01-01-2016
19-12-2019
The project focuses on how students and teachers relate to video games and serious games, particularly in educational contexts, the construction of instruments (a comprehensive grid) and the development of methodologies that support better uses of these games as educational tools and the response to gaps identified in the literature when studying their impacts (in this case, the impacts on dimensions relevant to citizenship education and socio-political development).
There is currently visible investment in educational technologies and serious games are no exception to this trend. Not only has the number of existing games grown rapidly, but their uses have multiplied (Young et al., 2012) and this includes higher education (Lean et al., 2006). The use of video games by Portuguese students and in educational contexts in Portugal has been little studied. This is why the first objective of this project focuses on understanding the habits, attitudes and experiences that students and teachers have in relation to video games.
Given our interest in civic and political engagement and socio-political development, we will also explore the relationship between engagement with games and civic and political experiences. Data will be collected through a survey of students and teachers from the two largest public higher education institutions in the Porto region.
Another gap identified in the literature, in this case even at international level (e.g. Girard, Ecalle & Magnan, 2013; Sitzmann, 2011; Young et al., 2012) is in the empirical verification of the impacts of the use of serious games. To address this question, we plan a qualitative longitudinal study that will follow the experience of students and teachers playing a set of serious games on social issues (environmental issues, racism and discrimination, gender issues, etc.) and observe any changes and transformations over time.
A qualitative methodology will allow us to go beyond the verification of impacts and explore which characteristics of the games and experiences make a difference, and how these and others compete to produce impacts. In order to advance our understanding of the educational and mobilizing possibilities they offer, it is necessary to understand how students and teachers relate to them and the characteristics of the games that they see as particularly valuable.
Thus, while dialoguing with previously proposed grids (e.g. Echeverría et al., 2011; Mitgutsch & Alvarado, 2012; Raphael et al., 2009), the project goes further and involves students and teachers in a participatory process that will lead to the construction of a new grid, this one centered on an educational perspective and incorporating the visions and expectations of potential users. This grid could be of great use to both educators and game developers, helping them to differentiate the potentials of different existing serious games and improve the educational situations in which they can be used.
In line with our understanding of a transformative, empowering and emancipatory education, we agree with those who see participation in the game development process itself as something educationally very promising (e.g. Whitton, 2010). The task dedicated to participatory development serves not only to contribute to the advancement of a relatively new and unexplored methodology but also to re-densify the connection between serious games and sociopolitical development through the creation of opportunities for participants to challenge themselves and recreate the practice of citizenship into something that makes sense to them and that communicates with their lives and experiences. (Evans & Prilleltensky, 2007).
This project is therefore innovative not only in terms of the issues it chose to address but also in the ways in which it proposes to do so. It will generate new knowledge, new instruments and methodologies that can advance this field both nationally and internationally.
PCEP - Participation, Communities and Political Education
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Ref. PTDC/MHC-CED/7182/2014
Citizenship education
Higher education
Serious games
Participation
Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto (Instituição proponente)