Co-designing with Latine Children: Meaningful Values and Traits in Media Character Development

• In Event: Implications of digital technologies for children's learning and development

Abstract

Involving stakeholders in the design of learning artifacts is valuable for creating meaningful, usable, accessible, and sustainable learning experiences for families(Fishman & Krajcik, 2011). For example, adopting Participatory Design (PD) methodologies with children has been effective in generating collaborative, creative, and engaging technologies scaled up to various learning environments (Bonsignore et al., 2013). Cultural responsiveness also plays an important role in the creation of learning designs given that alignment of families’ values and practices across learning contexts facilitates engagement and reinforces learning (Belgrave et al., 2022). In this study, we present a research-practice partnership with Latine families to develop a mobile application to support children’s learning in conjunction with physical installations of Playful Learning Landscapes, redesigned public spaces for families to engage in STEM learning through play. Specifically, we aimed to uncover the values that resonated with children from this community through character and story development in the contexts of technology design. Participants were 31 caregivers, primarily mothers, and 44 children ranging in age from 4 to 16 years. We conducted six participatory design sessions where we engaged participants in storytelling, character development, and other design activities. Here, we focus on data sources including children’s stories and artifacts in the development of characters (n = 27) for a child and youth friendly STEM learning app. Specifically, we reviewed audio recordings (13.5 hours) from two co-design sessions and extracted information on each child’s description of the name, personality, dilemma, special power, location of origin, and how to rescue their imagined character. Graduate students reviewed the characters' descriptions and identified prominent themes through inductive thematic analysis across participants’ stories. Preliminary findings showed prominent themes surrounding social connection, educación (ser educado)(Halgunseth et al., 2006), and social-emotional aspects. Character descriptions reflected social connections that relate to having a community, the importance of relationships, and a sense of inclusion. For example, a child created a sibling-like duo, Dulce and Mango, where one sibling feels protective over the other due to their close relationship (Figure 1A). Additionally, descriptions of characters’ personalities resonated the values of being bien educado, by respecting and helping others, and understanding the value of consent. As reflected by Ayu, short name for ayuda, which means help in Spanish, children considered it important for characters to help others, such as helping those who are lost by giving them directions (Figure 1B). Lastly, character development included social-emotional aspects, this included managing emotions, validation from others, and presenting facades. Zizie, expresses their emotions by affecting the environment around them such as wilting flowers due them feeling sadness (Figure 1C and 1D). These findings reflect the values children hold subconsciously when creating a character, some of these findings can be a reflection to what the child sees on a daily basis. Ongoing analysis will investigate whether developmental differences exist across these themes. Future directions of the project include the translation of these themes and characters into the STEM learning mobile app and iteration with children and parents.

Authors

• Julie Salazar, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author

• Vanessa Noemy Bermudez, University of California - Irvine

• Maria J. Anderson-Coto

• R Mishael Sedas, University of California - Irvine

• John Louis-Strakes Lopez

• Fabio Campos

• Kathy A Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University

• Andres Sebastian Bustamante, University of California - Irvine

• June Ahn, University of California Irvine