ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on an integration model that emerged when two researchers—each trained in primarily qualitative or quantitative methods—collaborated to investigate videogame programming in libraries across the United States. Videogaming is a pervasive activity among teens, who play for an average of 2.0 to 2.5 hours per day (Center on Media and Child Health, 2019). Library programs that include videogames can support youth literacy and library patronage. If libraries are not keeping pace with this trend, it is important to understand the factors that support or inhibit such programming. Our study examines this more closely. Given that videogame programming was introduced in libraries more than 10 years ago, one might expect that videogame programming in libraries also should be pervasive. Extant research, although limited, suggests that there has been librarian buy-in and that libraries feature videogame programming, running the gamut from open play (patrons come in to check out and play videogames in the library just as they do with books) to structured play (e.g., formal videogame play sessions for learning, as is done with makerspaces; shared videogame play experiences, as is done with story hour book readings or book clubs). Nonetheless, no recent research offers data-driven insights into the state of videogame play in U.S. libraries. Because the driving force was the authors’ collective, genuine interest in understanding the state of play in U.S. libraries, there was no methodological hierarchy or territorialism, and no preconceived notions about what the research would comprise. Rather, as Abrams and Van Eck explain, the design was the result of back-and-forth cycles between and among researchers and methodologies, driven by a shared purpose, throughout the research design, data collection, and data analysis process.
