Abstracts
Abstract
The emerging body of work on participatory game design (PGD) highlights the significance of working with end-users’ voices as the starting point. This is particularly critical in serious games that seek to impact social change in areas such as sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). This article, which is based on fieldwork with 16 college instructors in four agricultural colleges in rural Ethiopia, draws together concepts of participatory visual methods (particularly cellphilming), PGD and a game universe perspective to offer an engaging and interactive approach to the design of serious games. We refer to this as ‘Participatory Arts-based Game Design’ (PAGD), an approach that was used to create Mela, a serious game to address SGBV in Ethiopian agriculture colleges. Exploring Mela game’s participatory and engaging design process, this article offers a framework for serious game development to address critical social change issues that go beyond the game itself. It has the potential to not only place the end-users at the centre but to recognize the critical role of engagement and immersivity in a field oriented towards impact and sustainability.
Keywords:
- Participatory Game Design,
- Serious Games,
- Sexual and Gender-based Violence
Download the article in PDF to read it.
Download
Appendices
Bibliography
- Abt, C. C. (1987). Serious games. University Press of America.
- Adinew, Y. M., & Hagos, M. A. (2017). Sexual violence against female university students in Ethiopia. BMC International Health and Human Rights, 17(1). https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&issn=1472698X&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA511297474&sid=googleScholar&linkaccess=abs
- Afolabi, B., & Abatan, S. M. (2014). Early Marriage and Its Implications on the Nigerian Economy (SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 2528255). Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2528255
- Altinyelken, H. K., & Mat, M. L. (2018). Sexual violence, schooling and silence: Teacher narratives from a secondary school in Ethiopia. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 48(4), 648–664. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2017.1332517
- Ampatzidou, C., & Gugerell, K. (2019). Participatory game prototyping–balancing domain content and playability in a serious game design for the energy transition. CoDesign, 15(4), 345–360. Scopus. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2018.1504084
- Arnold, D., Gelaye, B., Goshu, M., Berhane, Y., & Williams, M. A. (2008). Prevalence and risk factors of gender-based violence among female college students in Awassa, Ethiopia. Violence and Victims, 23(6), 787–800. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.23.6.787
- Bada, J. K. (2013). Integrating digital learning objects for HIV/AIDS prevention: A contextualized approach [Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Eastern Finland]. https://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1017-2/urn_isbn_978-952-61-1017-2.pdf
- Baker, J. (2015). Forced Marriage – A Review of Literature. Ending Violence Association of BC. http://www.endforcedmarriages.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/FORCED-MARRIAGE-lit-review-11-March-2015-2.pdf
- Bakos, M., Chapin, D., & Kahn, S. (1976). A house is a center is a house: Participatory design for a community counseling center. Hospital & Community Psychiatry, 27(11), 814–819. https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.27.11.814
- Baradaran Rahimi, F., & Kim, B. (2019). The role of interest-driven participatory game design: Considering design literacy within a technology classroom. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 29(2), 387–404. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-018-9451-6
- Bekele, T., & Deressa, W. (2014). Experience of sexual coercion and associated factors among female students of Ambo University in Ethiopia. https://doi.org/10.11648/J.SJPH.20140206.16
- Brown, G., & Eckold, H. (2020). An evaluation of public participation information for land use decisions: Public comment, surveys, and participatory mapping. Local Environment, 25(2), 85–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2019.1703660
- Calais, M. J. (1973). Participatory planning and management. New Directions for Community Colleges, 1973(2), 17–25. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.36819730204
- Central Statistical Agency - CSA/Ethiopia & ICF. (2017). Ethiopia demographic and health survey 2016. CSA and ICF. http://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR328/FR328.pdf
- Chambers, R. (2008). Participatory methodologies: Drivers for change. In Revolutions in Development Inquiry (pp. 167–191). Earthscan.
- Chapman, O., & Sawchuk, K. (2012). Research-Creation: Intervention, analysis and “family resemblances.” Canadian Journal of Communication, 37(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2012v37n1a2489
- Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). SAGE.
- Cucinelli, G., Davidson, A.-L., Romero, M., & Matheson, T. (2018). Intergenerational learning through a participatory video game design workshop. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 16(1–2), 146–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2018.1404855
- DeLange, N., Mitchell, C., & Stuart, J. (Eds.). (2008). Putting people in the picture: Visual methodologies for social change. Sense Publishers.
