Edutainment – Education and Entertainment

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Research Overview

The literature on edutainment is both utterly conclusive and entirely incomplete.

It is conclusive in that study after study suggests that edutainment helps students learn. This idea has a long pedigree in having been voiced by towering figures such as Plato, Walter Benjamin, Dewey, Brecht, etc. To supplement those more theoretical claims, we have quite a bit of scientific evidence to suggest students learn well when they take joy in the educational media they consume.[1]

We have considerable evidence that including edutainment in one’s classroom bolsters learning outcomes across many fields. If I were to return to the classroom, I would strongly consider incorporating an edutainment element into my teaching.

At the same time, key gaps persist in the field. First, the literature is in desperate need of having its theoretical underpinnings refined. This was much less true of play, interestingly. Many scholars use the word “edutainment” in far too broad of a way to include virtually any media that somehow helps someone learn something.

            The research is strongest when considering a specific classroom intervention (e.g., the use of gamification to teach computer coding or a documentary to teach history). This isn’t surprising: it’s much easier to measure the variables in such a situation. For example, one might provide the treatment group with an educational app that is not given to the control group (while holding other variables constant), which then allows researchers to compare across an outcome such as test results to determine the efficacy of the intervention. 

The literature is much weaker when considering the use of edutainment in informal learning contexts such as museums or television (though we have some promising evidence in those areas, as is noted below). The literature in this area could be improved by considering relevant insights from fields like sociology, anthropology, or media studies, which generally are much more sophisticated when considering how people relate to and make meaning of the media they consume.

            Similar methods could help to address the concerns raised by critics of edutainment. Commentators have raised a number of concerns about edutainment: some suggest that it might water down academic rigor. Others suggest that it might inculcate negative attitudes in students towards learning by implicitly suggesting that education itself is inherently unpleasant. Some are worried that it might lead students to adopt a passive attitude towards learning (on the assumption that consuming entertainment is commonly seen as a passive activity).

            There might be merit to these critiques or there might not, but a good, sustained study using methods and insights borrowed from the fields above could help us to get clearer on their legitimacy. In short, it can be difficult to determine when “entertainment” starts or stops (in the learning process or otherwise) because it is so subjective. For the same reason, it’s difficult to know exactly how people are processing edutainment content.   

            Finally, as is so often the case, the field is weak in the area of adult learning. This is particularly unfortunate because edutainment in informal settings could be a great way to continue to support people’s learning as they age into adulthood.             This report will address the following questions: What is edutainment? What are some examples of edutainment? How successful is edutainment? What concerns have been raised about edutainment? Each question is given its own section in the text and a full bibliography follows at the end.

What is Edutainment?

  • Edutainment: fusion of education and entertainment offerings, particularly popular or mass culture entertainment that is designed to have an educational function (Creighton 1994)
  • The name is a portmanteau of “education” and “entertainment”; the concept appears to have originated with Walt Disney in the early 20th century (Addis 2005)
  • Some hip hop artists have adopted the term “edutainment” to describe their approach to politicized rap, though it is unclear how successful that approach to informal education has been

What Are Some Examples of Edutainment?   

  • Edutainment media can be both formal and informal.
    • Formal edutainment media: entertainment content intended to serve a pedagogical function (e.g., an app for teaching math)
    • Informal edutainment media: the use of entertainment content not originally designed to serve a pedagogical function but used for pedagogical purposes (e.g., approaches described in Berk (2009), Brown (2011), or Butler et al. (2009)), such as the use of media clips to communicate a larger point about society
  • Edutainment media can be used in formal and informal settings:
    • Formal settings: classrooms, online instruction, training seminars, etc. (Carr 2012)
    • Informal educational settings: museums, festivals, etc. (Baloffet et al. 2014)

Examples of edutainment games and toys:

  • Chess
  • Scrabble
  • Legos

Examples of edutainment methods:

  • Gamification (de Freitas 2018)
  • Augmented reality and virtual reality (Deimitriou 2009)
  • Storytelling (Chung, 2006; Ibanez et al. (2003), Mello (2001), and Sadik (2008)).

