ABSTRACT
This chapter will explore the relationship between teachers' beliefs about the use of digital games in the classroom, their choice of digital games and the pedagogical practices they use to implement digital games. A number of factors have previously been demonstrated to influence teachers' use of games, including student motivation; social growth such as teamwork, communication and self-regulation; and cognitive gains in problem solving, content understanding and procedural knowledge (Garris et al. 2002; O'Neil et al. 2005; Pozo 2008; Lacasa 2011). What a teacher thinks or believes the use of a digital game can achieve, such as these social and intellectual benefits, can influence and shape how digital games are ‘played’ by the students in their classrooms. This chapter will focus on why and how teachers use games and the effect this has on their own perceptions of who they are as teachers in the twenty-first century.
