Gameful design for skills development for youths in urban marginalised communities

Chinonye Leuna Obioha, Izak van Zyl 
pp. pp. 27 – 50, download
(https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-053-002)

Abstract

Unemployment is high among youths living in marginalised communities in South Africa. One of the reasons is that many young people are either un- or low-skilled to gain employment in a digital economy requiring high-skilled individuals. The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) also exacerbates the future of work for these youths if they remain unskilled. Training with digital technologies is becoming the norm (especially with COVID–19) but engaging and motivating youth to learn skills is challenging. Gameful design, when effectively used, can create engagement and motivation. This study investigated what gameful elements can engage and motivate youths in marginalised communities to learn employable skills and how these elements can be incorporated into a system. We conducted a series of co-participatory workshops, including self-reflection tasks with some youths from a marginalised urban community in the Western Cape, South Africa. The study finds twenty-three system-based gameful design elements and three non-system-based elements to engage and motivate youths. The results provide insights for gameful designers, development centres, and policymakers involved with youth skills development. 

Keywords: Youth unemployment, Gameful design, Youth skills development, Design anthropology, Community informatics

References

1.     Deterding S., Dixon D., Khaled R., Nacke L.: From game design elements to gamefulness: Defining “Gamification”. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference – MindTrek ’11. pp. 9–15 (2011) https://doi.org/10.1145/2181037.2181040
2.       Deterding S., Sicart M., Nacke L., O’Hara K., Dixon D.: Gamification. using game-design elements in non-gaming contexts. In: Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference  on Human factors in computing systems – CHI EA ’11. pp. 2425–2428 (2011)https://doi.org/10.1145/1979742.1979575
3.       Wu Y., Kankanhalli A., Huang K.: Gamification in Fitness Apps: How do Leaderboards influence Exercise?. In: Thirty Sixth International Conference on Information Systems, Fort Worth. pp. 1–12 (2015) https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2015/proceedings/IShealth/14/
4.       Wei C.: Integrating gamification to modern web fitness services, http://tampub.uta.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/101828/GRADU-1502776795.pdf?sequence=1, (2017)
5.       Adukaite A., van Zyl I., Er S., Cantoni L.: Teacher perceptions on the use of digital gamified learning in tourism education: The case of South African secondary schools Comput. Educ., 111, pp. 172–190 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2017.04.008
6.       Glover I.: Play as you learn: gamification as a technique for motivating learners. In: Proc. World Conf. Educ. Multimedia, Hypermedia Telecommunications, pp. 1998–2008 (2013)http://shura.shu.ac.uk/7172/ 
7.       Nacke L.E., Deterding S.: The maturing of gamification research Comput. Human Behav., 71, pp. 450–454 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.062
8.       Schöbel S., Ernst S., Söllner M., Leimeister J.M.: More than the sum of its arts – towards identifying preferred game design element combinations in learning management systems. In: Thirty Eighth International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) (2017) https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3042161
9.       Magwentshu N., Rajagopaul A., Chui M., Singh A.: The future of work in South Africa: Digitisation, productivity and job creation, (2019) shorturl.at/eoWY8
10.     Anderson B.: Converting asset holdings into livelihood: An empirical study on the role of household agency in South Africa World Dev., 40, pp. 1394–1406 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.03.015
11.  Leibbrandt M., Woolard I., Finn A., Argent J.: Trends in South African Income Distribution and Poverty since the Fall of Apartheid OECD Soc. Employ. Migr. Work. Pap., pp. 1–91 (2010)https://doi.org/10.35648/20.500.12413/11781/ii079
