Game Sessions Research Articles

전래놀이를 통한 유아와 아동의 정서, 사회성, 자아존중감에 관한 연구 동향

This study aimed to explore research trends and suggest future directions for preschoolers to children's emotions, social competence, and self-esteem through traditional game programs. A total of 87 papers from January 2007 to February 2022 were selected for text mining, 38 papers for reliability and validity analysis regarding research period, themes, subjects, and programs. The results were as follows: (a) social competence showed the highest frequency in research themes, (b) elementary students (67.2%) and the preschool institutions and elementary schools (84.2%) were the most studied subjects and places, and (c) the major sessions of games were identified as 11-20 (57.9%). In the analysis of 5 types of traditional game programs, 'target hitting' represented the most effective for elevating emotions, social competence, and self-esteem. These findings indicate that associated variables, such as physical activity, creativity, and subjective well-being, need to be investigated as they seem to benefit early to middle childhood development. Furthermore, additional programs, tailored for low-income and multicultural families, should be developed to test the programs’ effectiveness. Future research could consider implementing the most effective subjects and types of programs for further investigations.

Sesi Bermain Dan Diskusi Kelompok Sebagai Cara Untuk Mengatasi Kejenuhan Dalam Menjalani Rehabilitasi Narkotika

To undergo rehabilitation by enforcement is not going to be delightful. Boredom is often happened to drugs addicts and victims of drugs abuse who are undergoing rehabilitation process. Practitioner uses group intervention method generally by starting to intervene towards primary case residents at IPWL Bukit Doa Taman Getsemane; starting from Engagement stage to Termination stage. There are several answers from the residents regarding what makes them feel bored: boring foods, they are not liberated to meet their family members, too many rules to follow, whatever they do is considered awry, no smoking, monotone activities, etc. From the answers, practitioner can see that monotone activities are the main cause of the residents' boredom. Therefore, practitioner decided to multiply the residents' activities by adding game session and group discussion session to decrease residents' boredom. From the sessions that have been run, residents admit that they feel quite content, even though sometimes practitioner can see the residents somewhat look forced to join the session.

Network of Games: An Ecology of Games Informing Integral and Inclusive City Developments

This article analyzes possibilities for connecting individual city games for building a network of games working together. City gaming works along with the understanding that cities are self-organizing systems, influenced by multiple bottom-up and top-down actors with varying interests and powers. Affordable housing, climate adaptation, or area development are examples of urgent urban challenges city games typically focus on. The assumption is that if these specialized games could be linked, then a large game infrastructure built as a modular system, can offer various game combinations responding to urban challenges in an integral and holistic way. To test a working game network, city games, models, and digital apps have been linked through their shared datasets as well as game interfaces. Two city experiments have been conducted in two Dutch cities—Amsterdam and Breda—which enabled the testing to function as “constructive design research.” In Amsterdam (Klimaatspel) two separate city games were connected through their datasets, while in Breda (Play the Koepel) datasets and interfaces merged to create a new game. Used data models are the Energy Transition Model developed by Quintel and the urban plan cost simulator software of Urban Reality. Used game interfaces (digital and analog) include the Typeform, the Network of Games app, the Urban Reality simulator, and the Play the City table-top game format. The testing considered two different approaches for a potential game network. The first option assumes an all-encompassing digital app, reformatting and involving various games and models in a single interface. The second option is an open approach that looks to link custom-made games with existing interfaces. The second option allows both simultaneous and sequential linking. Two experiments utilizing sequential and simultaneous integration of diverse digital tools suggest that a collection of interfaces connecting to each other throughout the entire process from a digital poll to an app, a simulator or a webinar, or analog game sessions is more effective than a single mobile phone app for all potential game interactions. Considering city games as an ecology of city tools that can be linked to one another becomes through this study a concrete goal to reach. Through combining specialized games, addressing complex city challenges becomes possible. This step enables a more effective participation environment for diverse experts and non-experts.

