Only a game? Player misery across game boundaries

ABSTRACT

Videogames often confront players with frustratingly difficult challenges, fearsome enemies, and tragic stories. As such, they can evoke feelings of failure, sadness, anger, and fear. Although these feelings are usually regarded as undesirable, many players seem to enjoy videogames which cause them. In this paper, I argue that player misery often originates from a fictional or lusory attitude which brackets game events from real-life, making the player’s emotions solely relevant within the game context. As they are part of the game themselves, these negative emotions can be enjoyed and easily relativized, since players can acknowledge that their cause is ‘only a game’. However, there are feelings of misery associated with the playing of videogames which are not caused by either the game’s fiction or challenge. In the last part of this paper, I describe a qualitatively different kind of player misery: one that is caused by elements that are not perceived as part of the game by the player, and is not bracketed from real life by a lusory or fictional attitude.     

离散数学的教学改革实践研究

离散数学是一门综合性、应用性较强的计算机科学基础课程。为了让学生更好的掌握该课程的知识内容、提高学习兴趣和实践应用能力,本文通过分析国内外离散数学的教学改革现状,并结合本校的教学实践经验,对离散数学的教材、教学模式、学科结合三方面的教学改革实践进行了研究和总结。     

体育教师支持对大学生体育学业情绪影响的分析

为探讨高校体育教学中大学生感知教师支持与学业情绪的关系,本文运用问卷调查法、文献资料法、数理统计法对大学生的体育学业情绪进行调查,并进行统计与分析。最后得出结论:在性别维度上,不同专业大学生体育学业情绪存在差异,感知体育教师支持没有显著差异;在来源维度上,大学生体育学业情绪和感知体育教师支持均存在差异;不同专业领域,不同性别大学生体育学业情绪与体育教师支持存在相关性;大学生体育学业情绪和体育教师支持的相关性与性别和运动项目有关;不同方式的体育教师支持对大学生体育学业情绪有不同的预测作用。     

The ecology of language teacher assessment literacy: Insights from emotional critical incidents

Despite the substantial growth of research on language assessment literacy (LAL), the emotional side of LAL has been under-researched. In response to this gap of knowledge, the present study explored Iranian English language teachers’ LAL through the lens of emotional critical incidents (CIs). Drawing on an ecological lens as embedded in a case-study design, data were collected from narrative frames, classroom observations and post-class discussions, and semi-structured interviews. Data analyses revealed three personal, institutional, and sociocultural ecologies that shaped the teachers’ LAL-related emotional CIs and the associated sense-making, practice, and perceptions about assessment. In particular, we found that the emotional side of LAL is defined by agency, emotion labor, the need for voice, and broader discourses of assessment in Iran. Based on the findings, we provide implications for running professional development courses that build on teachers’ LAL and account for emotions as a key component of such courses.     

离散数学CAI课件制作探索与实践

本说明了制作离散数学CAI课件的必要性与可行性，从学习需要的分析、教学目标与教学内容的分析、教学策略的制定、教学媒体的选择四个方面论述了该课件的教学设计。     

岩体非连续变形数值分析方法的特点及比较

岩体稳定性分析,有几种常用的非连续介质分析方法。本文先是概述了几种常用的数值分析方法,然后对这几种分析方法作了比较,得出它们的区别与联系,并总结了理论存在的不足。     

Transform domain technique for windowing the DCT and DST

In this paper, an algorithm is developed to apply Hann, Hamming, Blackman and related windows directly in the transform domain for the discrete cosine transform and discrete sine transform. These algorithms are useful in applications where windowing is required in order to minimize edge effects caused by implicit symmetries in the transform domain that are not replicated in the real-world data. Examples of such applications include data communication, adaptive system identification and filtering, real-time analysis of financial market data, etc. Software implementations in C language are also given.     

Self‐determined motivation and social achievement goals in children’s emotions

In this cross‐sectional study we investigated to what extent autonomous and controlled motivation and social achievement goals are associated with students’ emotional experiences at school. We found in a sample of 426 elementary school students, aged from 10 to 12 years, autonomous motivation (i.e. students’ engagement in class activities because they find such activities enjoying or personally important) and social development goals (i.e. students’ focus on developing meaningful social relationships) to be positively associated with positive emotions. In contrast, controlled motivation (i.e. students’ engagement in class activities because they feel coerced to do so) and social demonstration‐approach goals (i.e. students’ focus on demonstrating popularity) were positively associated with negative emotions. These associations remained significant even after controlling for perceived competence. Cluster analysis further showed that students high in autonomous motivation and social development goals and low in controlled motivation and social demonstration‐approach goals exhibited a better motivational profile compared to students high or low in all the above motivational variables. Results are discussed within the self‐determination theory and the social achievement goal perspective.     

Teachers' Voices in the Context of Higher Education Reforms in Armenia

In this article, teachers' sense-making and reasoning about higher education reforms in a post Soviet country, namely Armenia, are examined using an analytical framework with six sensitising concepts: beliefs, emotions, attitudes, change knowledge, attributions and organisational culture. The results of semi-structured interviews with 12 Armenian higher education teachers showed that they mainly felt distrust towards reforms and that the implementation initiatives caused dissatisfaction, frustration and therefore distortion. At a deeper level, the teachers mostly felt excluded from the reform process and that their role was depreciated. One striking feature was the predominant causal attribution of teachers to external, unstable and uncontrollable factors which question the success of the reforms.     

Interest,enjoyment and pride after failure experiences? Predictors of students’ state-emotions after success and failure during learning in mathematics

The current investigation was designed to identify emotion states students experience during mathematics activities, and in particular to distinguish emotions contingent on experiences of success and experiences of failure. Students’ task-related emotional responses were recorded following experiences of success and failure while working with an individualised computer-based mathematics learning environment. In addition, relations between these patterns of emotional responses after success and failure experiences and trait-like motivational variables, self-concept of ability, subject value, orientation to learning from errors, goal orientation and causal attributions, were examined. Two separate studies are reported. In Study 1 emotions associated with success and failure experiences in mathematics were investigated in relation to self-concept of ability, subject value and orientation to learning from errors. In Study 2, patterns of emotion following success and failure were examined in relation to students’ goal orientation and their causal attributions for success in school.