Accessible Design of Serious Games for People with Intellectual Disabilities in Inclusive Vocational Education

Abstract

People with disabilities are often denied the opportunity to obtain a vocational qualification. There is a lack of an appropriate infrastructure for an inclusive education system and recognized degrees. Therefore, didactic methods for inclusive learning situations are needed. This paper describes the user-centered development and evaluation of a serious game for inclusive vocational training in kitchen professions. The theoretical teaching content in the module “hygiene” is taught to people with and without cognitive impairments using a gamified learning application. The prototype was evaluated with 22 participants when used in an inclusive teaching setting with a mixed-methods design. The learning application caused an increase in motivation and the knowledge quiz achieved good results across all target groups (15 trainee cooks, 4 trainees as kitchen assistants, 3 employees of the sheltered workshop). The results from questioning, learning quiz, observation, and video analysis form design guidelines for future digital, interactive teaching methods for inclusive vocational education.