   

How Successful is Edutainment?

In short: very successful. Every study below documents the effective use of edutainment resources. I did not find any studies that pointed to distinct cases of failure (though broad concerns were raised, as is mentioned in the following section)

  • Success in teaching writing (Xu et al, 2011; Ballast, Stephens, & Radcliffe, 2008; Gakhar & Thompson, 2007)
  • Success in the natural sciences (Gialouri, 2011; Grigoraki, Politi & Tsolakos, 2013; Siampanopoulou, 2014; Sintoris, 2014; Dimitriou 2009; Kara & Yesilyurt 2008)
  • Success in language learning (Huang & Huang, 2015; Lin & Lan, 2015; Liu & Chen, 2015; Shadiev, Huang, Hwang, & Liu, 2018; Looi et al., 2011; Varma, 2014)
  • Success in enhancing the cognitive and learning skills of intellectually disabled students (Dandashi et al., 2015)
  • Success in generating the flow state (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), which has been linked to higher levels of cognitive performance (Liao, 2006; Shin, 2006; Webster, Trevino and Ryan, 1993; Faiola, Newlon, Pfaff and Smyslova, 2013; Papastergiou, 2009)
  • Success with adults (Cox et al. 2017).
  • Success in producing a unified classroom atmosphere (Jowett and Linton 1980)
  • Success in teaching 21st-century skills, such as critical-creative thinking (Zorica, 2014)
  • Success in teaching math (Lynch-Arroyo, R., and Asing-Cashman, 2016; Carr, 2012; Ross, Morrison, & Lowther, 2010)
  • Success in encouraging a growth mindset (Lynch-Arroyo, R., and Asing-Cashman, 2016).

What Concerns Have Been Raised About Edutainment?

  • Trivializes learning experiences and waters down rigor (Lorkovic 2016; Balloffet et al. 2014)
  • Encourages a passive student outlook on learning
  • Minimizes the inherent pleasures of learning

References

Addis, M. (2005). New technologies and cultural consumption—edutainment is born! European  Journal of Marketing 39(7-8), pp. 729-736

Arnab, S., Brown, K., Clarke, S., Dunwell, I., Lim, T., Suttie, N., & de Freitas, S. (2013). The      Development approach of a pedagogically-driven serious game to support Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) within a classroom setting. Computers & Education, 69, 15-30

Auerbach, A. H. (2012). Teaching diversity: Using a multifaceted approach to engage  students. PS: Political Science & Politics, 45(3), 516-520

Ballast, K., Stephens, L., & Radcliffe, R. (2008). The Effects of Digital Storytelling on Sixth       Grade Students’ Writing and Their Attitudes about Writing. In K. McFerrin et al. (Eds.),   Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2008 (pp. 875-879). Chesapeake, VA: AACE

Balloffet, P., Courvoisier, F., and Lagier, J. (2014). From museum to amusement park: The          opportunities and risks of edutainment. International Journal of Arts Management. 16(2),    pp. 4-18

Berk, R. A. (2009). Multimedia teaching with video clips: TV, movies, YouTube, and MtvU in    the college classroom. International Journal of Technology in Teaching and Learning,         5(1), 1-21

Bossavit, B., Alfredo, P., Sanchez-Gil, I., and Urtasun, A. (2018). Educational games to enhance museum visits for schools. International Forum of Technology & Society, 21(4), pp.171         186

Brown, T. (2011). Using film in teaching and learning about changing societies.   International Journal of Lifelong Education, 30(2), 233-247

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[1] Anecdotal aside: I use the edutainment app Duolingo for language study and have found the gamified features to help me to remain committed and take joy in learning (e.g., points challenges, reminders, friendly competitions, etc.). While I haven’t tested myself beyond the tests administered by the app, my personal sense from living as an expat in two countries is that the app has equipped me with stronger foreign language skills.