Related works
We used ACM Digital Library and Google Scholar to research related works and wrote an academic section, like it's done in research articels. This made us focus on already existing and similar design solutions, which you should always do in the beginning of a designproces to explore the marked.
Related works - games that prevents bullying
There has been an increased focus on bullying in schools in the last decade and how it can be prevented. There are some related works as to how games can be implemented into schools for improving children’s reflective skills and how it can prevent bullying and encourage inclusive behavior.Kriglstein et al. presents the project “Be a Buddy not a Bully” which consists of two educational games, both focusing on bullying and how to prevent it. The goal of the games is making the user take on the role of a bystander to different bullying situations instead of the victim or bully. Kriglstein et al. follow a very narrative dramaturgical approach, whereas we plan to use a different approach containing multiple small games instead.
What Muravevskaia et al. explores in their research is how children can improve/develop their awareness and empathy through games and narratives such as fairy tales. As well as in our own project, the game is seen as a motivational and engaging tool for children to reflect upon feelings. The game was developed with both an auditory, visual and kinesthetic aspect to engage the children, and even though some evaluations of this was missing, it seems that we also should consider including several modalities as well - why this could be a good idea also supported by our findings in our semi-structured interview.
The game “StopBully”, developed by Cátia Raminhos et al. presents a Serious Game centering on the perspectives of two roles; bystander and victim, in order to change the behaviors of these when faced with situations of bullying. The intention is for the game to be played by a child in company with a psychologist, where the child will make decisions based on the role they are playing and the situation. The approach in StopBully differentiates from ours in that they make a dedicated choice to focus on bullying as a theme and the roles related. In our approach, it is central that the theme is underlying, because the key values in our design are positivity and inclusiveness. Therefore, focusing directly on the negative loaded theme of bullying, and essentially separating people into roles, will defeat the purpose of our approach.
Elsayed-Ali et al. have been working with children in a co-design session in order to gain insights into the value-systems of their desired demographic. By having the participating children rank their values using the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS), the team were able to gather how children view the world and their own needs. For our own project, we decided to work with adult pedagogical experts (rather than actual children) to gain insight. Using this approach, we will get an academic view of the issue but not the first hand experience of the children who will eventually be the users of our product. However, we will have children of the appropriate age group test our prototype in the evaluation phase.