Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - e-Confidence (Confidence in behaviour changes through serious games)

Teaser

eConfidence - Confidence in behaviour changes through serious games - is a 24 months project funded by the European Union\'s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. A serious game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. Serious games have...

Summary

eConfidence - Confidence in behaviour changes through serious games - is a 24 months project funded by the European Union\'s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

A serious game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. Serious games have become a popular tool for knowledge transfer, behavioural, perceptual or cognitive change and they have been subject of several studies to test their effectiveness. In spite of a consensus on the instructional potential of serious games, there is still a lack of methodologies and tools that encompass their design, support analysis and assessment. Filling this gap is one of the main aims of eConfidence.

eConfidence focuses on the use of serious games in education and their potential benefits in supporting behavioural changes for young people. The project aims at developing a methodology and testing it with two serious games considering behavioral aspects related to safe use of internet and bullying.

eConfidence focuses on the use of serious games in education and their potential benefits in supporting behavioural changes for young people. The project aims at developing a methodology and testing it with two serious games considering behavioural aspects related to safe use of internet and bullying.

As general objectives, the project aims to
• Promote the use of serious games in learning contexts
• Develop a methodology to combine multiple recognised scientific theories
• Research behavioural aspects related to safe use of internet and bullying
• Develop serious games on the topics based on the project’s methodology
• Test the potential benefits of the games in supporting behavioural changes for young people through pilot actions in schools
• Support more effective development strategies for the game industry

Work performed

The innovative eConfidence methodology builds on two well-known methodologies in psychology: the Intervention Mapping Protocol (IMP1) and the Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). These were integrated in one comprehensive methodology that consists of six steps, starting from the topic selection process to the psychological analysis of the behaviour and final assessment. A key aspect is that behaviour is included from the very beginning of the game development process, involving experts such as psychologists. Additionally it assigns responsibilities and assesses the validity of the output, the latter another essential aspect to cover, in order to create an effective Serious Game. Valuable input was gathered from a total of 46 external experts.

The two serious games that the project developed applied the eConfidence methodology. They embed several mini-games fostering the engagement of the player and highlighting certain behaviour, e.g. sharing photos online. Decisions that the player makes are measured through LA – Learning Analytics, for keeping track of changes in behaviour of the participating students during game play. Good choices are rewarded by letting the player advance further in the game. Both games work on and interact with the educational platform Xtend, based on the widely used Moodle platform, where all measurements are centralised for further analysis. A specific Xtend extension was developed to this end.

Pilot tests were organised at 10 schools, 5 English-speaking schools and 5 Spanish speaking schools, with over 343 children participating. This group was divided in a group playing School of Empathy, another group played Go Online, and finally a control group who did not play any game.

Analyses were performed in order to examine the effects of the two video games on students’ knowledge, behaviours and attitudes. Some of the variables analysed were the knowledge and behaviours related to internet use and bullying, as well as attitudes, perceived behaviour control, self-efficacy, subjective norms and behaviour intentions related to both topics. Other social skills such as assertiveness, empathy, and friendship were also tested.

It is notable that there was a positive change in the behaviour of students that played the game about the safe use of the Internet. At the end of the gaming activities with Go Online, students were able to distinguish better between reliable and unreliable people online, and between strong and weak passwords comparing to their awareness before playing the game.

As for the participants of the School of Empathy game, students who more frequently participated in dialogues in different roles (victim, bystander, and bully) showed higher perceived control and self-efficacy in protecting the victim and reported more assertive and less aggressive reactions in everyday situations after the pilot tests.

The results of the eConfidence pilot tests also stress the importance of the participants’ experience in obtaining beneficial outcomes of the game. Immersion in the game and perceived competence can bring positive psychological outcomes.

A detailed business plan was developed by the consortium seeking maximum impact while being realistic. The three main eConfidence results that are going to be exploited:
- the School of Empathy serious game, by Everis and ITCL;
- the Go Online serious game, by Everis and Nurogames; and
- the eConfidence methodology, by ITCL and Nurogames.

IPR will be protected through copyrights and registered trademarks, and license agreements will be signed for all three exploitation parts.

A Data Management Plan has been developed and is regularly updated, assuring appropriate management of the research data collected within the project. The publications and data sets resulting from the project have been published in the open access repository Zenodo and are thus also available through OpenAire.

Final results

As a result of the pilots, a number of children have changed their behaviours relating to internet use and bullying. Now more and more children, and the people surrounding them, will benefit when the games will be sold and implemented at schools throughout Europe and the Americas by project partners Everis, Nurogames and ITCL Institute of Technology. This will also contribute to social awareness of these two societal issues.

The project has generated knowledge on which factors are determining to promote the behavioural change -for example the level of immersion in the game and perceived competence- and which factors are not. This leads to new research questions inducing further investigation to extend these results.

Soon after the project, the eConfidence methodology will be publicly available through an open access publication, and additionally, ITCL and Nurogames will support game developer companies with the methodology implementation through consultancy services; and contribute to their endeavours to generate a profitable product addressing societal challenges.

The fact that the eConfidence methodology is backed by positive scientific results should increase the confidence in serious games, which in turn strengthens the serious games market. More recognition of serious games contributes to more demand and supply, what eventually should decrease somewhat the enormous gap of development budget compared to the games with millions of investment (with often such a violent content) in the entertainment sector.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.econfidence.eu.