Steph Carter

University of York

Steph is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work spans psycholinguistics, HCI and game design. Their research investigates how game design can be used improve the participant experience in experimental tasks for second language acquisition research. They are also interested in research on accessibility in games, disability representation, games with a purpose, and have published work examining how AI/ML can be used to support professional roles in the creative industries. Outside of academia, Steph enjoys taking part in game jams, making pixel art and playing with their cats.

Steph’s project explores how game design can improve participants’ experiences in Second Language Acquisition 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 SLA 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.