................................................................... 68

Data Analysis and Results .................................................................................................. 69

Research Question 1 ....................................................................................................... 70

Research Question 2 ....................................................................................................... 74

Research Question 3 ....................................................................................................... 76

CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION ................................................................................................. 80

Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 80

Interpretation of Findings ............................................................................................... 81

Findings for Research Question 1 ................................................................................... 81

Findings for Research Question 2 ................................................................................... 84

Findings for Research Question 3 ................................................................................... 86

Limitations of the Research ................................................................................................ 90

Implications for Theory and Research ................................................................................ 93

Future Research .................................................................................................................. 94

Table 1: Participant Demographics ......................................................................................... 54

Table 2: Breakdown of Data for Major Themes and Subthemes............................................ 70

Appendix A: Full List of Interview Questions and Journal Prompts ....................................112

Appendix B: Intake Questionnaire.........................................................................................114

Appendix C: Appendix C: Game Master’s Notes and Changes ............................................115

gaming for training and education in industrial/organizational psychology. Mysirlaki and

beginning of the focus in industrial/organizational psychology on virtual teams and using

MMORPGs for developing team cohesion and leadership soft skills.

conducted a qualitative study on the transference of leadership skills from a game

growth and interaction in the game Dystopia Rising.

socially acceptable way (Balzac, 2016; Oh & Solomon, 2014).

Dragons into personal, social, and work life situations.