“It's like you’re actually playing as yourself”: Development and preliminary evaluation of ‘Green Acres High’, a serious game-based primary intervention to combat adolescent dating violence

Erica Bowen, Kate Walker, Matt Mawer, Emma Holdsworth, E. Sorbring, B. Helsing, A. Bolin, E. Leen, P. Held, V. Awouters, S. Jans

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    27 Citations (Scopus)
    90 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    This paper provides an overview of the development of ‘Green Acres High’, a serious game-based primary intervention to raise awareness of and change attitudes towards dating violence in adolescents, and an analysis of how adolescents described their experience of playing this game. Transcripts from focus group data were analysed using thematic analysis. The global theme that was developed, Assessment of the game, was represented by two organising themes, Positive assessment: Pedagogical Underpinnings and Negative Assessment: Functionality Limitations and Frustrations. These represented the fact that overall the learning experience was positive based on the pedagogical principles and content that could be embedded in this digital game but that technical issues with the game needed to be addressed as these could impinge on the learning experience of the adolescents. It was seen that using a serious game was a valid and meaningful way for adolescents to learn about dating violence and that this is a viable alternative or adjunct to traditional teaching methods.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)43–55
    JournalPsychosocial Intervention
    Volume23
    Issue number1
    Early online date2 Apr 2014
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Apr 2014

    Bibliographical note

    Versión en castellano disponible en [Spanish version available at]: www.elsevier.es/psi .
    This paper is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license - for full license terms see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ .

    Keywords

    • Serious games
    • Primary intervention
    • Adolescent dating violence

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