Does playing on a digital tablet impact the social interactions of children with autism spectrum disorder?

IntroductionDigital tablets are used by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for communication, cognitive remediation or therapy. However, the effects of tablet use on these children's social interactions in a multiplayer game situation have rarely been explored. ObjectiveWe tested the effect of tablets on ASD children's social interactions in a multiplayer game situation. MethodWe compared the behavioral indicators of social interaction of eight children with ASD during forty play sessions in two play situations: a physical board game and a digital game. ResultThree young children were more involved in the tablet situation but did not exhibit more socially interactive behaviors. Behaviors inhibiting social interaction, such as agitation or stereotypies, were present among the youngest children in the tablet situation. Across both situations, those behaviors decreased during the game sessions. ConclusionsThere was no tablet effect, i.e., tablets did not improve social interaction during a gaming activity. However, sharing a game with others seemed to contribute to the development of interactive behaviors, and a structured play situation (either a physical board game or a digital game) decreased the autism-related behaviors that limit social interaction.

Cooperation between preschool peers in relation to their math learning

Although early childhood education emphasizes peer learning opportunities, adults, including early childhood teachers, often underestimate preschoolers’ abilities to participate in cooperative interactions. Within the empirical literature, cooperative learning among young peers remains poorly understood. This research aims to help build the knowledge base on peers and learning in early childhood. Seventy-two preschool children participated in a study designed to target numeric and counting skills through early learning games. In dyads, the children completed game sessions across three weeks with sessions video-recorded and coded for peer cooperation. Average rates of occurrence, and variations therein, of dyads’ peer cooperative behaviors during game play were examined. The children’s math skills were also assessed prior to the first game play session and after the sixth session. The results showed that the preschoolers demonstrated all peer cooperative behaviors of interest, and preliminary evidence that dyads’ supportive behaviors were associated with post-test counting scores was found.

BIRAFFE2, a multimodal dataset for emotion-based personalization in rich affective game environments

Generic emotion prediction models based on physiological data developed in the field of affective computing apparently are not robust enough. To improve their effectiveness, one needs to personalize them to specific individuals and incorporate broader contextual information. To address the lack of relevant datasets, we propose the 2nd Study in Bio-Reactions and Faces for Emotion-based Personalization for AI Systems (BIRAFFE2) dataset. In addition to the classical procedure in the stimulus-appraisal paradigm, it also contains data from an affective gaming session in which a range of contextual data was collected from the game environment. This is complemented by accelerometer, ECG and EDA signals, participants’ facial expression data, together with personality and game engagement questionnaires. The dataset was collected on 102 participants. Its potential usefulness is presented by validating the correctness of the contextual data and indicating the relationships between personality and participants’ emotions and between personality and physiological signals.

Level up: Games for socially just leadership education.

Games are increasingly being used as a creative pedagogical tool for socially just leadership education. Game facilitators benefit from proper sequencing and heightened self‐awareness during both the game session and debrief of the experience. While scarce, examples of social justice games are provided for the reader's consideration.

TAECon, a web-based platform to promote STEM

In this paper, we present TAECon, a web-based platform designed to support STEM promotion sessions carried out by the Polytechnic School of Girona's University at higher schools. The platform combines gamification, serious games, content editors, and automatic correction strategies in a single framework. TAECon is used to prepare game sessions that turn around a central story with eight main characters from different ethnicities and genders that have to recover their identification cards. Players working in groups or individually and in face-to-face or virtual sessions have specific editors to design and enter solutions of challenges (or problems) and enigmas (or subproblems) created by STEM experts using the content editors of the platform. According to the type of enigma correction techniques automatically evaluate responses and assign the corresponding reward. The platform has been used by more than a thousand students from fifty secondary schools. To collect the platform impressions more than 250 students answered a questionnaire and 17 secondary school teachers were interviewed. As reported by the information collected, the platform was appreciated by both students and teachers. Users enjoyed the challenges and the game sessions. To conclude, TAECon can be considered a good strategy to promote STEM.

