Steph Carter

University of York

Steph is a York graduate in psycholinguistics with extensive experience in language teaching. They specialise in second language acquisition, human-computer interaction, and gamification. Their research interests also include accessibility in games, disability representation, and games with a purpose. Additionally, Steph has experience designing games for children and young people, as well as in esport analytics. When not immersed in research, Steph enjoys participating in game jams, creating art and obsessively playing rhythm games. They also love spending time with their two cats, Nano and Pixel.

Steph's project explores how game design can improve the way we study people who are learning a second language. While games and gamification have become popular tools in education, especially for learning new languages, traditional research methods often overlook the fun and engaging aspects of games. This can make studies less interesting for participants, leading to higher dropout rates and less reliable results. By incorporating game elements into psycholinguistic studies—research that looks at how we understand and produce language—Steph aims to make these studies more engaging. Using this approach, they investigate how gamified experiments help keep participants interested and whether they provide more accurate data. The findings can then be used to develop better tools for language learning and cognitive research, benefiting both researchers and the game development industry.