Designing Compelling Digital Games for Measurement

• In Event: Designing and Validating Games to Measure Social and Emotional Learning: Validation Results and Lessons Learned

Abstract

This talk is presented by an EMMY-award winning designer of children's games whose team partnered with researchers in learning analytics for innovative experiments in learning assessments. The team was commissioned to produce compelling interactive experiences that would have the typical qualities of casual games but simultaneously function as an effective tool for assessing social and emotional learning (SEL), specifically kindergarten readiness. Designing an SEL game with the express purpose to measure required a shift in mindset as measurement is simply not what games are typically designed for. So the challenges for the developers were to: (a) understand the goals of assessment; (b) approach games with opportunities for assessment while maintaining broader goals of appeal and repeat-play; (c) find appropriate novel game design perspectives; (d) work closely with research partners to create experiences that faithfully reflected SEL ideas; (e) communicate with the assessment group who were not game developers; (f) disambiguate where a failure in a game might reasonably be attributed to an assessable SEL deficit and not a game-based one (such as in the interface design or leveling of difficulty); and (g) navigate the vicissitudes of the pandemic, not least of which being that we were assessing kindergarten readiness at a time when there was no in-person kindergarten. Working as we were with a nationally familiar TV brand, the games had to also overcome biases or preferences players may have had regarding familiar characters. Each game required rich discussion about creating assessable moments while allowing for open-ended play to support both the recruited trial and our high-traffic public-facing game distribution (which provided our population data).

Author

• Bill Shribman, WGBH
  Presenting Author