The document summarizes the aims and progress of a 2-year project to design and evaluate a serious game to support career management skills for youth ages 13 to 19. The game will use a role-playing format to guide players through 4 zones representing aspects of self, strengths, horizons, and networks. Focus groups with youth and experts provided input on game elements. Literature on career theories and existing tools is being reviewed. Initial phases involve further scoping mini-games and story elements and piloting the game with collaboration partners. The goal is an engaging game that helps players learn about themselves and career opportunities.

1. Graham Allan
and Janet Moffett
University of the West of
Scotland
Bratislava 28 May 2015

2. Aim: to design, develop and evaluate a
game to support the development of
career management skills for 13 to 19
year olds

3. YouthYes Partners
Scotland
(University of the West of
Scotland)
Iceland
(University of Iceland/
Haskoli Islands)
England
(University of Reading)
Netherlands (Open
Universiteit Netherlands)
Romania (Fundatia
Centrul European de
Resurse pentru
Dezvoltare)
Iceland
Scotland
England
Netherlands
Romania

4. Why a game?
 Games provide an active and engaging environment that should appeal to
young people but, from a literature search, there are few high quality
evaluations of the use of games in developing career management skills
 Games-based approaches do however fit well with current thinking that
young people need to be more active participants in their own career
decision-making eg
• Constructivist and narrative thinking (Savickas, 2012; Peavy, 1996 &
2001; Reid & West, 2011; McMahon & Patton, 2006)
• Active engagement (Amundson, 2003; Amundson and Thrift, 2008)
• The interface between the individual system & societal and
environmental system (Watson & McMahon, 2007; Krumboltz, 1999;
Hodkinson, 2008)
• Pryor and Bright (2009) Games can ‘… demonstrate the realities of the
complexity, connectedness, systems, changeability and chance’ of career
choice
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5. Phases
 A 2 year project: January 2015 - December 2016
to design a ‘serious game’
 Year 1: game design: literature review, review of
existing resources in the career guidance field
and game design; game development and initial
piloting
 Year 2: pilot continues and evaluation leads to
further development; dissemination
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6. Literature review
Literature review is underway. Of value will be literature on:
- career decision making and career management theory:
literature from psychology, sociology and post modern
interpretations of career choice
- the use of games and technology to support career decision
making (an initial literature search suggests this will be limited)
- Existing resources eg games and other assessment tools
(for example The Real Game, psychometric
assessment eg of personality (eg MBTI), interests (variants
on Holland)
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7. User requirements
Focus groups (March/ April 2015) with young people in Scotland and
Iceland
Analysis so far…
 A game will be useful to explore careers
 52% think first person player is best
 Same game for girls and boys but age difference matters
 Mean length suggested was 55 minutes (someone suggested
‘until you die’!)
 93% suggested it must be re-playable
 Phone app preferred to PC (mainly by girls)
 70% suggested it needs to be playable at home and in school
 Content: should be fun, challenging, competitive and have
different levels
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8. User requirements
Focus group with career guidance ‘experts’ (including
several NICE members) at kick-off event in January 2015:
 Suggestions:
• needs to be fun
• focused on opportunities for finding out about self
• should be developmental (fantasy-tentative-realistic?)
• Should involve goal-setting
• Present in the form of mini-games
• Should include career scenarios (what it is like to be a …)
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9. Expected scope of the game
 First person role play
 Character takes part in a series of activities or
quests on a journey through 4 ‘zones’
 The 4 zones (current suggestion is that these are
represented by 4 different towns visited by the
player in their journey) where they explore aspects
of ‘self’, ‘strengths’, ‘horizons’ and ‘networks’*
 Each zone will have 2 mini-games or challenges
requiring the character to make choices about these
4 aspects of career management
*Based on Skills Development Scotland Career Management Skills Framework (2012)
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10. The initial story
 “You and your friends were planning a visit to Job
FantasyLand during your summer holiday. This town is
the best place to go to learn and find your dream job.
Your friends took a plane there last week. And you were
planning to travel by plane today, however due to an
eruption of volcanic ash, all of the planes are cancelled
for now and you are unlikely to find another flight ticket
in time to explore FantasyLand with your friends. You are
advised to find your own way to your destination using
other means of transport. The journey will take you
through 4 different towns. In each of these you will learn
something about yourself that will help you when you
reach FantasyLand and have to make a decision about
your future.”
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11. The career journey to Job Fantasyland 11

