Incidental Learning and Model Making

Introduction

I have something interesting to note, and I’m going to dump a lot of information on this page so I have a record of it. Please forgive me. But now that I have completed all of my 25 interviews, an unintended consequence of playing OWRPGs is not only appearing in front of me-it’s screaming to be noticed.

Now, a disclaimer. I’ve not done any coding yet – and I’m taking a couple of weeks away from the PhD before the transcription and coding processes begin, so this doesn’t qualify as proper, empirical research. But bloody hell! The sheer amount and the variety of incidental learning that has taken place when my research participants have played Open World Role Playing Games is just staggering!

What’s Incidental Learning?

(Here comes the ‘largely copied and pasted off the internet' bit.)

The term ‘Incidental learning’ was defined by McGeough in 1942 as: “Learning which apparently takes place without a specific motive or a specified formal instruction…” so it's unintended learning without meaning. It's learning by accident. Examples include learning new vocabulary through imitation and social interaction, learning social norms through playing games, or learning geography through traveling or surfing the web, and it uses intrinsic motivation. Conversely, traditional education is generally orientated around extrinsic motivation: the learner should learn what is suggested by the teacher in order to pass or fail. It's also important to note that incidental learning is often confused with informal learning, but informal learning is usually intentional, although not highly structured. However, some authors do consider incidental learning a subtype of informal learning.

Incidental learning is usually a byproduct of some other activity. It is spontaneous, unstructured, and learner evaluated. It’s also largely influenced by prior knowledge and – and this is important - is ‘easier’ to obtain if the information is related to a topic of interest. It’s also important to mention here that incidental learning is often mentioned in the workplace context, because we’re going to come to employability skills in a bit.

What is the Practical Application of Incidental Learning?

“The trick is not to teach the facts at all, but rather to have the facts be along the way to getting to something the student naturally wanted to know in the first place… We should use students' natural interest, so they come across such facts incidentally, in the course of pursuing their interests.” (Schank, 1995)

An application of incidental learning (at least in its broad definitions) in the educational process can be done by representing facts that need to be learned through a material which is interesting to the learner. If the learner is motivated by doing something interesting, he can learn a lot without even noticing it. And that’s core to the incidental learning my participants have spoken about - they were doing something they found interesting (playing Open World Role Playing Games) - while they were learning.

Criticisms of Incidental Learning

Incidental learning can be used in formal learning but ignores principles of instructional design and traditional pedagogy in order to “hide” the learning part from the learner. Also, since incidental learning is learner-evaluated, it can easily result in misconceptions and uncertainty of the really important parts of the learned material. It is, by its very nature, highly personal, entirely unintentional, and as a result, is almost impossible to measure. However, one of my participants did mention that they were studying Ancient History, and that playing Assassin’s Creed Origins had taught them stuff about Ancient Egypt that the course syllabus had not, and they had gone on to use the knowledge they’d gained from this incidental learning in an assignment. (Note to self: I’ll need to dig out a quote from them if I go on to use this example more formally).

I Made a Model!

The thoughts recorded in my interviews, the memos I’ve been making along the way, and participants’ responses in the Call for Participants survey certainly added weight to the emergence of a possible unintended consequence, and instinct – something I seem to be relying on a lot in this study, and may or may not be a good thing - told me to list the forms of incidental learning that had taken place. There were 29 separate areas of learning that had (reportedly) happened ‘accidentally’ to participants as an unintended consequence of playing OWRPGs.

I wanted to visualise these areas to make sense of everything. I like a nice infographic or model to unknot information and knowing that models need catchy names – behold! I present to you The Model of Incidental Learning in Open World Games (MILOWG)!

After listing the 29 skills mentioned by participants, I divided them into three areas that link to the skills HE students need to hone: Employability Skills, Personal Skills, and Academic Knowledge.

Personal Skills and Employability Skills overlap somewhat as many skills can contribute to more than one area. Problem solving and critical thinking skills can be considered both personal and employability skills, for example. Now, bear in mind that i'm making this up as I go along, but here's the tentative model:

Of course, it's all well and good talking about incidental learning, developing models and going: "ooh look everyone - I've found an unintended consequence!" but I do need to refer to educational frameworks that contextualise and back up what may well be emerging here. At the time of writing, two such frameworks appear to have explicit links with the incidental learning that happens in OWRPGs. I now need to see where they overlap, and how they add weight to the argument that incidental learning in OWRPGs is explicit, and of value:

Universal Design for Learning and Incidental Learning in OWRPGs

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an education framework that guides the creation of flexible learning environments to remove barriers and accommodate diverse learner needs from the outset. Developed by CAST (see here for more information), it's a framework that is based on brain science and seeks to provide multiple options for how students can engage with, represent, and express what they know, leading to more inclusive and accessible learning experiences for everyone. UDL is built on 3 principles:

Multiple means of engagement offer different ways for students to access and process information.
Multiple means of representation offer different ways for students to access and process information.
Multiple means of action and expression provide learners with diverse ways to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

UDL provides a solid foundation for incidental learning, as OWRPGs (unintentionally!) create learning environments where all gamers, regardless of their background or learning preferences, have an equal opportunity to succeed. The environment reduces barriers as rather than adapting to individual needs after the fact, it minimises learning barriers for everyone. Learner agency is promoted as the focus shifts to the gamer, providing them with choices and flexibility in their learning journey, which goes on to foster motivation and engagement.

