It is increasingly recognised that having career goals, setting targets and taking ownership of their own future career plans can lead to more positive career outcomes in young people. To maximise their potential young people should start thinking about their future career at a young age. However many young people do not engage in career planning and personal development planning and lack aspirations, attitudes and confidence with respect to future careers. Over the last ten years there has been an upsurge of interest in using digital games for learning and attitude and behaviour change. This has emerged from optimism that the motivating features of entertainment games could also be deployed to motivate learning. However, games also offer methods of learning that are highly consistent with modern theories of effective learning, which propose that learning activities should be active, situated, problem based, interactive and socially mediated. Aims and objectives of the project: The aim of the current proposal is to develop a game-based approach to supporting awareness raising and behaviour change in the area of youth employability and career management. A game could provide an active, decision-making approach to supporting young people in thinking about employability and self-development by using motivational game mechanics that can induce in the users a sense of fun and self-actualisation patterns that will be helpful in raising awareness of issues. It seems likely that, as “digital natives” who have been brought up with digital technology, young people would find a game-based approach to employability and careers highly attractive. The YESGAME fits well with current thinking about employability and careers, putting the student at the centre of their career decisions. The YESGAME will be built around 4 key features that young people need to be aware of in thinking about their careers: self, strengths, horizons and networks (Scottish Government, 2012). The aim of the game is to make young people more aware that taking personal responsibility for planning their own career and having realistic goals is more likely to help them achieve satisfaction in their career. The game should also allow young people to realise that their future career prospects are not fixed and that some factors that impact on their employability are more broad-ranging and flexible than they might realise. The YESGAME will be a role-playing game where an in-game character has the opportunity to take part in a series of activities which will provide “experiences”, mini-games or “challenges” requiring a series of choices. During the design phase of the project, tasks will include a literature review of career management and decision-making resources; a review of existing digital employability and careers guidance resources; a user requirements analysis and design specification. Key activities during the implementation stage will be the development of the YESGAME and additional resources to support the game, such as a pedagogical guide and videos. Piloting of early prototypes of the game will determine the acceptability and usability of the game with a small number of end users of the game. In addition a larger scale evaluation will be carried out on the final version of the game to establish the value and effectiveness of the game in interesting and supporting young people in career management activities. Best practice case studies and use case scenarios will provide further guidance about how best to use the game with different groups of young people. A range of dissemination activities to increase awareness and interest in the game amongst key stakeholders and interested parties, will be carried out during the project: a project Web site will be established; newsletters will be distributed, dissemination events will be held for employability and careers guidance practitioners and refereed academic & professional papers will be written. Game design, development and evaluation will be an iterative process. User requirements and design specification will use a negotiation-centric user-led design process. Results of piloting of early game prototypes with a small number of end users will feed into the refinement of the final game. A larger scale evaluation of the final version of the game will establish the value and effectiveness of the game in interesting and supporting young people in career management activities. It is hoped that the YESGAME will contribute to enhanced potential for career management skills, with young people taking more responsibility for planning their own career and having aspirational but realistic career goals. This will not just help them to achieve more satisfaction in their career. It could potentially increase their career mobility and resilience in the global employment market and make a significant contribution to the future of the youth and thus the European economy.
Background: It is increasingly recognised that having career goals, setting targets and taking ownership of their own future career plans can lead to more positive career outcomes in young people. To maximise their potential young people should start thinking about their future career at a young age. However many young people do not engage in career planning and personal development planning and lack aspirations, attitudes and confidence with respect to future careers. Over the last ten years there has been an upsurge of interest in using digital games for learning and attitude and behaviour change. This has emerged from optimism that the engaging features of entertainment games could also be deployed to motivate learning. However, games also offer methods of learning that are highly consistent with modern theories of effective learning, which propose that learning activities should be active, situated, problem based, interactive and socially mediated. It was felt that a game could provide an active, decision-making approach to supporting young people in thinking about careers. Consequently the aim of the YOUTHYES project was to design, develop and evaluate a game to support career planning and career management skills in 13 – 19 year olds. The project had 5 partners. The University of the West of Scotland was the project coordinator and partners were the University of Iceland/ Haskoli Islands, Iceland, the University of Reading, England, the Open Universiteit Netherlands, Netherlands and Fundatia Centrul European de Resurse pentru Dezvoltare, Romania. Key activities at the start of the project included a literature review of career management and decision-making resources that identified a number of relevant technology-based interventions but few career games; a review of existing digital employability and careers resources that identified digital and paper and pencil materials and tools that careers guidance practitioners use in practice, and a user requirements analysis that helped to establish what potential players would like to see in such a game. Using the findings of these early project activities a design specification was developed that guided the development of the Youth@work game. The game was firmly grounded in 2 key career theories: the Skills Development Scotland (SDS) model of competences that identifies 4 key features that young people need to be aware of in thinking about their careers: self, strengths, horizons and networks (Scottish Government, 2012), while Holland’s (1959) theory of vocational interests is used to suggest appropriate and personalised careers to the game players. An online training course provides support for the game, allowing teachers and careers counselors interested in using the Youth@work game with young people between the ages of 13 and 19 to use the game most effectively. 5 Best Practice Case studies and 5 Use Case Scenarios were also developed to provide useful and more specific guidance about how partners have used the game and how the game might be used, for example to encourage young people to study STEM subjects. The game and online support materials are available in English, Dutch, Romanian, Icelandic and also Greek and German. A Utube video provides a very useful short walkthrough of the game. It is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRXQTwQJ51c. Results: Early piloting of the game suggested that school pupils liked the game, although they thought it more appropriate to those in the lower age band, 13-15 years. Since this is the age at which young people start to choose school subjects this was useful feedback. The large scale evaluation of the final game aimed to establish the value and effectiveness of the game in interesting and supporting young people in career planning and career management activities. Nearly 500 young people took part in this but a Randomized Controlled Trial was carried out with 93 Icelandic and Romanian students. Half the students played the Youth@work game and the other half performed a paper-and-pencil version of the same activities. The main results show that engaging players in these career-oriented activities had short term effects on outcome scores for career adaptabilities and for perceptions of career learning competences. It can therefore be concluded that introducing game-based learning in career decision support for youth is a promising endeavour. Impact: Throughout the project, and especially towards the end, local dissemination events were held by the project partners to showcase the game to interested teachers and careers counselors. In addition conference presentations and academic publications helped to show the game and project results to those with a more academic interest in the game. The online game and all publically available deliverables can be found at Project website www.youth-at-work.eu. It is hoped that this will provide a resource that stakeholders across Europe use.