Graham Allan and Janet Moffett

University of the West of Scotland

Bratislava 28 May 2015

Aim: to design, develop and evaluate a game to support the development of

career management skills for 13 to 19 year olds

YouthYes Partners

Scotland(University of the West of Scotland)

Iceland(University of Iceland/ Haskoli Islands)

England(University of Reading)

Netherlands (Open Universiteit Netherlands)

Romania (FundatiaCentrul European de Resurse pentruDezvoltare)

Iceland

Scotland

England

Netherlands

Romania

Why a game?

Games provide an active and engaging environment that should appeal to young people but, from a literature search, there are few high quality evaluations of the use of games in developing career management skills

Games-based approaches do however fit well with current thinking that young people need to be more active participants in their own career decision-making eg

• Constructivist and narrative thinking (Savickas, 2012; Peavy, 1996 & 2001; Reid & West, 2011; McMahon & Patton, 2006)

• Active engagement (Amundson, 2003; Amundson and Thrift, 2008)

• The interface between the individual system & societal and environmental system (Watson & McMahon, 2007; Krumboltz, 1999; Hodkinson, 2008)

• Pryor and Bright (2009) Games can ‘… demonstrate the realities of the complexity, connectedness, systems, changeability and chance’ of career choice

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Phases

A 2 year project: January 2015 - December 2016 to design a ‘serious game’

Year 1: game design: literature review, review of existing resources in the career guidance field and game design; game development and initial piloting

Year 2: pilot continues and evaluation leads to further development; dissemination

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Literature review

Literature review is underway. Of value will be literature on:

- career decision making and career management theory: literature from psychology, sociology and post modern interpretations of career choice

- the use of games and technology to support career decision making (an initial literature search suggests this will be limited)

- Existing resources eg games and other assessment tools(for example The Real Game, psychometric assessment eg of personality (eg MBTI), interests (variants on Holland)

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User requirements

Focus groups (March/ April 2015) with young people in Scotland and Iceland

Analysis so far…

A game will be useful to explore careers

52% think first person player is best

Same game for girls and boys but age difference matters

Mean length suggested was 55 minutes (someone suggested ‘until you die’!)

93% suggested it must be re-playable

Phone app preferred to PC (mainly by girls)

70% suggested it needs to be playable at home and in school

Content: should be fun, challenging, competitive and have different levels

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User requirements

Focus group with career guidance ‘experts’ (including several NICE members) at kick-off event in January 2015:

Suggestions:

• needs to be fun

• focused on opportunities for finding out about self

• should be developmental (fantasy-tentative-realistic?)

• Should involve goal-setting

• Present in the form of mini-games

• Should include career scenarios (what it is like to be a …)

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Expected scope of the game

First person role play Character takes part in a series of activities or

quests on a journey through 4 ‘zones’ The 4 zones (current suggestion is that these are

represented by 4 different towns visited by the player in their journey) where they explore aspects of ‘self’, ‘strengths’, ‘horizons’ and ‘networks’*

Each zone will have 2 mini-games or challenges requiring the character to make choices about these 4 aspects of career management

*Based on Skills Development Scotland Career Management Skills Framework (2012)

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The initial story

“You and your friends were planning a visit to Job FantasyLand during your summer holiday. This town is the best place to go to learn and find your dream job. Your friends took a plane there last week. And you were planning to travel by plane today, however due to an eruption of volcanic ash, all of the planes are cancelled for now and you are unlikely to find another flight ticket in time to explore FantasyLand with your friends. You are advised to find your own way to your destination using other means of transport. The journey will take you through 4 different towns. In each of these you will learn something about yourself that will help you when you reach FantasyLand and have to make a decision about your future.”

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The career journey to Job Fantasyland 11

Scope of the game

The aim of playing the game is … for players to find out more about themselves, their

interests, values and aspirations (self) their characteristics & attributes, skills and abilities

(strengths) their career identity and possible careers that they

might follow and how they can visualize, plan and achieve their aspirations throughout life (horizons)

and to acquire knowledge of networks that are available to enable them to develop relationships that will support their career progression

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Mini games … scoping of ideas is underway

Balloon popping interests game … what interests are left

Evaluation of core skills … scaling to identify strengths

My achievements so far

My knowledge of job characteristics … matching these to particular jobs; weighing up likes and dislikes in a job

Who is in my network … overcoming barriers and constraints

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Use of the game in practice and for training

Prospect of collaboration with some existing colleagues in the NICE network: reference group, piloting and dissemination of the game with young people

Prospect of supporting the use of the NICE core competences, particularly ‘Career Information and Assessment’ (supporting people in assessing their personal characteristics and connecting them with information on opportunities and ‘Career Education’ (teach and train people to develop career management competences)

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Acknowledgements

The present work was carried out as part of the YOUTHYES project. This project is partially supported by an Erasmus + Strategic Partnerships addressing more than one field; Project with multiple beneficiaries; KA2 – Cooperation and Innovation for Good Practices; Grant Agreement no: 2014-1-UK01-KA200-001858. This presentation does not represent the opinion of the European Community, and the European Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of its content.

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References

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Savickas, M. (1993) Career counselling in the post modern era. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy. 7: 205-215. Savickas, M. (1997) Constructivist career counseling: models and methods. Advances in Personal Construct Psychology. 4:

149-82. Savickas, M. , & Porfeli, E. J. (2012) Career Adapt-Abilities Scale: Construction, reliability and measurement equivalence

across 13 countries. Journal of Vocational Behavior. 80 (2012) 661-673. Peavy, V (1996) Constructivist career counselling and assessment. Guidance and Counseling. 11: 8-14. Peavy, R.V. (2001) Socio Dynamic Counselling : A Constructivist Perspective on Helping by R.V. Peavy. Web site:

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England. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling. Vol 39, Issue 5, 2011: 397-410. McMahon, M., and Patton, W. (2006) Career Counselling: Constructivist Approaches. London: Routledge. Amundson, N. (2003) Active engagement. Enhancing the career counseling process (2nd edition). Richmond: Ergon

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