12.  May J.: Poverty eradication: The South African experience. Paper presented at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Social Policy and Development and Economic Commission for Africa, Economic Development and NEPAD Division Expert Group Meeting on Poverty Eradication. , United Nations Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2010) https://docs.igihe.com/IMG/pdf/may_paper.pdf
13.     Mayombe C., Lombard A.: The importance of material resources and qualified trainers in adult non-formal education and training centres in South Africa Int. Rev. Educ., 62, pp. 187–204 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-016-9548-7
14.     Graham L., Mlatsheni C.: Youth unemployment in South Africa: understanding the challenge and working on solutions in De Lannoy, A., Swartz, S., Lake, L., and Smith, C. (eds.) South African Child Gauge 2015. pp. 51–58. Children’s Institute, Cape Town (2015) shorturl.at/bclW3
15.     Graham L., De Lannoy A.: Youth unemployment: what can we do in the short run? Econ3x3, 2008, (2016) http://www.econ3x3.org/article/youth-unemployment-what-can-we-do-short-run
16.     StatsSA: Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) Q3:2021, (2021) shorturl.at/dgS12
17.     NYP: National youth policy 2020-2030: A decade to accelerate positive youth development outcomes, (2020) shorturl.at/eghKY
18.     De Lannoy A., Leibbrandt M., Frame E.: A focus on youth: An opportunity to interrupt the intergenerational transmission of poverty in De Lannoy, A., Swartz, S., Lake, L., and Smith, C. (eds.) The South African Child Gauge 2015. pp. 22–33. Children’s Institute, Cape Town (2015) shorturl.at/djr26
19.     Lam D., Leibbrandt M., Mlatsheni C.: Education and youth unemployment in South Africa, Cape Town, (2008)https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/6671273.pdf
20.     Burns J., Edwards L., Pauw K.: Wage subsidies to combat unemployment and poverty: Assessing South Africa’s options, Cape Town, (2010) https://www.opensaldru.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11090/73/2010_45.pdf
21.     Yu D.: Youth unemployment in South Africa since 2000 revisited, (2013)https://resep.sun.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/wp-04-2013.pdf
22.     De Lannoy A., Graham L., Patel L., Leibbrandt M.: What drives youth unemployment and what interventions help? A Systematic Overview of the Evidence and a Theory of Change., (2018) shorturl.at/agWZ6
23.     National Planning Commission: National Development Plan 2030: Our future-make it work, (2011)shorturl.at/bFGRU
24.     Botha A., Herselman M., Ford M.: Gamification beyond points and badges in Cunningham, P. and Cunningham, M. (eds.). In: Proceedings of the IST-Africa 2014 Conference 7-9 May 2014. pp. 1–10 (2014)https://doi.org/10.1109/ISTAFRICA.2014.6880651
25.     Huotari K., Hamari J.: Defining gamification – a service marketing perspective. In: Proceeding of the 16th International Academic MindTrek Conference on – MindTrek ’12. pp. 17–22 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1145/2393132.2393137
26.     Tondello G.: Gamification vs gameful design: why does it matter?, https://www.gamefulbits.com/2017/01/26/gamification-vs-gameful-design-matter/
27.     Bell K.: Gameful Design: A potential game changer Educ. Rev., 53, pp. 41–48 (2018)https://er.educause.edu/-/media/files/articles/2018/5/er183103.pdf
28.     Caillois R.: Man, play and games, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, (2001)
29.     Deterding S.: The lens of intrinsic skill atoms: A method for gameful design Human-Computer Interact., 30, pp. 294–335 (2015)https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2014.993471
30.     Simões J., Redondo R., Vilas A., Aguiar A.: A gamification framework to improve participation eLearning Pap., pp. 1–11 (2013) https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.5005.4887
31.     Mårell-Olsson E.: Using gamification as an online teaching strategy to develop students’ 21st century skills Interact. Des. Archit., 47, pp. 69–93 (2021) https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-047-004
