[Air-L] Research on skills supply to the video games and visual effects‏

[Richard Kunzmann]

Dear Colleagues,


We are currently assisting NESTA (the National Endowment for Science,
Technology and Art) with an independent review of the skills supply in the
video games and visual effects industries in the UK. One aspect of the
research is to identify existing academic literature on how schools,
Further Education Institutions and Higher Education Institutions can
improve the supply of adequately trained graduates to a sector that is
experiencing chronic skills shortages.

The existing academic literature focuses heavily on the impact of computer
games on young people and how computer gaming can be used as a pedagogical
tool. There is little about the skills that might be developed at school
age to prepare students to become specialists in video games /VFX
programming, or the teaching methods that might be implemented to help
them. Can you point me in the direction of studies which have been
conducted in the UK or internationally? We are particularly interested in
evaluations of school programs that might have been implemented to prepare
learners in this regard, and so examples of industry-school collaborations
would also be appreciated.


All the best,

Richard