Spunky Avatars, Virtual Quests, and Epic Battles Against Self-Doubt: How a Middle School Video Game Promotes College-Going Efficacy

• In Event: Innovating Through (Online) Games to Improve Educational Outcomes

Abstract

Purpose
FutureBound is a role-playing game that illustrates how the choices a student makes during middle school affect his/her opportunities in high school, college, and beyond. The game’s objectives are to help middle-school students develop vocabulary and build aspirations around college at this key moment in their development. The game, available on IOS devices, will be launched in the fall of 2013, culminating an intensive, iterative design process informed by frequent playtesting with students.
FutureBound can be accessed through Collegeology.usc.edu/games

Theoretical framework
Two distinct fields informed the design of the intervention and related research: (1) college access literature and (2) game design theory. College access literature provides a foundation for understanding the college going process, the different needs of diverse students, and the unique challenges related to encouraging students towards a postsecondary trajectory. In particular, we are engaging with literature that helps explain how lack of access to quality guidance as well as issues related to the “digital divide” affect students’ educational trajectories and quality of learning.

For the game design aspects of the project, the work is informed by current thinking about how learning and play can provoke the development of social identities related to successful college preparation strategies. The design and research processes were informed by: (1) theories of participatory culture, such as those described by media scholar Henry Jenkins (2006); (2) literature on learning and games, as investigated by James Paul Gee (2005, 2007); and (3) the process of playcentric design as pioneered by Tracy Fullerton (2008).

Methods and Data Sources
The study sample was comprised of students from three Los Angeles area middle schools (two traditional schools and one charter school) serving low-income students. Researchers used a case study approach involving rigorous qualitative and quantitative analyses of the data to measure the project’s effect on students’ college going efficacy. Case study data sets included: (1) observations of game play environments; (2) collection of pre and post tests measuring changes in college going efficacy; (3) back-end server level analysis of game play; (4) focus groups with students in playtest classrooms; and (5) interviews with teachers and counselors.

Conclusions
This demonstration will showcase how FutureBound game features (including narrative and mechanics) correspond with intended learning objectives. We will also share how we constructed varied measures to determine the effectiveness of the game on raising players’ college-going efficacy. Qualitative findings illustrate that playing FutureBound engages students, promotes deeper understandings of college and career knowledge among middle school students and encourages college and career-related peer interactions. Quantitative analyses of pre and post test data (of quasi control and intervention groups) and back-end server level analyses are currently underway during the summer of 2013 and will be ready to share at the AERA conference.

Authors

• Gisele Ragusa, University of Southern California

• Prayaas Jain

• Jessica Evora, University of California - Los Angeles