Edge Gaming: A Greening Perspective

We tackle the problem of how to support gaming at the edge of the cellular network. The reduced latency and higher bandwidth that the edge enjoys with respect to cloud-based solutions implies that transferring cloud-based games to the edge could be a premium service for end-users. The goal of this work is to design a scheme compatible with MEC and network slicing principles of 5G and beyond, and which maximizes the utility of a service/infrastructure provider with time-varying edge node capacities due to the access to intermittent renewable energy. We formulate a multi-dimensional integer linear programming problem, proving that it is NP-hard in the strong sense. We prove that our problem is sub-modular and propose an efficient heuristic, GREENING, which considers the allocation of gaming sessions and their migration. For the mentioned scenario, we analyze a wide variety of realistic configurations at the edge, studying how the performance depends on (i) whether the games have a static or dynamic workload, (ii) the distribution of renewable energy through nodes and time, or (iii) the topology of the edge network. Through simulations, we show that our heuristic achieves performance close to that achieved by solving the NP-hard optimization problem, except with extremely lower complexity, and performs up to 25% better than state-of-the-art algorithms.

Physical Demands during the Game and Compensatory Training Session (MD + 1) in Elite Football Players Using Global Positioning System Device.

The aims of this study were to analyze the differences of physical demands of non-starter players regarding the playing time during the competition and to evaluate the physical demands of the compensatory training (MD + 1C) for substitute players in elite football. The match statistics and MD + 1C of substitute players from a professional Spanish LaLiga football club were analyzed using a 10-Hz global positioning system (GPS) Apex GPS system device, which has been validated as a reliable and valid method to analyze performance in team sports, during all games of the 2016/2017, 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 seasons. The starting players showed both lower total distances covered and high-intensity actions compared to the substitutes. Regarding the minutes played by the substitutes, greater physical performance was found for the players with fewer minutes (5–15 min). Furthermore, no differences were found between first and second divisions regarding physical performance of substitutes (p > 0.05). This study highlights the importance of individualizing the workload of training sessions for substitutes and starters. Furthermore, the complementary session should be individualized according to the minutes played by the substitutes. These players are potentially under-loaded compared to starters, especially in terms of high-intensity actions, therefore additional session-specific training for each substitute would be useful to reach the optimal training load according to the minutes played during the game.

Development of a board game to assist pharmacists learning the potentially inappropriate medications in older people

Background and purposePharmacists have been reported to have inadequate awareness about potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) in older people. This warrants more efforts to enhance their familiarity and knowledge in this topic. A board game was developed based on the 2019 American Geriatrics Society (AGS) Beers Criteria to assist pharmacists learning the topic. Educational activity and settingThe board game is played using dice and pawns and involved players encounter questions on various aspects of PIMs in older people. Questions used in the board game were reviewed by a panel of experts. The board game exposed pharmacists to drug-drug and drug-disease/syndrome interactions. The board game was pilot tested among 16 pharmacists and played by a group of 34 pharmacists. Close- and open-ended feedback regarding the board game were sought in both sessions using a self-developed questionnaire. FindingsAll pharmacists in the pilot test (PT) and actual game (AG) sessions agreed that the board game is an innovative, useful, and interesting way to learn about PIMs in older people. All pharmacists in the PT session and a high majority of those in the AG session agreed that the board game increased their knowledge about PIMs in older people. The open-ended responses showed generally positive feedback. SummaryThe board game can be useful as an educational tool to supplement traditional teaching methods to assist pharmacists learning the PIMs in older people. Periodic review and relevant modifications of the board game content can be done to ensure its efficiency and relevance.

