Engaging Children in Story Co-Creation for Effective Serious Games

Zeno Menestrina, Angela Pasqualotto, Adriano Siesser, Paola Venuti and Antonella De Angeli
Additional contact information
Zeno Menestrina: Centro Zaffiria, 47814 Bellaria-Igea Marina, Italy
Angela Pasqualotto: Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, 38068 Rovereto, Italy
Adriano Siesser: Arte Sella, 38051 Borgo Valsugana, Italy
Paola Venuti: Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, 38068 Rovereto, Italy
Antonella De Angeli: Faculty of Computer Science, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 39100 Bolzano, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 18, 1-20

Abstract: Despite a growing interest in player-centred methods for serious games, little is known on how to achieve this goal in practice when prospective users are children. Foundational questions remain unanswered, such as to which design dimensions children should contribute, and how and when they should be engaged. This paper presents the methods and results of two studies that inspired Skies of Manawak, a game for developmental dyslexia remediation. The first study engaged 60 children (age 8–13) in 15 ideation workshops to highlight the story and aesthetics of the game. The second study engaged 258 children (age 8–11) in the comparative evaluation of the game demo with a commercial cognitive training system. The results proved the importance and complexity of the early involvement of children in design. Children strongly appreciated the demo, particularly the story their peers contributed to shaping. However, this story deviated from their desires in several critical dimensions. It had to reconcile gender stereotypes and the violence embedded in their narratives with the game’s purpose. An apparent conflict between designers and children’s values emerged, supporting the idea that children’s engagement in serious game design requires effective mediation to avoid compromising the purposes they intend to achieve.

Keywords: serious games; children; co-design; dyslexia; cognitive training (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10334/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10334/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:18:p:10334-:d:636521

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().