Larping the Past: Research Report on High-School Edu-Larp

Abstract

The paper presents the results of “Live Action Role Plays in School Education,” a quasi-experimental project piloted in 2010 and 2012 and conducted in 2013 by Games Research Association of Poland and educational publisher Nowa Era. In this project, larp was used in high-schools as a revision class before a test in History, the hypothesis being that larp as pretest revision leads to higher retention of knowledge than traditional revision classes. Small sample size cannot be considered conclusive evidence, but the preliminary findings seem encouraging for further research. Beside students’ test scores, the report provides non-standardized qualitative observational data on participant attitudes, plus information about practical issues of edu-larp research in public school environment. Next to the findings, the text reports on the research process and the rationale behind its modification.