There are currently approximately 20.2 million children in Nigeria out of school, exacerbated by ongoing conflicts demonstrating an ongoing need for Emergency Remote Education (ERE). Despite this, Nigeria remains an under-explored context and the specific challenges of providing ERE there are not fully understood. This paper reports on a mixed methods study of teachers experiences of enacting ERE in Nigeria in April 2020 with a questionnaire (n=374), diary study and follow up interviews (n=20) carried out. The contributions of the paper are two-fold; firstly, an in-depth study of ERE in Nigeria, demonstrating that teachers used WhatsApp as a tool of practical necessity, configured it to create a continued sense of place, and continued to enact largely traditional pedagogies. Secondly, through reflection on these findings, we offer initial design considerations for technology use in ERE in low resource settings before outlining continuing design challenges for HCI researchers in this context.

Globally, the future of work is changing with organisations increasingly reliant on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills and related expertise. In developing countries such as Nigeria, professionals with these skills and expertise are also in high demand. With changes in healthcare, education, economic growth and sustainable development, there is an urgent need to increase the number of young people choosing to study and work in STEM, and particularly digital technologies and engineering. Previous research has identified that the traditional instructivist and theoretical approach to teaching often used in Nigeria and other developing countries can be a major barrier to young people, who can often regard STEM subjects and careers as not for `people like them' and/or have very narrow perspectives of opportunities in the STEM sector. It also means that young people are not equipped to take their place as digital citizens in today's global society. The DIGISTEM programme was commissioned by the Ekiti State Government in Nigeria and sponsored by the World Bank to provide a novel approach to address these challenges. This paper presents its overall vision. Using an action research approach, a set of carefully designed interactions were conducted with young people and their schools and teachers. The initial results from this are presented and demonstrate that there is an urgent need to transform educational practice in this and other similar regions to provide a more authentic and active learning experience that prepares young people to be career-ready global digital citizens.

The Virtual STEM project was carried out in two countries - Nigeria and Kenya by Co-creation Hub (CcHub) Africa's largest innovation institute. The Virtual STEM training program was aimed at providing support to train and educate in-service and pre-service teachers with the right skills, tools and teaching methodology while integrating the IBL approach to foster the continuous learning for their students while at home and in turn support teachers' development. The goal of this research is to examine the impact of the programme and to evaluate the effectiveness of the project approach in delivering remote teaching training activities.

This research-to-practice full paper examines stereotypes in government recommended textbooks in science, technology and mathematics textbooks in Nigeria. Globally, more men are studying and working in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields than women. This imbalance is also the case in Nigeria. One contributor to this imbalance is stereotypical gender representation of scientists, mathematicians, engineers and technologists in popular media and career advertisement. Previous research indicates that stereotypes are also prevalent in educational materials used with young people. Given that the aspirations of young people are formed early in their educational journey, it is particularly pertinent to examine the gender bias in educational materials. As part of the DIGISTEM project, a World Bank-sponsored project in Nigeria, the aim of this study was to explore the level of gender bias in the images and language contained in the most frequently used science, technology, and mathematics textbooks recommended by the Nigerian Education Ministry. This study evaluated a total of 2116 visual and text references from 25 government recommended instructional materials. The analysis shows that males are significantly more represented in these resources than females. This study highlights that there is a stereotypical representation of scientists and engineers in primary school instructional materials as demonstrated by the imbalance portrayed in the examined textbooks. This paper concludes with an exploration of the implications of these findings on the educational sector and the need to provide a more inclusive approach to educational resources to enable young people to realise that STEM careers and subjects can be for people like them. This study took place in Nigeria; however, we recognise similar challenges and opportunities in a number of other jurisdictions which provides a foundation for replicability, portability and extension to this work.

This paper presents the results of a study on the adoption and integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the classroom in Nigeria from the teachers' perspective. Although the Internet and digital devices are becoming increasingly accessible by many more people in Nigeria, the literature shows that their adoption and integration in the classroom is still low. This research adopts the case study method to examine the barriers as well as the solutions from the perspective of the teachers. Twenty science teachers from different schools in Ekiti State, Nigeria participated in this study. A combination of focus groups and questionnaires was used to collect data. The results show that the main barriers against the adoption and integration of ICT in the classroom include a lack of adequate and well-trained personnel, poor internet service, as well as high cost of access. The identified solutions include changes to the curriculum to support digital literacy, funding and material support from both regional and national government, and digital literacy training for the teachers. These findings provide practical insights for school leaders and policy makers on strategies and recommendations to improve the adoption and integration of ICT in schools in Nigeria.