Mersin City-Lab: Co-creative and participatory design approach for a circular neighbourhood

While environmental, economical and social challenges that the world has been facing recently are increasing dramatically; cities have played critical role in generation many of these problems like negative impacts on environment and overconsumption of resources. Most of the cities today face severe sustainability challenges including sanitation, air pollution, environmental degradation, over population and lack of livability. However, cities may also raise answers to find solutions against many of such complex urban problems, since they are assumed as creative and innovative platforms for social ecosystem of ideas. In this sense, there is increasing interest in ‘City Laboratories’ or ‘Urban Living Labs’, which are established to provide creative experimental platforms with participation of city actors to discuss urban sustainability issues before implementation of deep and structural urban changes for citizens. They provide participatory, co-creative and experimental platforms for self-organizing cities. The aim of this paper is to discuss a collaborative City Laboratory approach -Mersin City Lab- to achieve sustainability principles during urban regeneration process for the selected case-study area located in Mersin. Mersin City Lab focuses on two aspects: Firstly, ‘City Lab’ approach, involves citizens and stakeholders into decision-making process. Secondly, it focuses on urban transformation process with circularity principles including water, mobility, energy, waste management, food and circular economy to achieve sustainable neighborhood development. The paper starts with introduction of ‘city-gaming’ methodology which has been adopted as the main structure of participation of multi-stakeholders. It continues with discussions on stages of the case-study project through implementation of workshops and game sessions by participation of multi stake-holders. Following, the results gathered from overall evaluations of participants’ proposals regarding land-use, mobility and urban water management, local economy, urban development, urban agriculture and food strategies in neighborhood level are discussed. Finally, the paper concludes with impacts of City Labs approach and city-gaming methodology on decision-making process for real urban problems and urban settings.

Against the rules – disrupting and reassessing discursive practices of playfulness

The article dissects approaches to playfulness with persons with learning difficulties. It questions the intersection of dis/ability and play by reassessing (who determines) the role of play in people with dis/abilities’ lives with a focus on discursive practices of belittlement and diagnosing, as well as the positive potential in play, such as empowerment in an inclusive game session. As part of an international research project, we facilitated an open play session and gathered data by recording it and the reflective discussions that followed. The research methodology follows a Grounded Theory approach, using Situational Analysis to map the empirical material. Initiating play and negotiating rules proved relevant throughout initial mapping. Additionally, the question of whether and how discursive practices of belittlement and diagnosing were reproduced, disrupted, and reassessed took centre stage. The findings show that both discursive practices of belittlement and positive potentials of play surfaced throughout the open play session.

Brain-Heart Interaction and the Experience of Flow While Playing a Video Game.

The flow state – an experience of complete absorption in an activity – is linked with less self-referential processing and increased arousal. We used the heart-evoked potential (HEP), an index representing brain–heart interaction, as well as indices of peripheral physiology to assess the state of flow in individuals playing a video game. 22 gamers and 21 non-gamers played the video game Thumper for 25 min while their brain and cardiorespiratory signals were simultaneously recorded. The more participants were absorbed in the game, the less they thought about time and the faster time passed subjectively. On the cortical level, the fronto-central HEP amplitude was significantly lower while playing the game compared to resting states before and after the game, reflecting less self-referential processing while playing. This HEP effect corresponded with lower activity during gameplay in brain regions contributing to interoceptive processing. The HEP amplitude predicted the level of absorption in the game. While the HEP amplitude was overall lower during the gaming session than during the resting states, within the gaming session the amplitude of HEP was positively associated with absorption. Since higher absorption was related to higher performance in the game, the higher HEP in more absorbed individuals reflects more efficient brain–heart interaction, which is necessary for efficient game play. On the physiological level, a higher level of flow was associated with increased overall sympathetic activity and less inhibited parasympathetic activity toward the end of the game. These results are building blocks for future neurophysiological assessments of flow.

