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Tangibot: A collaborative multiplayer game for pediatric patients
Jorge Montaner1, Alicia Carrión2, Fernando García-Sanjuán1
1ISSI research group, Departamento de Sistemas Informáticos y Computación (DSIC), Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022, València, Spain.
Insights
The hospital teacher improved children's communication during gameplay but did not affect their psychosocial state. The game itself positively impacted children's emotions and engagement, reducing distractions from symptoms.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric psychology
- Educational technology
- Child development
Background:
- Limited research exists on the impact of hospital school staff on children's psychosocial states during gameplay.
- Previous studies focused on games' effects in pediatric wards but not on teacher interaction.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce the Tangibot application for hospitalized children.
- To evaluate the short-term impact of the Tangibot application on children's psychosocial state.
- To assess the influence of a teacher's presence on children's communication, coordination, and psychosocial state during gameplay.
Main Methods:
- A study involving 20 pediatric participants in a hospital classroom setting.
- Each participant engaged in gameplay twice: once with a teacher present and once without.
- An observational scale, applied by two evaluators, was used to assess children's psychosocial state and interactions.
Main Results:
- Teachers positively influenced children's communication, improving dialogue management, turn-taking, and information sharing.
- Gameplay significantly improved children's emotional state (affection), interest, and peer interaction, acting as a distraction from symptoms.
- Teacher presence negatively impacted time management and joint task orientation, without altering the children's psychosocial state.
Conclusions:
- While teachers enhance communication during gameplay, the game itself is the primary driver of positive psychosocial changes in hospitalized children.
- Gamification strategies can be further explored to improve social opportunities and reduce isolation during hospitalization.
- Future research should evaluate specific game strategies to optimize the hospital experience for children.
Background:
Previous research has studied the effects of games in pediatric wards, but none of it has focused on the impact of the hospital's school staff on the psychosocial state of the children nor on the gameplay itself.
Objectives:
To present the Tangibot application and evaluate its impact on the children's psychosocial state in the short term and the impact of the teacher on their psychosocial state, communications and coordination during the activity.
Methods:
A study was conducted in a hospital classroom with 20 participants, who participated twice in the game: one with the teacher playing along and another without her. An observational scale was used by two evaluators in order to assess the impact on the children.
Results And Conclusions:
The study revealed that the teacher has an impact on the children's communication and coordination procedures but has no impact on the psychosocial state of the participants. The teacher's impact was found to be positive about communications. Dialogue management significantly improves when the communication includes the teacher, which means speaking turns are observed more consistently. Information pooling also improves, and the participants ask the teacher more questions. Consensus is also reached more often and more easily, but this does not reflect on the performance, as the time management is evidently worse when the teacher is present, as is also the joint task orientation. On the other hand, it was found that the teacher does not have an impact on the psychosocial state of the participants during the game, and that it is the game itself which changes their state over time. In the case of affection, which reflects the participants' emotions of joy or boredom, their state improved significantly after a few minutes of play. The same thing occurred for physical activity, interest in the activity and interaction between peers, which increased in value in the first part of the game, although physical activity and interaction were reduced towards the end. No changes were found throughout the game in the number of complaints, nervousness or satisfied comments, which remained very low for all these aspects, showing that the game distracted them from their various symptoms. Based on these results, future work will explore the effects of gamification on the overall hospitalization perception, with special focus on the social opportunities during the hospital stay, to provide ways for the children to meet others during their treatment, to make the experience less painful and reduce their feelings of isolation. Some game strategies should also be evaluated to determine the ones that provide the best opportunities to improve the children's hospital experience.
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