This research to practice paper uses a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to explore the factors that affect teachers' intentions to use digital educational games in the classroom. Research shows that using computers and other digital technologies like digital games is one way to influence young people's career aspirations and improve their digital literacy. This is particularly important as the world of work is changing and emerging jobs becoming more intensive in their use of digital technologies. In the developing world and in particular Nigeria, there have been calls to improve the digital literacy skills of young people to help them make informed career choices, and fully participate effectively and equally in the digital world. However, many of the computing and digital technology education initiatives have not produced the positive results intended. The lack of awareness, readiness and buy-in of the relevant stakeholders are some of the factors that has been identified as a barrier here. For example, for computing and digital technology-based projects in schools, the success largely depends on the support and attitude of teachers. As one of the major stakeholders in the classroom, teachers need to be consulted in decisions that affect the way they deliver their lessons; especially when novel ideas and approaches that challenge tradition are introduced. It is therefore important to consider their acceptance or otherwise of digital games in the classroom. A Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was modified to include constructs previously identified by teachers that potentially influence their intention to use digital games in the classroom. The extended TAM was developed into a questionnaire and tested with 220 teachers in Nigeria. Analyses of the results show that syllabus connectedness, perceived usefulness and self-efficacy are significant predictors of the intention of teachers to adopt digital game-based learning in the classroom. Furthermore, the teachers' demographics including experience of teaching, age and gender all mediated the intention of the teachers to use digital game-based learning. The results and findings present recommendations for school leaders and developers of digital educational games. The practical insights from this are also important here and helpful for guiding the deployment of such games particularly in areas where such technological interventions have not been used before.

This research to practice full paper presents the results from using a games design intervention to encourage diversity in the uptake of computer science by young people, explore stereotypes with them and increase their awareness of careers in the sector. The intervention is based on an integrated pedagogical framework appropriate for use with primary age school children (age 7 - 11 years). Despite the increasing use of technology, the percentage of young people taking up a computer science education-career path remains stubbornly low in the UK and across a number of other countries, particularly for females and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Previous research suggests that games can be used to generate interest and engage young people with computer science. Other studies advocate targeting young people at an earlier age (7 years or below) and sustaining engagement throughout their education to widen participation in a particular sector. In this intervention, young people designed and developed individual games through a three stage process: design and story development; game building; testing and evaluation. This research adopts elements from two pedagogical learning theories Direct Instruction and Cognitive Constructivism to create an integrated pedagogical framework to support the game creation process and enable effective learning. This provides an approach that can cater for a range of participants' abilities along the novice-expert spectrum and provide an engaging and age appropriate educational experience.The intervention was completed in two cycles: cycle 1 consisted of a series of workshop sessions with 20 young people aged 9-10 years over a period of 5 weeks; and cycle 2 was a single session with 19 young people aged 7-11 years. A quasi-experimental approach was adopted for evaluating the intervention using the following instruments; pre and post questionnaires, planning sheets, the games created by the participants and a set of already developed engagement factors. Results show an increase from 5% to 25% in participants' aspiration towards a computer science career. 45% of the young people also knew more careers in the game industry post-intervention. Girls chose a variety of diversity in their lead characters while boys chose mainly male human lead characters in the games that they designed. Participants' evaluation of each other's games using the engagement factors showed girls were more interested in receiving feedback than boys. This paper highlights the effectiveness of combining different learning approaches to provide an age appropriate intervention. It also presents evidence on the positive effect of using games in the classroom to explore stereotypes, and learn about, and encourage career choices in computer science.

A key issue for the digital sector is how to attract more young people, particularly those from under-represented groups, to study computer science and digital technologies at higher education and beyond. The main aim of this study was to evaluate if a gaming environment can be used to generate interest and engagement among young people. Two further aims were to see if this approach could also be used to create a greater awareness of professional career roles in the sector and to explore diversity and stereotypes. Using an action research approach, a workshop was designed for use with young people where they were asked to design and develop a game. Embedded within this were activities to introduce career roles and challenge stereotypes, with a specific focus on gender and ethnicity. The results show that young people have a limited understanding of the roles involved in the game industry. Male children created male game characters while female children created both male and female characters for their games. Females aspired to jobs in the health sciences while males aspired to a wider range of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers. The workshop is currently being extended and developed to create a more in-depth intervention, building on the results from the research to date.

