Self Reflection Through Roleplay In Chimeria Grayscale-Ortiz
#notesFromPaper Year : Tags : games - reflection Chimeria Grayscale roleplay feminism misogyny #transformationalGameStudy Authors: Ortiz Harrell
How can interactive fiction and roleplay support reflection?
Research through the game Chimeria Grayscale, 31 participants played it and completed a survey. Results suggest that the game enabled critical reflection.
Design on reflection from a cognitive or learning sciences POV are largely absent from the literature. Previous work assumes that simply providing access to data will create reflection, but this doesn’t account for backfire effects and really doesn’t have any basis in general. Reflection needs to be scaffolded
How do you even measure reflection?
MAHI is a health app that promotes reflection.
Lots of background on reflection
Use the learning activities survey to determine if reflection has taken place.
There’s some good background on roleplay, actually reading the linked literature seems like a good idea if I need to learn more.
Used Yardley-Matwiejczuk roleplay induction techniques to increase engagement in Chimeria. These techniques work best in singleplayer.
Used embedded design as a way to avoid backfire effects.
Used semiotics to map the space of ambivalent sexism to the space of Chimeria. Not entirely sure what the specifics of that technique are in this case… As players respond, Chimeria classifies the player within the ambivalent sexism framework which changes the emails they get late in the game..
Roleplay induction: Used #affordances of typical email clients to set the stage and provide some Distance. Also allowed for limited personalization
Participants were chosen from the /r/SampleSize subreddit, which I feel is sus tbh.
Speaking of SUS, they used SUS to determine playability, the GEQ for engagement, and the learning activities survey
Results
- Game was very usable
- Experience was neutrally pleasant
- Men had an easier time returning to reality after playing the game
- Players felt like they had agency
- Male players experienced less immersion, with a few potential reasons that basically boil down to “it was a game about sexism against women.”
- Plurality of players didn’t change their beliefs, but that might just be because they weren’t sexist already.
- All players engaged in critical self reflection to some extent, such as questioning their beliefs or claiming they would act differently. One participant said that they no longer agreed with their previous beliefs.
Discussion
Since every participant engaged in self reflection, they consider it a success, and that the scaffolding used could be similarly used in other games / taskflows
Limitations
- Small sample size
- More study needed about effect size
- Study didn’t ask about previous beliefs, their reflective process, or how Chimeria affected their beliefs.
Paper Critiques
I don’t know how I feel about this paper… It’s very difficult to measure these kinds of transformations, but the small sample size and simple conclusion of “oh yeah everyone critically thought, job done” made me feel odd.
Even beyond those criticisms, the paper mentioned how scaffolding was necessary to promote reflection and claimed Chimeria did that, but I don’t think they provided a strong enough case for why Chimeria is different, nor did they provide enough instructions for how to scaffold in other games.
Nonetheless, there was a lot of interesting stuff, such as embedded design and Yardley-Matwiejczuk roleplay induction techniques which were interesting to think about.
