Designing an entertaining game for children that measures their social/emotional development

Abstract

In order to support the development of children, they are continuously monitored at all types of care they go to. The goal of SWKGroep is to improve this support of the development. In order to do this, and enrich their portfolio, they want to know the possibilities of measuring the development with the use of a physical game.

This report describes the design process of this game and the research to the possibilities of implementing the measurement in this game. Research, interviews and observations have shown that the social and emotional development domain at 6-8 year old children shows the most potential for a development measuring game, both because of the large changes in this domain for this age and the fit with the values of SWKGroep.

In current monitoring systems for the social and emotional development, supervisors observe children and score them on a list of statements. However, the supervisors do not always have time to monitor each child individually. Because of the role of the supervisor, this can also create subjective outcomes. Therefore, it is concluded that the game must measure independently.
By combining two current social and emotional measurement systems, a full understanding of the social and emotional spectrum was created. With this, a list of 23 categories was setup which the game must include to measure.

By performing brainstorm sessions, current game analyses and collaborating with experts, a variety of game ideas have been created. After testing, improving and combining those, three concepts were created. By testing these with the target group, the most promising concept was selected.

After this, through a process of testing with the target group and iteration, the game was improved to be an entertaining and understandable game. In the game, teQ’s adventure, the players have to work together and execute assignments. Each assignment requires skill points, which each player has assigned to himself, to fit him best. The game can both be played on a board as in a ‘life size’ version.

After the entertainment level and understandability were confirmed, the focus shifted to the measurement. Throughout the entire design process, the 23 social and emotional categories were taken into account, but could now be improved further. The categories are implemented in the assignments. The decisions that the players make and the answers that they give to questions, create the data for the measurement. During the game, the players use an app to log their process and insert their answer and decisions. These are then used to transfer into measurement scores. The supervisor can now process them in the same way they do with the current system.

After the design of the game was completed, the game was evaluated. Because in the game the data is collected in a consistent way, through the app, the results have a high reliability. However, because this way of measuring is new and the implementations were created by a non pedagogical expert, the validity has to be assured through further research.