The W.H.O. Emotional-Cognitive Game Design Project: Story is Everything

The W.H.O. Emotional-Cognitive Game Design Project: Story is Everything

I am currently tasked with enabling the WHO learning academy to decide which kinds of training, to a potential audience of 10 million, require or should be using serious games. We are in mid development and each day the goal becomes a bit closer. To date, this has been done by a few authors using what I called a subtractive method. That is, you begin with the idea that all courses do not need games. Then you subtract the courses that are weaker without a game element, then gamify what remains. So gamification happens after a course is designated as not needing conventional training.

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I immediately rejected this approach, because a cute algorithm which says "use game" is not realistic, its also a personal decision. If we go right from the meta analyses completed by both Lamb and Boyd, 2 separate strong examples, games are for skill rehearsal and do not rise high above conventional learning for didactic instruction. So the hard headed decision is to only use games for skill rehearsal and see them as a tool in a kit. There are so many problems with this approach that, without going into all my thinking here, its not feasible or desirable. It is prescriptive, for one and thus narrow by definition.

Additive Synthesis

I decided to use an additive methodology here, beginning with the assumption that all courses required game elements and that we would select those elements and match them with learning behaviors to create a unique fingerprint for each one. The key here is that we start with emotional design first here and link it, step by step, to cognitive content, hence the term ECP or Emotional Cognitive Performance. In other words, every module in a course needs to have emotional content built into it.

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Instead of using the term gamification, which denotes games, my colleague Dr. Catherine Bacos and I swapped to emotional elements. Narrative, short term achievements, exploration, rewards, social connection, are all examples. So in this grid if you wanted to impart pure knowledge, you might add narrative or alternatively, exploration to that set of learning tasks. Every part of training therefore has an emotional signature. We create a compelling emotional cognitive course, not just content with cognitive processing elements first and foremost.

Emotional Architecture

This fingerprint can be integrated into the entire course design so that as part of authentic alignment, it is completed as a mandatory step. Why did I reject using the idea of gamification when we do have a game design unit at WHO? This is because learning designers and their lead need to be able to use elements of games for training without necessarily creating a game. I needed a system that would span from simple engagement elements, to short games, to full course games, to personalized, burst instruction games.

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By building an ECP framework, we can now weight elements of the emotional design selection (the current list is at 22, but collapsing where we can) so that in some cases, there is clear need to create a game. There will be a repository of simple frame games that can be used as templates for courses where a game is used alongside conventional methods. Not everyone builds virtual worlds like I do. Some faculty want simple sorting games where you make decisions rapidly or work on accuracy. The ECP framework permits this entire spectrum to happen.

Narrative and Meta Narrative

Narrative is how we should teach anything, at all. If you are conversant in the learning research literature you know this already. But we do not see it used often. It is a change that we all have to make. Your courses, from now on, are stories or are compilations of micro-narratives. We organize our world in terms of stories and to exempt learning from that is ludicrous. Narrative is a strong element in serious game design and the core to all of my work inside and outside of WHO. So finding a creative theme, a story to embed learning in, is the new art of instructional design. Is it here? Is it in 8th century Greece? Is it set in ancient Rome? Our latest 2 games designed here in Canada for health care training, not WHO, are set in Carthage and in ancient Alexandria and urban Detroit, with compelling, complex back stories and immersive play. No 3D graphics, just panels of text, choose your own adventure, licensed images and sound files.

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Meta Narrative is the deeper developmental philosophy that guides the game. In our game Carthage, the meta narrative is about the beauty of all cultures and races as you explore the ancient world. In Hypatia, our newest game, the meta narrative is about facing melancholy, how we all feel during COVD, what the medieval monks called 'acedia'. I thank Unitarian Minister Lynn Harrison for her contribution here, when she spoke of it in a sermon last year. I unified this idea I got from Reverend Harrison and had discussions with a Catholic theologian and an Orthodox Jewish expert to develop a view of how the player, as they learned, would learn more about themselves. About the origin of good, evil, free will, the good stuff. So our games have ethical imperatives. We spoke with black community leaders as we built the narrative surrounding the homeless sections of Detroit, to really capture antiracist messaging without being obvious evangelists. In other words, the meta narrative for any serious game drives the moral and psychological integration of knowledge.

As we move forward into the online world enforced by our circumstances, emotions must be primary in learning. Not just tickled, like petting your cat, but ingrained, as in forming the boards you stand on in a home. Emotional cognitive performance is the new edge of learning and it needs to be tightly coupled to all stages of course design.



Jeremy Royster

Building. Learning. Games.

2y

Hi David, I'm teaching a unit on Africa for 6th graders. Is / will Carthage be available for educational use outside of the healthcare sphere?

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Hi David! We need to speak! I hope you are well! Monse

Andrew S.

Lead | Future Technologies - Australian Government

2y

Thanks for sharing David! Great article 👍

This is brilliant. I have seen some great stuff done with serious games and this is a great read which adds a really good dimension.

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Beata Pawlowska, PhD

Director, Professional Standards, Research, Education and Policy, College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants

2y

Thanks for sharing

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