32.     Lee J.J., Hammer J.: Gamification in education: What, how, why bother? Acad. Exch. Q., 15, (2011)shorturl.at/eilO6
33.     Inglehart R.F.: Changing values among western publics from 1970 to 2006 West Eur. Polit., 31, pp. 130–146 (2008)https://doi.org/10.1080/01402380701834747
34.     Dicheva D., Dichev C., Agre G., Angelova G.: Gamification in Education: A Systematic Mapping Study J. Educ. Technol. Soc., 18, pp. 75–88 (2015)https://www.jstor.org/stable/jeductechsoci.18.3.75
35.     Dicheva D.: Gamification in Education: A passing trend or a genuine potential?. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies – CompSysTech’17. pp. 11–11 (2017)https://doi.org/10.1145/3134302.3134305
36.     Hunicke R., Leblanc M., Zubek R.: MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research. In: Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI., San Jose, CA (2004)https://users.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf
37.     Sicart M.: Defining Game Mechanics Int. J. Comput. Game Res., 8, (2008)http://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/sicart
38.     Zichermann G., Cunningham C.: Gamification by design, O’Reilly Media Inc, Sebastopol, CA, (2011)
39.     Marczewski A.: User Types HEXAD in Driver, D. (ed.) Even ninja monkeys like to play: Gamification, game thinking and motivational design. vol. 1st Ed. pp. 65–80. Gamified UK (2015)shorturl.at/gpsu6
40.     Marczewski A.: The Intrinsic Motivation RAMP, https://www.gamified.uk/gamification-framework/the-intrinsic-motivation-ramp/ (2013)
41.     Ryan R.M., Deci E.L.: Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being Am. Psychol., 55, pp. 68–78 (2000)https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68
42.     Pink D.H.: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us, Riverhead Hardcover, (2009)
43.     Tondello G.F., Mora A., Nacke L.E.: Elements of gameful design emerging from user preferences. In: Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. pp. 129–140. CHI PLAY (2017)https://doi.org/10.1145/3116595.3116627
44.     Babbie E.: The Basics of Social Research, Wadsworth Publishing, United States, (2014)
45.     Monette D.R., Sullivan T.J., DeJone C.R., Hilton T.P.: Applied social research: A tool for the human services, Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning, USA, (2014)
46.     Gunn W., Donovan J.: Design Anthropology: An Introduction in Gunn, W. and Donovan, J. (eds.) Design and Anthropology. pp. 1–16. Routledge, London, England (2012) shorturl.at/eGIO2
47.     Otto T., Smith R.C.: Design anthropology: A distinct style of knowing in Gunn, W., Otto, T., and Smith, R.C. (eds.) Design anthropology: theory and practice. pp. 1–32. Bloomsbury Academic, London (2013)https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003085195-1
48.     Prendiville A.: A Design Anthropology of place in Service Design: A methodological reflection Des. J., 18, pp. 193–208 (2015)https://doi.org/10.2752/175630615X14212498964231
49.  Ventura J., Bichard J.: Design anthropology research guide, (2016) https://doi.org/10.1080/21650349.2016.1246205
50.     Crandall R.: Empathy Map, https://dschool-old.stanford.edu/groups/k12/wiki/3d994/empathy_map.html
51.     Dam R., Siang T.: Stage 2 in the Design Thinking Process: Define the Problem and Interpret the Results, https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/stage-2-in-the-design-thinking-process-define-the-problem-and-interpret-the-results
52.     Tondello G.F., Wehbe R.R., Diamond L., Busch M., Marczewski A., Nacke L.E.: The gamification user types Hexad scale. In: Proc. 2016 Annu. Symp. Comput. Interact. Play, pp. 229–243. CHI Play (2016) https://doi.org/10.1145/2967934.2968082
53.     Senocak D., Büyük K., Bozkurt A.: Distribution of Hexad gamification user types and their association with intrinsic motivation in open and distance learning systems ICERI2019 Proceedings. vol. 1. pp. 1011–1017 (2019) https://doi.org/10.21125/iceri.2019.0312
54.     Sitorus, M.B., Ferdiana, R., Adji, T.B.: Designing gamification framework to support social media application based on game elements and cutting-edge technology. In: Proc. ICECOS 2017, pp. 125–130. (2017) https://doi.org/10.1109/ICECOS.2017.8167118

back to Table of Contents