Insights into Competence Development Through Playfulness in a Cooperative Game Scenario: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

This paper presents the design and first rehearsal of a game proposal for a play-enabled, gender-related social innovation by working self-efficacy in collaborative, playful environments. Our main goal at this stage is to study how a gender-neutral proposal would get appropriated and generate insights about how it could promote change through play and cooperative dialogue. Specifically, we aimed to gather evidence on how participants became empowered to develop basic competences that help them trust their ability to perform in-game actions. Sixteen players were involved in paired gameplay rehearsals, assisted by the researcher as a facilitator of the game rules and responses in tabletop format. Through video recording, content analysis was performed to code for meaningful events: competence development, playfulness factors, modes of cooperation and emotions. We were able to get insights on how the design proposal promoted competence development related to computational thinking, its connections with playful engagement and cooperative dialogues, and the players’ perception of gender-neutrality of the game.