Empowerment and Well-Being Through Participatory Action Research and Accessible Gaming: A Case Study With Adults With Intellectual Disability

Although the potential of games to foster learning, representation, empowerment, well-being, and social inclusion is already documented, some groups seem to remain underrepresented. In the field of disability, this potential is still immersed in a set of barriers and hindrances, arising from the lack of accessibility of this medium and the lack of representation of voices in research and development processes. This problem seems to be exponentiated in the field of Intellectual Disability (ID). The present study describes insights from a case study developed with 14 institutionalized adults with severe ID, with two complementary aims: (a) explore the effectiveness of a PAR gaming approach in the empowerment and well-being of adults with ID living in an institutional setting; and (b) explore the feasibility of promoting accessibility in games through PAR. The proposed intervention included the development of games by higher education students for these individuals, with their active participation in all phases – conceptual definition, game design, game development, and playtesting. A total of 38 playtesting sessions and 162 gaming sessions were conducted, where systematic observation grids were filled, and pre and post-process assessments were conducted, targeting variables related to empowerment and well-being. The obtained results sustain this type of action-research design as a feasible strategy to empower people with ID and foster their well-being, through games as a form of expression and not only therapy. It also reflects on accessibility improvement through the presence of underrepresented groups (people with ID particularly) in the media creation processes that can,per se, be considered a form of empowerment. These insights also open a discussion about a potential paradigm shift toward a social model of accessibility aligned with the current views on the field of disability studies. Future studies should replicate this methodology with larger samples and in a context not aligned with the pandemic isolation. Furthermore, PAR must also be explored from a more general perspective, as a strategy to promote accessibility and participation in other media and cultural products as a whole.

Futsal training based on mini game situation: Effects on mastery of athlete techniques

The aim of the study is to identify the influence of providing mini game situation and full game session training methods at the level of youth players' futsal playing skills. This is experimental study with 30 youth futsal athletes of Banyumas Regency (Age= M 16.2 ± SD 0.761), divided into two experimental groups design. Futsal skill instruments are used to analyze the mastery of an athlete's technique as measured by the speed of time in completing a task. The variables analyzed relate to the main techniques in the game of futsal: passing, controlling, dribbling, and shooting. In this regard, the results showed that the value obtained from the mini game situation exercise is higher than the full game session and a significant difference is found in the results of both exercises (M ± 47.00; p = 0.012), while the value of the influence of full game session (M ± 49.00 ; p = 0.003). It is seen that more complex practice patterns will improve the player's skills progressively. Overall, these findings suggest that coaches need to take into account the effective use of exercise to support the improvement of futsal skills in adolescent athletes.

Video games become more mainstream

In the 1980 s, a video gamer stereotype emerged as isolated, pale-skinned, white, teen boy in a dark basement single-mindedly mashing buttons. While there may have been a grain of truth to this image, it is also believed that the growth of the video game industry has attracted new audiences and made playing video games more mainstream. Many media scholars have attempted to refute this stereotype with cross- sectional surveys. Rather than examining a snapshot of current gamers, we analyze changes in the characteristics of gamers over close to two decades. Time use data for the US that has been collected consistently for 18 years allow us to identify who the gamers are over time and many of their demographic characteristics. Over this period, video game playing has grown faster among the 19-40 year old, more educated, moderate-income, and non-White demographic groups. Or, it has become more mainstream. On the other hand, some proxies suggest that gaming still attracts an antisocial loner archetype. Gamers are increasingly more likely to live with their parents, remain unmarried, and they increasingly game alone for longer gaming sessions.

Acceptability of Serious Games in Pediatric Asthma Education and Self-management: Pilot Study.

