“I Didn’t Realise I Knew That!” Higher Education Students’ Experiences of Incidental Learning Through OpenWorld Role-Playing Games

OpenWorld Role-Playing Games (OWRPGs) differ from other video game genres in that they offer players vast digital landscapes and significant freedom: they can fight, use diplomacy, play stealthily, or pursue activities like farming or trading. This player autonomy creates a space rich in unintended consequences, incidental learning being just one. A study of higher education (HE) students explored this phenomenon. While existing research on incidental learning in games focuses mainly on language acquisition, the current study argues that commercial OWRPGs have the same educational power as purpose-built learning games, and that the scope of incidental learning is far broader than previously examined. Using a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) approach, 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted and written gaming journals collected from 11 additional participants. All 36 participants played OWRPGs in their leisure time. The analysis identified 34 distinct forms of incidental learning, with language acquisition being just one. These were grouped into three categories: self-improvement, academic, and employability skills, with considerable overlap between each. This study shows that OWRPGs can act as a setting for incidental learning in skills over and above lexical improvement. As a result, it is suggested that future research analyse in further depth the skills this research has discovered, looks for further skills that may be honed via incidental learning, and examine other video game genres to highlight any forms of incidental learning that occur.