Researching Learner Persona

I will use this blog entry to share my learner persona creation, as well as the reflection of the whole creation process.

Part 1: Gather Some Information

As a learner, the most important thing while I playing games for learning is providing me a new way or new angle to observe the learning content. For example, I can learn the special relationships between planet earth and sun and other celestial bodies according to read books and watch documentary films. But the game may provide me a chance to manipulate a spaceship to travel through our solar system to explore them. For the most valuable entertainment I would like to enjoy while playing games, is a feeling of freedom. The freedom bring by the game should let me forget the difficulties in my real life and help me forget bitterness or anxiety for a while, which help me refresh. When I use games and simulations as learning tools, my highest expectations is to extend my attention span to focus on practicing or learning.

Source of the information: I have asked three secondary school students about their preferences while playing games. I interviewed them and record their responses.

Types of information I collected: verbal descriptions.

Part 2: Analyze my Findings

When I taught science courses in my former school, I used game-based learning as a very important teaching strategy. From my experience, I could understand learners’ preferences when they engaged in the learning games. So, I conducted virtual interviews with three of my former students who, during their middle or high school years, chose Geography as their major in college. As their former science teacher and homeroom teacher, I not only maintain close connections with them but also have a deep understanding of their personalities and experiences. Please note that these three students represent a larger group who majored in Geography, embodying the most common traits of those passionate about the subject.

Based on my virtual interviews with these former students, I have summarized my findings below. Additionally, if time permits, I would like to share and discuss these findings with the real persons to refine and enhance my understanding.

	Participant 1	Participant 2	Participant 3
Name	Zhang	Qin	Zhu
Bio	G7 student in middle school.  GPA is in top 20% of his class. Interested in observing starry night.	Freshman in high school. GPA is in top 40% of her class. Interested in investigating the stories back of the hills and rivers.	Senior in high school. GPA is in top 60% of his class. Interested in traveling around the world.
Age	13	15	17
Gender	Male	Female	Male
What is important to you when you play games for learning?	How can I learn fast and better?	Not too hard and complicated.	Help me understand the learning content.
What is important to you when you play games for entertainment?	I want to have more joy.	Peaceful and beautiful.	Give me a real experience feeling.
What is important to you regarding user experience and usability with learning games as learning tools?	Can it help me tackle learning difficulties?	Use less time and learn more.	I want it can give me possibilities to design my games to learn the knowledge.

Part 3: Reflect on my Data Collection Process

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Maureen for providing a well-structured learner persona template. Following our discussions on Canvas and during our online meeting, we have decided to merge her college student learner persona with my high school student persona. Narrowing the focus from broad to specific presents a challenge, as does expanding your focus in diverse directions. Drawing on the insights gained from virtual interviews with my former students, I am proposing a secondary school learner persona utilizing Maureen’s template. The referenced articles are: How to Use Learner Personas to Understand Your Audience (growthengineering.co.uk)And How to Develop Learner Personas for Effective Training (td.org)

A new learner persona (high-school student) created by me

Name: Danny
Bio:
Age: 15 Freshman in high school. GPA is in top 50% of his class. From a mid-size city, studying in a public high school, interested in travelling
Race: mixed race
Gender: Male
Motivation: stories enthusiast
Key character traits: curious energetic, positive, considers himself a Creative
Key learning type: kinesthetic learner (learns by doing), Visual learner, naturalistic learner
Key challenges toward learning: does not like math, has trouble concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants all classes to be goal oriented, difficulty understanding scientific concepts.
Games: Role-Playing-Games and flight simulation games.

A learner persona (a college student) created by Maureen

Name: Sue Learner (she/her)
Bio: College Freshman, currently Undecided.  Graduated in top 25% of her high school class.  From a small, rural community and attending a large public university.  Follows van life influencers and is interested in building a tiny house.
Age: 18
Race: mixed race
Gender: female
Motivation: Wants a job in “sustainability,” financial stability
Key character traits: excited, self-motivated, positive, considers herself a Creative
Key learning type: kinesthetic learner (learns by doing)
Key challenges toward learning: does not like math, has trouble concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants all classes to be goal oriented.
Games: Enjoys Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Breath of the Wild, has a Twitch stream with 250 followers.  Prefers solo games, but likes to chat with her followers while playing.

The combination learner persona

Name: Danielle Learner (she/her)

Bio: Age: 17, Senior in high school with a GPA in the top 40% of their class. From a mid-size city and interested in sustainability, particularly in the context of travel and building spaces such as tiny houses. 

Race: Mixed race 

Gender: Female 

Motivation: Passionate about stories telling, sustainability, and financial stability. Aims to work in a field that combines their creative interests with environmental consciousness. 

Key Character Traits: Curious, energetic, excited, self-motivated, positive, and highly creative. 

Key Learning Type: Kinesthetic learner (learns by doing), visual learner, and naturalistic learner. 

Key Challenges Toward Learning: Struggles with math and has difficulty concentrating during lectures, needs highly structured instructions, prefers goal-oriented classes, and sometimes finds scientific concepts challenging. 

Games: Enjoys a variety of games, including role-playing games, flight simulation, Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Breath of the Wild. They have a moderate following on Twitch where they engage with followers while playing mainly solo games, but also enjoy the social interaction that comes with streaming.

The challenges I encountered for forming information into a persona were include which the key words I should select can on behalf of the main traits of the interviewees? How can I use a simple but accurate way to describe the learner personal? Finally, I thought the current process for me was to get a quick and dirty persona as a scratch to continue the following steps. I should focus on the main traits of the users.

If I had to do this again, I wish to collect more experienced teachers’ feedbacks about their students who eventually chose Geography as college majors. I would like to design a survey to collect the persona information both from teachers and students.