A serious-game for child sexual abuse prevention: An evaluation of orbit.

BACKGROUND: Greater public and professional awareness of the extent and impact of child sexual abuse (CSA) has prompted the inclusions of prevention initiatives within school curricula. However CSA education is not always soundly grounded in empirical evidence, and evaluations of the impact of programs often inadequate. OBJECTIVE: This paper reports on a randomized-control trial of an empirically informed serious-game for CSA prevention, for children aged 8-10 years. The study also evaluates the impact on learning of complementary classroom lessons and part completion of the Orbit game. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The evaluation involved 139 students (female = 78; male = 61) aged 8-10 years (Mage = 9.64, SD = 0.33), from an elementary school in Queensland, Australia. METHOD: All children were pre-tested and post-tested (at 3 months) for knowledge of abuse prevention using the Children's Knowledge of Abuse Questionnaire-Revised (CKAQ-R-III), and a short form (SF) mapped to the learning objectives of Orbit . Children were assigned to one of three groups; i) play Orbit (n = 50); ii) play Orbit and CSA lessons (n = 55); and iii) control (n = 34). RESULTS: Children in the Orbit play, and Orbit play and lesson groups, significantly (p < .001) increased their CKAQ SF scores, whereas those in the control group did not. Furthermore, those children who completed all of Orbit significantly (p < .001) increased their post-test CKAQ scores, whereas those who didn't complete the game did not. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows the strength of a serious-games approach for school CSA prevention whilst reporting how child completion can impact learnings.

The development of children's epistemic beliefs across the early years of elementary school.

BACKGROUND: A growing body of research shows that the beliefs we hold about the nature of knowing and knowledge (epistemic beliefs) may mediate moral reasoning. However, a limitation of much of the research in the area of epistemic beliefs is the lack of a longitudinal approach. AIMS: The study investigated longitudinal changes in Australian elementary school children's beliefs about knowing and knowledge (epistemic beliefs) across three judgement domains (personal taste, ambiguous facts, and moral values). SAMPLE: The participants in this longitudinal study were tracked from Year 1 through to Year 3 of primary school. In Year 1, there were 169 participants (83 boys, 86 girls) aged 6-7 years (M = 6.7, SD = 0.32). In Year 2, there were 156 participants (79 boys, 77 girls), and in Year 3, there were 129 participants (65 boys, 64 girls). METHODS: Using vignettes that reflected each of the three judgement domains, children were interviewed about the beliefs held by two puppet characters. The interviews took place each year across the early years of elementary education in Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3. RESULTS: Findings revealed that children's epistemic beliefs in each of the judgement domains became more subjectivist over time but that the age at which this occurred differed according to the judgement domain in question. CONCLUSIONS: We argue that it is important for teachers to pay attention to children's beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing in the process of scaffolding their reasoning about moral values for active citizenship.

Gaming well: links between videogames and flourishing mental health.

This paper is a review of the state of play of research linking videogaming and flourishing, and explores the role of videogames and technology to improve mental health and well-being. Its purpose is to develop understandings about the positive intersection of gaming and well-being, to document evidence regarding links between videogames and positive mental health, and to provide guidelines for use by other researchers as they design and use tools and games to improve mental health and well-being. Using Huppert's (Huppert and So, 2013) proposition that to flourish is more than the absence of mental disorder but rather a combination of feeling good and functioning effectively, resulting in high levels of mental well-being, and Seligman's (Seligman, 2011) PERMA theory of well-being, the paper identifies strengths in existing games that generate positive affect, positive functioning, and positive social functioning, contributing to, and supporting mental health and well-being.