Serious game in developing emotional competence: An evaluation report

The importance of the development of emotional competence amongst health care professionals is widely emphasised in the literature. The use of serious games in this regard is to-date in its infancy.

This paper reports a evaluation exercise which was carried out to evaluate the development and application of a Serious Game as an educational resource amongst nursing students. The educational purpose of the game was to enable and support the development of emotional competence amongst nursing students. Undergraduate nursing students were invited to play the game and to participate in two focus group discussions which sought to evaluate the game as an educational tool. Eight nursing students participated in the evaluation exercise. Students' experience and feedback were collected via two audio-recorded, transcribed focus group discussions lasting about an hour, with participant consent. Guided by Braun and Clarke's guiding steps for data analysis, entailed the thematic analysis of the transcribed focus group discussions was carried out by the authors.

Three themes were derived from the data analysis; Perceived motivation for participation, Positive aspects of the workshop using Serious Game, and Future Initiatives.

The use of serious games as an educational tool for developing emotional competence holds potential which merits further study and investigation. Targeting educators and game designers, the findings of the evaluation exercise are discussed and recommendations for future similar initiatives are shared in view of contributing to the development of similar educational initiatives.