Steph Carter

University of York

Steph is a psycholinguistics graduate from the University of York with a background in language teaching and SEND teaching. Their research focuses on second language acquisition, human-computer interaction, and gamification. Their research interests also include accessibility in games, disability representation, and games with a purpose. Outside of research, they have worked as a freelance accessibility consultant and occasionally take part in game jams with their colleagues. 

Steph’s project explores how game design can improve participants’ experiences in second language learning experiments while still enabling the collection of high-quality, controlled data. Although games and gamification are increasingly used in educational contexts, particularly for language learning, their potential in experimental design for second language acquisition research remains underexplored. This project investigates how incorporating game elements into psycholinguistic tasks can impact the participant experience and maintain data quality. The findings aim to inform the design and development of gamified data collection tools for both language learning and cognitive research, while also providing some practical guidance for researchers interested in gamifying their experimental methods.