| Constance Steinkuehler | |
| Birth Name: | Constance Anne Steinkuehler |
| Fields: | Education Game-based learning Literacy Informatics |
| Workplaces: | University of California, Irvine University of Wisconsin–Madison Office of Science and Technology Policy |
| Alma Mater: | University of Missouri, University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| Doctoral Advisor: | James Paul Gee |
| Known For: | Game-based learning |
| Spouse: | Kurt Squire |
Constance Steinkuehler (Squire) is an American professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She previously taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before taking public service leave, from 2011-2012, to work as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House Executive Office, where she advised on policy matters about video games and digital media.[1] After returning to academics, she and her partner Dr. Kurt Squire moved to University of California, Irvine where they continue to co-direct the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Center today.
Steinkuehler researches cognition, culture, and learning in multiplayer online video games. She is the Co-Director of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Center at UCI where she teaches courses on games and society, games as social platforms, research methods, and visual design. Her recent projects include mixed methods research on toxicity and extremism among adolescents in online games, teen reasoning about online disinformation, and cross-domain reviews of the impact of game innovations on adjacent and distal fields. She has published over 150 articles and book chapters including five special journal issues and two books.
Steinkuehler graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri with three bachelor's degrees (Mathematics, English, and Religious Studies) in 1993. She earned a master of science degree in educational psychology with a focus on cognitive science in 2000 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2005 she received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction studies, also from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her doctoral thesis entitled "Cognition & Learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games" was a cognitive ethnography of the games Lineage (I and II) and World of Warcraft.
After earning her doctorate, Steinkuehler joined the faculty at University of Wisconsin as an Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction[2] where she taught classes on videogames and learning and research methods for online communities.
From 2005 to 2013, Steinkuehler's research team of graduate and undergraduate students conducted empirical investigations into multiple academic forms of thinking and learning in the context of online gameplay, including scientific reasoning, literacy, mathematical reasoning, and problem-solving. Focusing primarily on game communities and fandoms, they took a sociocultural approach to their research, using mixed methods, including ethnographic work and experimental research.[3]
From 2007 to 2009, Steinkuehler ran an after-school games-based program for teens who were avid gamers but disengaged in school. The goal of this work was to better understand the links (or lack thereof) between learning in online games versus school.[4] This body of work included analysis of the nature, function, and quality of texts that are a regular part of online gaming, how reading performance of adolescents on such game-related texts compares to performance on school-related texts, and the factors that contribute to such differences (e.g., prior knowledge, strategy, persistence, choice).
From 2009 to 2011, Steinkuehler explored the educational merit of games designed for and played by youth instead of adults (which is group most commonly studied). The goal was to examine how games are situated in the daily life of the young adult. Research included a cognitive ethnography of Runescape, the most popular online game at that time for children ages 10 to 16.
After a period working in the Obama White House Office of Science and Technology, Steinkuehler returned to academic research with a new focus on field-building efforts (see Public Service). Research projects during this period (2012-2016) include collaborations with Dr. Richard Davidson through the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds on the design and testing of games for emotional acuity and self-regulation as well as cross-institutional efforts to situate big data (combining telemetry game data exhaust with conversational utterances across small groups of middle school game players) to better understand collaborative learning through game-based interventions.
In 2017, Steinkuehler and her partner Dr. Kurt Squire moved to the Department of Informatics at University of California, Irvine and re-established the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Center as part of the trans-departmental Connected Learning Lab at UCI. From 2017-2020 and in collaboration with the Samuel Foundation and UCI's Esports Program, Steinkuehler helped design and evaluate the North American Scholastic Esports Federation, a school-based esports league designed to foster academic learning in science and affiliation with school.
Since 2021, Steinkuehler's research has focused on tilt, toxicity, and extremism in online commercial games. She was an Anti-Defamation League Belfer Scholar 2021-2022 and conducted research on hate-speech and hate-based harassment in game platforms among adolescent players, including whether and how online games may "normalize" toxicity and hate. Her current work focuses on player-based interventions to deter hate and de-radicalize youth in games, using relational (rather than informational) model.
Steinkuehler's research has been funded by the Samueli Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and Cambridge University. Furthermore, she has worked closely with the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Education on special reports relate to videogames, and her work has been featured in Science, Wired, USA Today, New York Times, LA Times, ABC, CBS, CNN NPR, BBC and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
In 2009, Steinkuehler served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Learning Science through Computer Games and Simulations and in 2017 she served on the National Academy of Education Committee on Big Data in Education.
From 2011 to 2012 she took public service leave and worked as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the Obama White House Executive Office to advise federal agencies and private foundations on ways to develop games that have positive social impact. In this role, she helped coordinate cross-agency efforts to leverage games toward national priority areas including childhood obesity, early literacy, and STEM education, and helped forge new partnerships to support an ecosystem of innovation. She played a key role in meetings through Biden's Vice President's office on the controversial debate over violent video games in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
As part of this work in 2011, Steinkuehler founded the Federal Games Guild, a community of federal program officers with investments in game-related interventions and analyses, and two years later (2014) the Higher Education Video Games Alliance, an academic organization of game-related programs in higher education.
Steinkuehler is a co-founder of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Center and, from 2005 to 2016, their annual Games, Learning & Society Conference held for 12 years annually in Madison, Wisconsin.[5]
At UCI, from 2017-2019 Steinkuehler chaired the faculty advisory board for the UCI Esports Program and the UCI Diversity and Inclusion in Esports Task Force. From 2021-2023, she chaired UCI's Game Design and Interactive Media Program.
Steinkuehler is married to Kurt Squire, former Creative Director at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery,[6] and also a professor at University of California, Irvine.[7]
She appeared in a pilot TV show called Brain Trust.[8] The show was piloted in 2008 and featured a team of thought leaders working collaboratively to solve seemingly unsolvable problems.
Steinkuehler has published over 150 peer-review
Some selected works can be found below: