Colin et al
thanks for bringing the open thread back into a discussion. 

i figure what i am saying is that although there appear to be no formal educational research 
findings from the commercial sector, if we take markets as evidence, then the money points to fun 
over education. education and fun are not mutually exclusive. maybe they are just different 
markets.

my experience is that it is easier to turn 'student' expectations of education into fun, than it is to 
make 'customer' expectations of fun, educational. 

i responded because, although i know this is an educational site, after years working as an 
instructor i see a gap between the need for centres to sell courses and remain solvent and for 
research to promote dialogue and build evidence. 

i know they are not the same. but ‘markets’ as evidence can a) inform education in a way that 
formal research cannot, (it costs nothing for a start, unless you try and sell something nobody 
wants) or b) we can see markets as a form of non-academic/scientific/research evidence. 

generally ‘fun’ courses are easier to sell than ‘educational’ courses. again, i don’t believe fun and 
education are not mutually exclusive, i never said that. i was talking about markets as evidence. 
with all manner of activity holidays selling like hot cakes and TV coverage of X-Games etc i used 
this as evidence of what individuals as paying customers want. a clear market, surely is 
quantitative evidence. but as ever with evidence we may not like what it tells us. like a market for 
£7 million spent on ringtones in 2004. personally i think it is an appalling bit of evidence but does 
tell us something about ‘cutomers’ priorities. 

as for ‘education users as customers’ then surely an individual buying a ring-tone or a PGL break 
for their family is not the same as a local authority or school buying an educational outdoor 
programme. its a different market mechanism. children can buy ringtones but cannot buy 
education. children buy more ringtones than outdoor education programmes, but local authorities 
buy education not ringtones. so market evidence, like all evidence has its limitations. PGL’s 
success tells us something about what individual customers want and although it has educational 
content and outcomes, it is largely sold as fun. nowt wrong with that BUT....

i heard a professor of physics complain on Radio4 that he was offered large sums of money upon 
retirement to advise a software company on developing a CD-ROM for the A-Level physics 
syllabus that made physics “Easy to understand and fun.” he declined the work because he said 
physics was neither easy to understand nor was it always fun. sometimes fun and education do 
not mix.