Gee's 36 Principles of Learning

In his 2003 book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, James Paul Gee derives a set of learning principles from his study of the complex, self-directed learning each game player undertakes as s/he encounters and masters a new game. He suggests that adherence to these principles could transform learning in schools, colleges and universities, both for teachers and faculty and, most importantly, for students. The Principles are laid out as follows (click for more information):

1) Active, Critical Learning Principle
All aspects of the the learning environment (including ways in which the semiotic domain is designed and presented) are set up to encourage active and critical, not passive, learning

2) Design Principle
Learning about and coming to appreciate design and design principles is core to the leaning experience

3) Semiotic Principle
Learning about and coming to appreciate interrelations within and across multiple sign systems (images, words, actions, symbols, artifacts, etc.) as a complex system is core to the learning experience

4) Semiotic Domains Principle
Leaning involves mastering, at some level, semiotic domains, and being able to participate, at some level, in the affinity group or groups connected to them.

5) Meta-level thinking about Semiotic Domain Principle
Learning involves active and critical thinking about the relationships of the semiotic domain being learned to other semiotic domains

6) "Psychosocial Moratorium" Principle
Learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences are lowered

7) Committed Learning Principle
Learners participate in an extended engagement (lots of effort and practice) as an extension of their real-world identities in relation to a virtual identity to which they feel some commitment and a virtual world that they find compelling

8) Identity Principle
Learning involves taking on and playing with identities in such a a way that the learner has real choices (in developing the virtual identity) and ample opportunity to meditate on the relationship between new identities and old ones. There is a tripartite play of identities as learners relate, and reflect on, their multiple real-world identities, a virtual identity, and a projective identity

9) Self-Knowledge Principle
The virtual world is constructed in such a way that learners learn not only about the domain but also about themselves and their current and potential capacities

10) Amplification of Input Principle
For a little input, learners get a lot of output

11) Achievement Principle
For learners of all levels of skill there are intrinsic rewards from the beginning, customized to each learner's level, effort, and growing mastery and signalling the learner's ongoing achievements

12) Practice Principle
Learners get lots and lots of practice in a context where the practice is not boring (i.e. in a virtual world that is compelling to learners on their own terms and where the learners experience ongoing success). They spend lots of time on task.

13. Ongoing Learning Principle
The distinction between the learner and the master is vague, since learners, thanks to the operation of the "regime of competency" principle listed next, must, at higher and higher levels, undo their routinized mastery to adapt to new or changed conditions. There are cycles of new learning, automatization, undoing automatization, and new re-organized automatization

14) "Regime of Competence" Principle
The learner gets ample opportunity to operate within, but at the outer edge of, his or her resources, so that at those points things are felt as challenging but not "Undoable"

15) Probing Principle
Learning is a cycle of probing the world (doing something); reflecting in and on this action and, on this basis, forming a hypothesis; reprobing the world to test this hypothesis; and then accepting or rethinking the hypothesis

16) Multiple Routes Principle
There are multiple ways to make progress or move ahead. This allows learners to make choices, rely on their own strengths and styles of learning and problem-solving, while also exploring alternative styles

17) Situated Meaning Principle
The meanings of signs (words, actions, objects, artifacts, symbols, texts, etc.) are situated in embodied experience. Meanings are not general or decontextualized. Whatever generality meanings come to have is discovered bottom up cia embodied experience

18) Text Principle
Texts are not understood purely verbally (i.e. only in terms of the definitions of the words in the text and their text-internal relationships to each other) but are understood in terms of embodied experience. Learners move back and forth between texts and embodied experiences. More purely verbal understanding (reading texts apart from embodied action) comes only when learners have enough embodied experience in the domain and ample experiences with similar texts

19) Intertextual Principle
The learner understands texts as a family ("genre") of related texts and understands any one text in relation to others in the family, but only after having achieved embodied understandings of some texts. Understanding a group of texts as a family ("genre") of texts is a large part of what helps the learner to make sense of texts

20) Multimodal Principle
Meaning and knowledge ate built up through various modalities (images, texts, symbols, interactions, abstract design, sound, etc.), not just words

21) "Material Intelligence" Principle
Thinking, problem-solving and knowledge are "stored" in material objects and the environment. This frees learners to engage their minds with other things while combining the results of their own thinking with the knowledge stored in material objects and the environment to achieve yet more powerful effects

