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Mini Games for Professional Awareness in Introductory Psychology.

Mini Games for Professional Awareness in Introductory Psychology.

Authors :
Hummel, Hans
Nadolski, Rob
Eshuis, Jannes
Slootmaker, Aad
Source :
Proceedings of the European Conference on Games Based Learning; 2016, Vol. 1, p986-989, 4p, 1 Color Photograph
Publication Year :
2016

Abstract

Main problems with the current course Introduction to Psychology in our university is that students consider the content as too theoretical and insufficient in providing professional practice. Potential solutions are expected to come from mini-games that have proven to enable more active and contextualized learning. In the context of course revision, the developmental research project that feeds this paper entails the design, development and evaluation of such mini-games. In this short paper on work in progress we argue why and describe how these mini-games provide students with practical, rich and safe learning environments as well as active engagement with study specialisations and career profiles (section 1). Of core importance to our design approach is to develop an overarching pedagogical scenario that connects authentic cases from practice to learning activities in education which can be represented through mini-games. At the basis of our game play lies a multi-facetted problem family that is to be analysed and treated from the four main psychological perspectives that are offered as specialisations in our Master program Psychology. Competences practiced through practical assignments within the game (planned are about 16 mini-games that will each take 1-2 hours) are how to communicate with patients, how to conduct tests and therapies in actual practice, how to build and analyse client files, how to deal with practical dilemmas, useless information and unexpected events, amongst others. Besides describing the game design (section 2), this paper presents the experimental research design (section 3). For both effectiveness and cost-efficiency reasons, we intend to answer two research questions that appear to be relevant for advancing our knowledge about serious gaming in education by comparing experimental variants of mini-games on their learning effect: Does the inclusion of more active learning foster improved professional awareness?; and Does the inclusion of more situated knowledge foster improved professional awareness? At the time of the ECGBL2016 conference first prototypes of the mini-games will be available for demonstration and discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20490992
Volume :
1
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Proceedings of the European Conference on Games Based Learning
Publication Type :
Conference
Accession number :
118288376