Designing games, developing competencies: elementary students’ engagement with ISTE standards through playful participatory game design using the GSFG framework

This design-based research study examines how the Go-Show-Flow-Glow (GSFG) framework supports elementary students’ engagement with ISTE Standards for Students through participatory game design. Twenty-three third-grade students designed educational games about the Dust Bowl during a five-day implementation. Thematic analysis of 540 coded instances revealed differential engagement across ISTE Standards: Innovative Designer dominated (34%), followed by Knowledge Constructor (16%) and Creative Communicator (14%), while Digital Citizen received minimal attention (<1%). Findings indicate structured classroom design, such as the GSFG framework, can support standards-based learning while maintaining student agency, contributing empirical evidence that design constraints scaffold rather than limit elementary students’ creative engagement.