BackgroundAsthma is the most common chronic pediatric disease. Despite existing tools to manage asthma, 40%-55% of children with asthma experience uncontrolled asthma. Serious games (SGs) represent a novel approach in promoting asthma education and self-management for children.ObjectiveIn this qualitative pilot study with an embedded quantitative design, we aim to use focus groups and questionnaires to describe the perceived role of SGs in different aspects of asthma self-management by children and their parents. These aspects include asthma perception and knowledge, the impact of asthma and barriers to asthma self-management, and the support system for asthma self-management.MethodsA total of 5 children with asthma and their parents were invited to participate in an organized gaming session. Children and their parents completed a pregaming questionnaire on their medical history and asthma knowledge. Then, they were invited to test 4 original SG prototypes, after which the children answered a postgaming questionnaire on their asthma knowledge and perception of the SGs. Children and their parents subsequently participated in parallel focus groups, which were video-recorded or audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed by reaching consensus among members of the research team.ResultsThe mean age of the children was 10.3 (SD 1.5) years, with 20% (1/5) of the children being male. Qualitative data from the transcripts were coded into three separate domains: asthma self-management perception and knowledge, impact of asthma and barriers to asthma self-management, and support system for asthma self-management. We specifically explored the perceived roles of SGs within each domain. A key takeaway message was identified for each of these three domains: heterogeneity of asthma knowledge and the ability of SGs to encourage knowledge transfer through games, consequences and limitations of asthma and the ability of SGs to allow for identification and management of real-life situations through games, and insufficient support system and the ability of SGs to encourage playing with others for support and shared knowledge.ConclusionsOur pilot study explored the role of SGs in the self-management of asthma, as perceived by children and their parents. Our findings support the acceptability of SGs in asthma education and self-management in pediatrics and the necessity for future development in this field.

Improving Pediatric/Neonatology Residents' Newborn Resuscitation Skills With a Digital Serious Game: DIANA.

BackgroundSerious games, and especially digital game based learning (DGBL) methodologies, have the potential to strengthen classic learning methodology in all medical procedures characterized by a flowchart (e.g., neonatal resuscitation algorithm). However, few studies have compared short- and long-term knowledge retention in DGBL methodologies with a control group undergoing specialist training led by experienced operators. In particular, resident doctors' learning still has limited representation in simulation-based education literature.ObjectiveA serious computer game DIANA (DIgital Application in Newborn Assessment) was developed, according to newborn resuscitation algorithm, to train pediatric/neonatology residents in neonatal resuscitation algorithm knowledge and implementation (from procedure knowledge to ventilation/chest compressions rate). We analyzed user learning curves after each session and compared knowledge retention against a classic theoretical teaching session.MethodsPediatric/neonatology residents of the Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Pisana (AOUP) were invited to take part in the study and were split into a game group or a control group; both groups were homogeneous in terms of previous training and baseline scores. The control group attended a classic 80 min teaching session with a neonatal trainer, while game group participants played four 20 min sessions over four different days. Three written tests (pre/immediately post-training and at 28 days) were used to evaluate and compare the two groups' performances.ResultsForty-eight pediatric/neonatology residents participated in the study. While classic training by a neonatal trainer demonstrated an excellent effectiveness in short/long-term knowledge retention, DGBL methodology proved to be equivalent or better. Furthermore, after each game session, DGBL score improved for both procedure knowledge and ventilation/chest compressions rate.ConclusionsIn this study, DGBL was as effective as classic specialist training for neonatal resuscitation in terms of both algorithm memorization and knowledge retention. User appreciation for the methodology and ease of administration, including remotely, support the use of DGBL methodologies for pediatric/neonatology residents education.

The \u201cNeurospeed\u201d game: a fun tool to learn the neurological semiology

BackgroundNeurological semiology is often considered by medical students as particularly difficult to learn. Finding alternative teaching methods may improve students’ motivation and understanding of this field.MethodsWe developed the “Neurospeed”, a game to learn neurological syndromes. We assessed its efficiency on short-term learning of neurological syndromes in third-year medical students, through Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) before and after the game session. Students’ satisfaction was evaluated by a satisfaction survey.ResultsOut of the 199 third-year medical students of the Faculty of Medicine Sorbonne Paris Nord, 180 attended the Neurospeed in December 2020, and 148 answered 20 Multiple Choice Questions before and after the game, with significant improvement of their score (p < 0.001). Most of the participants agreed that the game was playful, stimulating, and helpful to learn neurological semiology.ConclusionsOverall, our results show that the Neurospeed game is an interesting tool as a complement to traditional lectures. Further studies are necessary to compare the efficacy of different types of serious games on short-term and long-term learning of neurological semiology.