Maritime City - Analysis of

Preliminary ResultsRyan Flynn, University of Greenwich

Ryan Flynn1, Lachlan McKinnon1, Elizabeth Bacon1, Jonathan Saunders1, Jonathon Davies2, Janet Webb21University of Greenwich, Maritime Campus, London, SE10 9LS, UK2University

of Greenwich, Avery Hill Campus, Eltham, London, SE9 2PQ, UK{r.d.flynn, l.mackinnon, e.bacon, j.m.saunders, j.r.davies, j.s.webb}@greenwich.ac.uk

Overview

•Who am I?

•What is Maritime City?

Ryan FlynnPrincipal Lecturer in Games Principal Lecturer in Games & Multimedia Technologies & Multimedia Technologies

at the University of at the University of GreenwichGreenwich

PhD candidate, PhD candidate, investigating the use of investigating the use of

games in education games in education (specifically, can the (specifically, can the delivery of education delivery of education

through a game through a game environment equate to environment equate to traditional methods of traditional methods of

delivery)delivery)

Full time geekFull time geek

Principal Lecturer in Games Principal Lecturer in Games & Multimedia Technologies & Multimedia Technologies

at the University of at the University of GreenwichGreenwich

PhD candidate, PhD candidate, investigating the use of investigating the use of

games in education games in education (specifically, can the (specifically, can the delivery of education delivery of education

through a game through a game environment equate to environment equate to traditional methods of traditional methods of

delivery)delivery)

Full time geekFull time geek

Maritime City•Maritime City is a serious game-like

product that allows Social Workers (and, soon, other healthcare professionals) to experience in-depth scenarios based on practice

•Both a training and “entertainment” product

•Designed and built with professional input into all aspects of the game

Realism•Realism in Maritime City is of

primary concern due to the way Social Work trainees are trained

•Realism is a complex concept, but for the purposes of GBL I propose we understand it as an accurate representation of the real world

•How best to do this?

L.A. Noire

The whole purpose of The whole purpose of the game is to use the game is to use

realism as a means of realism as a means of driving narrative - you driving narrative - you

can “tell” whether can “tell” whether people are lying or not people are lying or not

based on their based on their reactionsreactions

The whole purpose of The whole purpose of the game is to use the game is to use

realism as a means of realism as a means of driving narrative - you driving narrative - you

can “tell” whether can “tell” whether people are lying or not people are lying or not

based on their based on their reactionsreactions

Uses state-of-the-art Uses state-of-the-art “performance “performance

capture”capture”

Uses state-of-the-art Uses state-of-the-art “performance “performance

capture”capture”

Realism (2)• A lot of the time, Social Workers have to make

decisions based on their feelings of a situation rather than the presentation of the situation

• e.g. a room may be messy but this does not automatically mean neglect; a baby might be crying but this does not mean abuse has taken place

• “...as Downrie and Telfer (1980: 22) very concisely put it: ‘No amount of knowledge of what is the case can ever establish for us what we ought to do about it’.” (Social Work Toolkit)

• This needs to be reflected in the game environment

Example of Maritime City

•To aid the discussion on the issues raised by the experimental groups, it would be useful for you to have a taster of Scenario 1 of Maritime City.

•This is still a beta version, so apologies for any bugs!

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are needed to see this picture.

Issues Raised

•Maritime City has been tested in a range of environments with a range of Social Workers from different professional backgrounds

• It has been formally tested with a relatively small group of people so far (~10)

•This is the group used for the analysis here

•Further analysis with a richer data source will commence soon (data already collected)

Experiment• The group (n=10) was formed of in-practice (i.e. qualified,

practicing Social Workers rather than people training to become Social Workers) students as part of a child protection module being studied as part of a Masters degree. They were asked to play the game and then complete a role-play, both based around the same scenario.

• The surveys were designed to have a balance of Open-ended and Likert-scale (using a higher-is-better scale) questions in order to provide a variety of data.

• The general purpose of the experiment is to test whether it is possible to show equivalence between educational games such as Maritime City and more traditional teaching methods such as role-play.

Realism

•Q1: How realistic did you find the characters in the game?

Ease of Use

•Q2: How easy did you find the game to interact with?

Effectiveness

•Q11: How effective was the game at communicating the lesson content?

Comparison to role play

•Once everyone had completed the role-play AND the game, a second survey was undertaken

•This time, n=8

Academic

•Q1: Comparing the game and the role-play, which did you find more academic?

Enjoyable

•Q2: Comparing the game and the role-play, which did you find more enjoyable?

Emotions• Q3: What did you feel was better at helping

you explore the emotions associated with the scenario - the game or the role-play?

Stimulating

•Q9: Comparing the game and the role-play, which did you find more stimulating?

Choice

•Q10: Given the choice, would you prefer to use games or role-play in the future?

Summing Up

• Using games technology for training is well received BUT does not seem to be a replacement for all traditional methods

• In certain cases, realism of game is paramount

• ...as is emotional/human traits of game characters

• It seems that Maritime City could be a successful addition to the educational “toolkit” for training, but needs further refinement

Thank You!

•Any questions?