- Demise, A., Shinebaum, R., & Melesse, K. (2002). The problems of female students at Jimma University, Ethiopia, with some suggested solutions. Ethiopian Journal of Health Development, 16(3), 257–266. https://doi.org/10.4314/ejhd.v16i3.9793
- FAWE. (2018). Gender Responsive Pedagogy: A Toolkit for Teachers and Schools (2nd ed.). Forum for African Women Educationalists, Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE). https://www.unicef.org/esa/media/6726/file/GRP-A-Toolkit-for-Teachers-and-Schools-2020.pdf
- Fisher, J. (2017). Digital games, African development, and gender equality: A comparative analysis of Family Values and Moraba. Studies in Comparative International Development, 52(2), 155–173. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-017-9244-z
- Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Herder and Herder.
- Gennari, R., & Melonio, A. (2016). A three-year long journey across the fields of participatory game design. In B. B. R. Valtolina S. Fischer G. ,. Piccinno A. ,. Fogli D. ,. Morch A. (Ed.), Fourth International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age (Vol. 1776, pp. 35–41). CEUR-WS. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1776/paper6.pdf
- Gilliam, M., Jagoda, P., Jaworski, E., Hebert, L. E., Lyman, P., & Wilson, M. C. (2016). “Because if we don’t talk about it, how are we going to prevent it?”: Lucidity, a narrative-based digital game about sexual violence. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, 16(4), 391–404. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2015.1123147
- Hall, B. L. (1979). Knowledge as a commodity and participatory research. Prospects, 9(4), 393–408. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02331493
- Henok, A., Deyessa, N., & Abajobir, A. (2015). Sexual violence and substance use among female students of Mizan-Tepi University, Southwest Ethiopia: A mixed method study. Journal of Womens Health, Issues and Care, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.4172/2325-9795.1000194
- Hieftje, K., Duncan, L., Florsheim, O., Sawyer, B., & Fiellin, L. E. (2019). One Night Stan: Feasibility study of an HIV prevention and sexual risk reduction social card game for young black women. Games for Health Journal, 8(2), 112–120. https://doi.org/10.1089/g4h.2017.0106
- Hieftje, K., Duncan, L. R., & Fiellin, L. E. (2014). Novel methods to collect meaningful data from adolescents for the development of health interventions. Health Promotion Practice, 15(5), 714–722. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839914521211
- Holliday, R. C., Phillips, R., & Akintobi, T. H. (2020). A community-based participatory approach to the development and implementation of an HIV health behavior intervention: Lessons learned in navigating research and practice systems from Project HAPPY. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17020399
- Huybrechts, L., Teli, M., Zuljevic, M., & Bettega, M. (2020). Visions that change. Articulating the politics of participatory design. CoDesign, 16(1), 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2020.1728907
- Jennett, C., Cox, A. L., Cairns, P., Dhoparee, S., Epps, A., Tijs, T., & Walton, A. (2008). Measuring and defining the experience of immersion in games. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 66(9), 641–661. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2008.04.004
- Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J., & Kay, O. (2016). Introducing multimodality. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Introducing-Multimodality/Jewitt-Bezemer-OHalloran/p/book/9780415639262
- Joseph, T. (1978). A call for participatory teaching. Improving College and University Teaching, 26(3), 208–209. JSTOR.
- Jozkowski, K. N., & Ekbia, H. R. (2015). “Campus Craft”: A game for sexual assault prevention in universities. Games for Health Journal, 4(2), 95–106. https://doi.org/10.1089/g4h.2014.0056
- Kassa, G. M., & Abajobir, A. A. (2020). Prevalence of violence against women in Ethiopia: A meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 21(3), 624–637. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838018782205
- Kayali, F., Peters, K., Kuczwara, J., Reithofer, A., Martinek, D., Wölfle, R., Mateus-Berr, R., Lehner, Z., Silbernagl, M., Sprung, M., Lawitschka, A., & Hlavacs, H. (2015). Participatory game design for the INTERACCT serious game for health. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 9090, 13–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19126-3_2
- Khaled, R., & Vasalou, A. (2014). Bridging serious games and participatory design. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 2(2), 93–100. Scopus. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2014.03.001
- Knowles, J. G., & Cole, A. L. (2008). Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues. SAGE Publications.
