From real-world data to game world experience: Social analysis methods for developing plausible & engaging learning games

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This paper is based on work to develop an interactive learning game called HEALTHSIMNET that is meant for improving practice in a health care network. It considers three selected models for analysis of documentary data acquired during semi-structured interviews with participants of a network of health practitioners in the HIV field. The paper briefly reviews the expansive theory of learning but mainly explains how the three techniques can yield interactive narrative. We end with a description of the game and a discussion of the extent to which games developed using this method can be said to sustain the kind of learning described by activity theory.