Digital educational games development is an emerging area receiving attention from educators and researchers. Several studies have looked at their educational value, and some have established their usefulness as an effective pedagogical tool. However, few studies have examined the design process for digital educational games and how they can provide engagement experiences comparable to those found in entertainment games. Even fewer studies have specifically investigated how concepts of inclusivity and diversity can be built into games. This study explored gender diversity in digital educational games. The authors have worked with young people to create a digital game engagement framework, which identifies the most important factors that attract and engage young people in a digital game. The factors are: challenge, rewards, clarity of goal, feedback, visual appeal, social interaction, thematic appeal, creativity and immersion. Using a mixed methods approach and a ‘Diamond 9’ tool, young people were asked to rank the nine factors. The results indicate that while rewards ranked highly independent of gender, the importance of other factors (feedback, social interaction and clarity of goal) differed by gender. This study provides implications for designing inclusive digital educational games and calls for further research into diversity and inclusiveness in digital games.

The use of digital games in education is growing. Digital games with their elements of `play' and `challenge' are increasingly viewed as a successful medium for engaging and motivating students, in situations where students may be uninterested or distant. One such situation is mathematics education in Nigeria where young people in schools can be unenthusiastic about the subject. The introduction of digital educational games is being trialed to see if it can address this issue. A key element for ensuring the success of the introduction of new technologies is that the users are prepared and ready to accept the technology. This also applies to the introduction of digital educational games in the classroom. Technology Acceptance Models (TAMs) have been widely employed to explore users' attitudes to technology and to highlight their main concerns and issues. The aim of this study is to investigate if a modified TAM can be successfully developed and deployed to explore teachers' attitudes to the introduction of digital educational games in their classroom. The study employs a mixed methods approach and combines the outcomes from previous research studies with data gathered from interviews with teachers to develop the modified TAM. This approach of combining the results from previous studies together with interviews from the targeted group enabled the key variables/constructs to be identified. Independent evaluation by a group of experts gave further confidence in the model. The results have shown that this modified TAM is a useful instrument for exploring the attitude of teachers to using digital games for learning and teaching, and highlighting the key areas which require support and input to ensure teachers are ready to accept and use this technology in their classroom practice.

Digital games have become part of childhood and adolescence. The debate has moved from should teenagers play digital games to how to gain benefits from this gameplay. Researchers predict that technology-enhanced learning will increase with educational computer games (serious games) playing an important role. Although serious games are often built on established educational theories, they can also appear boring and struggle to engage the learner. Analyses of serious games demonstrate that many do not offer an entertainment experience comparable to or even recognizable as relatives of the entertainment games familiar to many players. However, a high level of engagement by the learner is viewed as necessary to provide a strong learning environment. The long-term aim of this study is to explore how digital games can support a more engaging and effective mathematics learning experience. This first stage has taken a qualitative grounded theory approach to explore the engagement factors of digital games among young people (aged 7 - 16 years). Analyses of data gathered through a combination of surveys and interviews have led to a framework of engagement factors. This provides a basis for designing serious games that are effective by being both engaging and educational.

Considerable effort has been spent on interventions to increase the numbers/diversity of young people studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and/or entering STEM related careers with little evidence of their effectiveness. In the UK, less than 10% of professional engineers are female. Science capital is a recent concept for capturing those elements that influence children's choice of a science-related career. Children with higher science capital are more likely to choose a STEM career than those with lower science capital and therefore interventions to increase science capital are needed. Initially studies evaluating science capital have focused on secondary age children (aged 11 - 18 years). Here a research approach for evaluating science capital among primary age children (aged 7 - 11 years) is presented using a mixed methods approach. Results indicate that children share similar perceptions of scientists as `hardworking', `clever' and `creative' independent of gender, age and science capital. However, children's self-identify differed by gender, age and science capital, illustrating significant gaps for some children between their self-identity and that of a scientist. Interventions focusing on narrowing this gap should increase the likelihood of them considering a science-related career.