- Kupitia macha va akina mama / Through the eyes of mothers. (2016). Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Participatory Cultures Lab. https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Through-the-Eyes-of-Mothers_June-2016-Exhibit-Catologue.pdf
- Labonte-LeMoyne, E., Leger, P.-M., Robert, J., Babin, G., Charland, P., & Michon, J.-F. (2017). Business intelligence serious game participatory development: Lessons from ERPsim for big data. Business Process Management Journal, 23(3), 493–505. Scopus. https://doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-12-2015-0177
- Leach, F. E., & Mitchell, C. (2006). Combating gender violence in and around schools. Trentham; WorldCat.org.
- MacEntee, K. (2015). Using cellphones in participatory visual research to address gender-based violence in and around rural South African schools: Reflections on research as intervention. Agenda, 29(3), 22–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2015.1045339
- MacEntee, K., Burkholder, C., & Schwab-Cartas, J. (Eds.). (2016). What’s a cellphilm?: Integrating mobile phone technology into participatory visual research and activism. Sense Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-573-9
- Mat, M. L. J. L. (2016). ‘Sexual violence is not good for our country’s development’. Students’ interpretations of sexual violence in a secondary school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Gender and Education, 28(4), 562–580. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2015.1134768
- McNiff, S. (2008). Art-based research. In J. G. Knowles & Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues (pp. 29–41). SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452226545.n3
- Mehra, B., & Braquet, D. (2014). Marriage between participatory leadership and action research to advocate benefits equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people: An extended human rights role in library and information science. In B. L. Eden & J. C. Fagan (Eds.), Leadership in Academic Libraries Today: Connecting Theory to Practice (pp. 185–212). Scarecrow Press.
- Meleku, M., & Sendo, E. G. (2015). Prevalence and factors associated with sexual violence among female students of Hawassa University in Ethiopia. Science Postprint, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.14340/spp.2015.04a0002
- Mertens, D. M. (1999). Inclusive evaluation: Implications of transformative theory for evaluation. The American Journal of Evaluation, 20(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1098-2140(99)80105-2
- Mildner, P., & ‘Floyd’ Mueller, F. (2016). Design of serious games. In R. Dörner, S. Göbel, W. Effelsberg, & J. Wiemeyer (Eds.), Serious Games: Foundations, Concepts and Practice (pp. 57–82). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40612-1_3
- Mitchell, C., & DeLange, N. (2019). Community-based participatory video and social action. In E. Margolis & L. Pauwels (Eds.), SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods (Second, pp. 254–266). SAGE Publications Ltd.
- Mitchell, C., DeLange, N., & Moletsane, R. (2018). Participatory visual methodologies: Social change, community and policy. SAGE.
- Mitchell, C., & Sommer, M. (2016). Participatory visual methodologies in global public health. Global Public Health, 11(5–6), 521–527. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2016.1170184
- Mitchell, C., & Starr, L. J. (2018). Report on survey/assessment on gender based violence in four ATVET colleges: Woreta, Nedjo, Wolaita Sodo & Maichew. Participatory Ciultures Lab, Faculty of Education, McGill University. https://glcopmcgill.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Final-GBV-survey-analysis.012718-copy.pdf
- Mlama, P., Dioum, M., Makoye, H., Murage, L., Wagah, M., & Washika, R. (2005). Gender Responsive Pedagogy: A Teacher’s Handbook. Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE). https://www.wikigender.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/GRP-Booklet.pdf
- Nastasi, B. K., Varjas, K., Schensul, S. L., Silva, K. T., Schensul, J. J., & Ratnayake, P. (2000). The participatory intervention model: A framework for conceptualizing and promoting intervention acceptability. School Psychology Quarterly, 15(2), 207–232. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0088785
- PHMIL. (2014). Mainstreaming gender and HIV & AIDS in agriculture curriculum: A guide for instructors. Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD). https://cdn.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/agriculture/international-centre/Mainstreaming%20Gender%20Guide%20for%20Instructors%20A4.pdf
- Rai, I. M., & Joshi, P. (2020). Women in TVET: Contestation of agency and patriarchal power for liberation. Journal of Education and Research, 10(1), 16–31.
