Intentional learning with educational games: A Deweyan reconstruction

Abstract

Intentional learning has customarily been construed from a perspective that foregrounds cognitive engagement and mental life in meaning making. In this paper, I interrogate the said perspective. I argue that a theoretical positioning based on the dominant paradigm of human information processing psychology leads to incoherence because this paradigm results in “meaning-less cognition.” To get out of this conundrum, I offer a reconstruction of intentional learning from the perspective of Deweyan inquiry and the philosophy of pragmatism. I situate this reconstruction in the context of game-based learning.