< A Day at School >: A Serious Game for Social Skills Training

Abstract

Soft skills are the personal characteristics of an individual that enhance his/her interactions, career prospects, and job performance. Soft skills include social skills which incorporate characteristics like empathy, self-control, socialization, and friendliness. The development of soft skills at an early age is vital. Currently, there are few serious games for social skills training aimed at primary school pupils. A serious game does not only provide fun but a player can discover knowledge about himself. This paper presents a serious game named “A Day at School” that helps primary school pupils to develop social skills through an educational scenario. In this scenario, the hero of the game faces various situations during a usual day at school. The scenario deals with the situations of bullying, racism, and social awareness of children. By using the educational application, pupils discover appropriate behavior and get the first stimulus for acquiring their social skills. The serious game helps them to socialize and gain the basis to cultivate empathy, friendliness, and self-control. Primary school pupils and teachers evaluated the serious game. The results showed that teachers found that the game is suitable for teaching purposes and its graphical user interface (GUI) is appealing.