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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2021

Current Landscape of Higher Education Performance & Health-related Esports Academic Programming

Seth E Jenny
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Résumé

Esports education has been recently thrusted into the spotlight through the initiation and near immediate retraction of the Esports Certification Institute’s (2021) Esports Professional Certificate after immense industry backlash after its launch (Fitch, 2021). Academics and industry-alike have called into question the need for formalized esports education degrees and certifications (e.g., DeKay, 2020; Scholz, 2021). Moreover, entities are starting to monetize the ability to connect prospective students to esports education programs (e.g., Majoring in Gaming, 2021), or offer higher education institutions esports curriculum development services (e.g., GHS Esports Solutions, 2021). Moreover, while esports players continue to retire prematurely due to health or injury complications (e.g., professional Overwatch player Ki-hyo "Xzi" Jung’s recent retirement due to physical injury; Aquino, 2021), little is known regarding the amount and breadth of formalized esports health-related academic programming that is available worldwide. In addition, little empirical evidence exists surrounding esports education, particularly research that targets investigating formal education of esports performance, health, and medicine in higher education. Thus, as part of a larger study inventorying nearly 100 worldwide higher education esports programs (Jenny et al., in press), the purpose of this presentation is to offer an analysis of the current global offerings of performance and health-related esports degree, certificate, and minor academic programs. In addition, individual esports performance and health-related modules within these programs will be presented. Data collection occurred between July 2018 and March 2021 and started with widespread Internet searches focusing on finding higher education esports academic program websites and esports education media news articles. Inventory search term and inclusion criteria included: "e-sport", "e-sports", "esport", or "esports" included within the title of the higher education institution’s “degree”, “certificate”, or “minor” program. Members of the following two discord server groups that are primarily comprised of esports students, faculty, and researchers were also solicited during data collection: 1) Esports Research Network (n = 164), and 2) Global Esports Studies (n = 122). When available, collected data included the higher education institution’s name, location, and language taught, along with the esports education program’s title, type of program (e.g., type of degree, certificate or minor), term and year it started, objectives, delivery format (i.e., online or face-to-face), program curriculum (i.e., individual “course” titles – commonly known as “modules” outside of the United States – within the program), and course (i.e., module) descriptions. Data was then triangulated across academic institution esports program websites, media articles, and personal correspondence to enhance validity, when possible. A comparative content analysis design was used for this study (Saldaña & Omasta, 2018). All data was organized, categorized, analyzed, and coded into common occurrence themes within Microsoft Excel (Given, 2016). As health is part of performance optimization, the focus of this analysis was to determine the current number and composition of health-related and performance esports degree, certificate, and minor academic programs offered globally. Distinct esports health and performance-related courses (i.e., modules) across all found programs were also analyzed. Finally, frequency counts of data (i.e., type of program, focus area of the program, focus area of each course/module, etc.) and descriptive statistics were performed. Across our analysis, only 13% of found global higher education academic esports programs focused on esports performance or coaching (i.e., sport science). Moreover, the majority of these health or performance-related esports academic programs focused on becoming a better esports player (i.e., skill development), with no programs found that focused on esports health or medicine. In addition, an analysis of over 400 individual esports-specific courses (i.e., modules) offered by higher education institutions that deliver esports academic programs where curriculum was available (n = 77) found that only 1% of courses (n = 5) related to esports health/medicine (e.g., “Esports Injuries and Rehabilitation”, “Health and Wellbeing for Esports Competitors”) and 8% of courses (n = 32) related to esports performance/coaching (e.g., “Introduction to Esports Coaching”, “Game Analysis”, “Skill and Strategy Development”). Educating current and future esports practitioners on the health management of players is paramount for the sustainability of the esports ecosystem. Formal education may be a part of this solution. Developing esports-specific health promotion knowledge, skills, and abilities among future esports professionals could contribute to lengthening professional player careers and increasing the health of players at all levels. Specific institutions and their programs will be discussed, with future directions of esports education also highlighted.
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hal-03982160 , version 1 (10-02-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03982160 , version 1

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Seth E Jenny, Joey Gawrysiak, Nicolas Besombes. Current Landscape of Higher Education Performance & Health-related Esports Academic Programming. Esports Research Network Conference (ERNC21), Institut des Sciences du Sport-Santé de Paris (I3SP), Dec 2021, Paris (Université Paris Cité), France. ⟨hal-03982160⟩
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