22) Intuitive Knowledge Principle
Intuitive or tacit knowledge built up in repeated practice and experience, often in association with an affinity group, counts a good deal and is honored. Not just verbal and conscious knowledge is rewarded

23) Subset Principle
Learning even at its start takes place in a (simplified) subset of the real domain

24) Incremental Principle
Learning situations are ordered in the early stages so that earlier cases lead to generalizations that are fruitful for later cases. When learners face more complex cases later, the learning space (the number and type of guess the learner can make) is constrained by the sorts of fruitful patterns or generalizations the learned has founded earlier

25) Concentrated Sample Principle
The learner sees, especially early on, many more instances of the fundamental signs and actions than should be the case in a less controlled sample. fundamental signs and actions are concentrated in the early stages so that learners get to practice them often and learn them well

26) Bottom-up Basic Skills Principle
Basic skills are not learned in isolation or out of context; rather, what counts as a basic skill is discovered bottom up by engaging in more and more of the game/domain or games/domains like it. Basic skills are genre elements of a given type of game/domain

27) Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-in-Time Principle
The learner is given explicit information both on-demand and just-in-time, when the learner needs it or just at the point where the information can best be understood and used in practice

28) Discovery Principle
Overt telling is kept to a well-thought-out minimum, allowing ample opportunities for the learner to experiment and make discoveries

29) Transfer Principle
Learners are given ample opportunity to practice, and support for, transferring what they have learned earlier to later problems, including problems that require adapting and transforming that earlier learning

30) Cultural Models about the World Principle
Learning is set up in such a way that learners come to think consciously and reflectively about some of their cultural models regarding the world, without denigration of their identities, abilities or social affiliations, and juxtapose them to new models that may conflict with or otherwise relate to them in various ways

31) Cultural Models about Learning Principle
Learning is set up in such a way that learners come to think consciously and reflectively about their cultural models about learning and themselves as learners, without denigration of their identities, abilities, or social affiliations, and juxtapose them to new models of learning and themselves as learners

32) Cultural Models about Semiotic Domains Principle
about their cultural models about a particular semiotic domain they are learning, without denigration of their identities, abilities, or social affiliations, and juxtapose them to new models about this domain

33) Distributed Principle
Meaning/knowledge is distributed across the learner, objects, tools, symbols, technologies, and the environment

34) Dispersed Principle
Meaning/knowledge is dispersed in the sense that the learner shares it with others outside the domain/game, some of whom the learner may rarely or never see face-to-face

35) Affinity Group Principle
Learners constitute an "affinity group," that is, a group that is bonded primarily through shared en devours, goals, and practices and not shared race, gender, nation, ethnicity, or culture

36) Insider Principle
The learner is an "insider," "teacher," and "producer" (not just a consumer) able to customize the learning experience and the domain/game from the beginning and throughout the experience.

I’ve also started to gather some participant quotes to back up the emergent unintended consequence, and provide some context to the MILOWG. Names are anonymised, but here are a couple of useful quotes:

“I have noticed that my motor capabilities and ability to grasp more abstract concepts has definitely increased. I also tend to treat learning as ‘video-gamey quests’ to motivate myself. Think of learning as just an ability I need to ‘level up'". (Alison)

“Gaming has improved my problem-solving skills, decision-making, and adaptability. Games with deep lore have also expanded my interest in history, philosophy, and storytelling. OWRPGs encourage exploration and curiosity, which can translate to real world learning and creativity.” (Owain)

What's Next?

As far as extant literature and research goes, there has been a fair amount of research carried out around incidental learning by way of lexical acquisition / second language learning, but other than looking at linguistic learning, there is nothing out there. I sense there’s a paper or book chapter here, and further data analysis will, I hope, add empirical gravitas to this emerging unintended consequence. Or it may be that I'm seeing patterns that aren't there in order to justify some sort of subconscious bias I have around games being good for learning. Whatever the case, if this unintended consequence does hold water, it would be worth recommending to university staff with a responsibility for learning and teaching to appreciate the power of incidental learning and consider the benefits for students playing OWRPGs. Added to this, students shouldn't be made to feel that gaming isn't part of a virtuous life, or a waste of time, and enjoy their experiences in the game world without guilt or shame.

References:

CAST (2025), The UDL Guidelines, located at: https://udlguidelines.cast.org/, date accessed: 08/10/2025
Gee, J.P., (2003), What Video Games have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy, located at: https://sites.google.com/d/1EHZ47znGxbtD1VpD6TwUhI7aDWXYt9-h/p/16Pl-4p-HLsX6I0KvBP6jo1t-cfJVjL31/edit, date accessed: 08/10/2025
McGeoch, J.A., (1942), The Psychology of Human Learning: An Introduction, Longmans, Green and Company, London
Schank, R., (1995), Engines for Education, located at: https://www.engines4ed.org/hyperbook/, date accessed: 06/03/2025

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