ABSTRACT
People with intellectual disabilities need vocational training and support in order to be able to get into the work market and maintain their workplace. In Macau SAR, China, the vocational training ecosystem still operates in fully classic, in-person, fashion, which means it is susceptible to pandemic situations such as COVID-19. This causes a big disruption to the training when isolation measures are in place. Our goal is to study the introduction of serious games for vocational training of people with disabilities in Macau. This work presents a study to assess the training benefits of serious games and usability factors, understand the acceptability and adoption factors/benefits of serious games for vocational training for people with intellectual disabilities and associated stakeholders in Macau. © 2022, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.
ABSTRACT
Sustainable development is a relatively new concept, nurtured by both public and private international organizations. It remains to be seen whether the concept has become rooted within societies, or if it is mainly a tool of public policy and the political elites. This contribution looks at the various dimensions of the beliefs and values regarding the concept of sustainable development, by collecting data and reviewing the relevant literature on the issue. The pandemic of Covid-19, that started in early 2020, in China, may have been a turning point, and we question if this has increased the societal dimension of sustainable development, by forcing a change of lifestyles. However, the obligation to reduce consumption and pollution is not the same as sharing values on sustainable development or, more generally, being concerned about the impact of human activities on the environment. In order to assess the changes of paradigms in the beliefs and values towards sustainable development, the article looks at the way the states, and the civil societies, including the business sector, have changed and adapted their positions on this issue before and following the pandemic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.