In the field of economics education research on the use of games to teach economics the field has focused on student achievement; better retention of course material; higher student motivation; as well as a favourable impression of economics as compared to the traditional ‘chalk and talk’ method. But there has been minimal research that has focused on the mapping out of cognitive and learning processes in economic educational games which would require a more qualitative than not quantitative.This paper takes looks at an innovative way of doing qualitative research, namely Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA). We follow the journey from the ontological and epistemological assumptions, through the IQA process and protocols that culminate in the development of a model of ‘how’ and ‘why’ students learn from an educational gaming intervention. This model challenges our notions concerning the roles of involvement, emotions and deeper conceptual understanding in learning.

在经济学教育领域，有关使用游戏教授经济学的研究主要集中在学生的成就上。更好地保留课程资料；更高的学生动力；以及与传统的“对话与交谈”方法相比对经济学的良好印象。但是，很少有研究集中在经济教育游戏中认知和学习过程的映射上，这些研究需要定性而非定量化。本文研究了一种进行定性研究的创新方法，即交互式定性分析（ IQA）。我们遵循从本体论和认识论假设出发的过程，通过IQA过程和协议，最终发展出“如何”和“为什么”学生从教育游戏干预中学习的模型。