Collaborative Gameplay for Children's Self-Efficacy in Computational Thinking: Qualitative Cross-Sectional Design...

Despite science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields driving socioeconomic development and career prospects, they continue to struggle with low enrollment and high dropout rates. An important predictor of academic performance and career persistence is self-efficacy, which is the belief in one's ability to succeed. Research indicates that collaboration improves learning outcomes and is associated with improved STEM motivation. Computational thinking (CT) is also increasingly valued in STEM education due to its reliance on computational tools and problem-solving processes. Early exposure to STEM content in a child's educational journey may thus be a key opportunity for shaping their STEM self-efficacy and future career path.

This study aimed to explore how a collaborative, playful learning experience influences self-efficacy in CT skills among children. This study followed an iterative Design Science Research (DSR) approach. In this study, we present the first iteration of the DSR process, focused on analyzing and retrieving design principles for exploring how collaborative gameplay may support self-efficacy in CT as a leverage for STEM education.

For this study, a low-resolution study tabletop game, MeerPlay, was conceived as our main instrument to perform 5 gameplay rehearsal sessions with 14 children, aged between 6 and 11 years. Data were collected following a qualitative content analysis methodology, using video recordings of the sessions and individual semistructured interviews. The content analysis followed an axial coding approach, focused on retrieving evidence of collaborative behaviors that might have supported self-efficacy in CT during gameplay.

Results suggest that collaboration enables verbal persuasion, vicarious experience, and mutual problem-solving, which are important factors in self-efficacy development. The players engaged in a collaborative dialogue and strategic cooperative gameplay by sharing strategies and ideas, creating an environment of mutual support and encouragement. Participants gradually developed skills to overcome the game's challenges, perform new gameplay actions, and work together toward accomplishing the game's goal, thus supporting self-efficacy in CT challenges.

We propose a set of game design principles for collaborative gameplay: (1) a shared player panel to jointly define the characters' actions, (2) conjoined game actions to achieve the overall objective, (3) shared in-game elements and actions, (4) shared dice-roll values to incite collaborative movements, and (5) community evolution and fate across time, promoting a sense of joint victory, loss, and reward. We introduce an innovative methodological approach to study how the design elements influence collaborative interactions supporting self-efficacy. Framing STEM promotion as a sociotechnical wicked problem, we hope these design insights will be expanded in serious game design and other technical skill development contexts (eg, engineering, health, and education), potentially shaping academic interests and career paths in future generations.