12. Scope of the game
The aim of playing the game is …
 for players to find out more about themselves, their
interests, values and aspirations (self)
 their characteristics & attributes, skills and abilities
(strengths)
 their career identity and possible careers that they
might follow and how they can visualize, plan and
achieve their aspirations throughout life (horizons)
 and to acquire knowledge of networks that are
available to enable them to develop relationships
that will support their career progression
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13. Mini games … scoping of ideas is underway
 Balloon popping interests game … what interests
are left
 Evaluation of core skills … scaling to identify
strengths
 My achievements so far
 My knowledge of job characteristics … matching
these to particular jobs; weighing up likes and
dislikes in a job
 Who is in my network … overcoming barriers and
constraints
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14. Use of the game in practice and for training
 Prospect of collaboration with some existing
colleagues in the NICE network: reference group,
piloting and dissemination of the game with young
people
 Prospect of supporting the use of the NICE core
competences, particularly ‘Career Information and
Assessment’ (supporting people in assessing their
personal characteristics and connecting them with
information on opportunities and ‘Career Education’
(teach and train people to develop career
management competences)
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15. Acknowledgements
The present work was carried out as part of the
YOUTHYES project. This project is partially
supported by an Erasmus + Strategic Partnerships
addressing more than one field; Project with
multiple beneficiaries; KA2 – Cooperation and
Innovation for Good Practices; Grant Agreement
no: 2014-1-UK01-KA200-001858. This presentation
does not represent the opinion of the European
Community, and the European Community is not
responsible for any use that might be made of its
content.
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16. References
 Pryor, R. G. L., & Bright, J. E. H. (2009) Game as a career metaphor: a chaos theory career counselling application. British
Journal of Guidance and Counselling. Vol 37 (1) 39-50.
 Savickas, M. (1993) Career counselling in the post modern era. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy. 7: 205-215.
 Savickas, M. (1997) Constructivist career counseling: models and methods. Advances in Personal Construct Psychology. 4:
149-82.
 Savickas, M. , & Porfeli, E. J. (2012) Career Adapt-Abilities Scale: Construction, reliability and measurement equivalence
across 13 countries. Journal of Vocational Behavior. 80 (2012) 661-673.
 Peavy, V (1996) Constructivist career counselling and assessment. Guidance and Counseling. 11: 8-14.
 Peavy, R.V. (2001) Socio Dynamic Counselling : A Constructivist Perspective on Helping by R.V. Peavy. Web site:
http://www.sociodynamic-constructivist-counselling.com/.
 Reid, H. & West, L. (2011) Telling tales’: Using narrative in career guidance. Journal of Vocational Behavior. Vol 78, Issue
2, April 2011: 174-183.
 Reid, H. & West, L. (2011) Struggling for space: narrative methods and the crisis of professionalism in career guidance in
England. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling. Vol 39, Issue 5, 2011: 397-410.
 McMahon, M., and Patton, W. (2006) Career Counselling: Constructivist Approaches. London: Routledge.
 Amundson, N. (2003) Active engagement. Enhancing the career counseling process (2nd edition). Richmond: Ergon
Communications.
 Amundson, N., & Thrift, E. in Athanasou, J.A., and Van Esbroeck, R. (editors) (2008) International Handbook of Career
Guidance. Springer Science and Business Media B.V.
 Watson, M., & McMahon, M. in Skarikov, V. B., & Patton, W. eds (2007) Career Development in Childhood and
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 Mitchell, E., Levin, A. S., & Krumboltz, J. D (1999) Planned Happenstance: Constructing Unexpected Career
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 Hodkinson, P. (2008) Understanding career decision making and progression: Careership revisited. John Killeen Memorial
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 Holland, J. L. (1992) Making Vocational Choices (2nd edition) . Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment.
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