- Romero, M., Ouellet, H., & Sawchuk, K. (2017). Expanding the game design play and experience framework for Game-Based Lifelong Learning (GD-LLL-PE). In M. Romero, K. Sawchuk, J. Blat, S. Sayago, & H. Ouellet (Eds.), Game-Based Learning Across the Lifespan: Cross-Generational and Age-Oriented Topics (pp. 1–11). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41797-4_1
- Rubio, M., Sánchez-Ronco, M., Mohedano, R., & Hernando, A. (2018). The impact of participatory teaching methods on medical students’ perception of their abilities and knowledge of epidemiology and statistics. PLOS ONE, 13(8), e0202769. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202769
- Sadati, H. (2019). Serious games as self-educating tools; A case study to address SGBV. Participatory Ciultures Lab, Faculty of Education, McGill University. http://melagame.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Serious-Games-as-Self-educating-Tools-Briefing-Paper.-Sadati-2019.Final_.pdf
- Sadati, H., & Mitchell, C. (2020). Serious game design as research-creation to address sexual and gender-based violence [Manuscript submitted for publication].
- Sadati, H., Mitchell, C., & Starr, L. J. (2020). Storylines: Young people playing into change in agricultural colleges in rural Ethiopia to address sexual and gender-based violence. In E. Morrell & J. Rowsell (Eds.), Stories from Inequity to Justice in Literacy Education: Confronting Digital Divides (pp. 51–67). Routledge.
- Sanders, E. B.-N., & Stappers, P. J. (2008). Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. CoDesign, 4(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710880701875068
- Shimekaw, B., Megabiaw, B., & Alamrew, Z. (2013). Prevalence and associated factors of sexual violence among private college female students in Bahir Dar city, North Western Ethiopia. Health, 5(6), 720–726. https://doi.org/10.4236/health.2013.56143
- Simonsen, J., & Robertson, T. (Eds.). (2013). Routledge international handbook of participatory design. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-International-Handbook-of-Participatory-Design/Simonsen-Robertson/p/book/9780415720212
- Sorbring, E., Bolin, A., & Ryding, J. (2015). A Game-based intervention – a technical tool for social workers to combat adolescent dating-violence. Advances in Social Work, 16(1), 125–139. https://doi.org/10.18060/18260
- Takele, A., & Setegn, T. (2014, December 16). Sexual coercion and associated factors among female students of Madawalabu University, Southeast Ethiopia [Research Article]. Advances in Public Health; Hindawi. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/417517
- Tomaselli, K., Dockney, J., & Hart, T. (2010). Cellphims, mobile platforms and prodsumers: Hyper-individuality and film. In N. Hyde-Clarke (Ed.), The Citizen in Communication: Revisiting Traditional, New and Community Media Practices in South Africa (pp. 75–96). Juta.
- Tora, A. (2013). Assessment of sexual violence against female students in Wolaita Sodo University, Southern Ethiopia. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 28(11), 2351–2367. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260512475316
- Trickett, E., Rasmus, S. M., & Allen, J. (2020). Intervention fidelity in participatory research: A framework. Educational Action Research, 28(1), 128–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2019.1689833
- UNESCO. (2009). Promoting gender equality in education. UNESCO Digital Library. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000186495
- UNODC Eastern Africa News. (2020). Addressing violence against women and girls in Ethiopia. https://www.unodc.org/easternafrica/en/addressing-violence-against-women-and-girls-in-ethiopia.html
- USAID. (2009). Doorways III: Teacher reference materials on school-related gender-based violence prevention and response. United States Agency for International Development Office of Women in Development. https://healtheducationresources.unesco.org/library/documents/doorways-iii-teacher-reference-materials-school-related-gender-based-violence
- Weik von Mossner, A. (2020, October 26). Touching the senses: Embodiment, emotion, and immersion [Keynote]. https://colloqueimmersivite.com/en/full-programme/
- Winskell, K., Sabben, G., Akelo, V., Ondeng’e, K., Obong’o, C., Stephenson, R., Warhol, D., & Mudhune, V. (2018). A smartphone game to prevent HIV among young Africans: Results of a randomized pilot study (preprint). JMIR MHealth and UHealth, 6. https://doi.org/10.2196/10482