How can live action role-playing games be designed for children ages 5 to 6? How take the developmental level and the educational environment into account when planning teaching materials for early childhood education environments? These are some of the questions I had to ponder on my bachelor's thesis and here is a quick overlook on how I attempted to answer them.

1. DESIGNING AN
EDUCATIONAL ROLE-PLAYING
GAME FOR FIVE
TO SIX YEAR-OLDS
Thesis presentation 21.11.2013
Tanja Lehto

2. Thesis overview (1)
 Type: Functional thesis
 Topic: Designing a role-playing game to be
used in kindergartens
 Objective: To test whether role-playing games
can be used in the education of five to six
year-old children and how should they be
planned to fulfill this objective
 Purpose: Developing early childhood
education and increasing the variety of
working methods available

3. Thesis overview (2)
 Output: The role-playing game ‘Star Travellers and the
Mission in Outer Space’
 An educational game to improve social skills
 The final product was a complete set containing all the
materials required to run the game
 Reference material: early childhood education, social
competence, educational games and game design
 Implementation consisted of planning and testing the
role-playing game ‘Star Travellers and the Mission in
Outer Space’
 I learned that role-playing games can be designed to
be used as educational games with this age group

4. Learning in the early years
 The learning process includes the child, the
group, the subject matter, the methods, the
organisation and the educator (Helenius 2008,
53-55)
 The learning process needs to be viewed
holistically (Bruce 2011, 16)
 "playing, movement, exploration and self-expression
through different forms of art are
ways of acting and thinking peculiar to
children” (The National Curriculum Guidelines
on the Early Childhood Education and Care in
Finland 2003, 19)

5. Social constructivist learning
theory
 Reality is constructed by people in social
interaction (Kauppila 2007, 89)
 Learning is an active process wherein the
learner is actively forming his or her knowledge
of the subject matter (Kauppila 2007, 50)
 Social interaction reinforces the learning
(Kauppila 2007, 114)
 Reciprocal communication with the teacher and
other students has an important role in learning
(Kauppila 2007, 114)

6. Five to six year old children are
able to ...
 Give a coherent, chronologically correct
account of events (Nurmi, Ahonen, Lyytinen,
Lyytinen, Pulkkinen & Ruoppila 2006, 46)
 Retrieve four to five units of information from
their short term memory (Nurmi et al. 2006,
50)
 Engage in building games and role play. They
are also starting to show interest in rule play
(Nurmi et al. 2006, 61) which makes them a
suitable target group for this project

7. Social skills and development
 In VARSU assessment, social development is
divided into three main categories:
1. Interaction in peer relationships
2. Acting in the environment and
3. Awareness of the self and others (Bricker & Pretti-
Frontczak 2004, 119)
 Socially skilled behaviour receives a positive
reaction from other which operates as social
reinforcement of said behaviour (Salmivalli 2008,
79)
 Moral cognitions (e.g. values and norms) effect
the social information processing of an individual
(Salmivalli 2008, 97-98)

8. Social competence (Salmivalli
2008)
Social skills
• Learned skills
• Enable context
appropriate
behaviour
• Result in a
positive
outcome
Social
congnition
• Includes
making
observations,
assessments
and
conclusions
about social
situations
• Formulations
of strategy
Emotional
regulation
• Ability to affect
the duration
and intensity
of one's
emotional
states
Motivation
• Setting social
goals is
related to an
individual’s
conception of
oneself and of
others
• Socially skilled
individuals
may still select
goals that
result in
antisocial
behaviour (e.g
aggression or
bullying as
these may
result in a
desired
outcome)
Context
• The
environment
and
circumstances
• E.g. the group
dynamics of a
kindergarten
group
• Social status
affects the
social
attributions of
others
• Socialisation
into the
group’s culture
and norms

9. Defining play (1)
 "the way in which children within a context, a
culture, a family and a community, set about
doing any or all of the following: trying to solve
a problem they have set themselves;
exploring and experiencing something that
interests or concerns or scares or excites
them; expressing and communicating their
feelings related to their experiences. Play is
thus always purposeful for the child." (Smidt
2011, 2)

10. Defining play (2)
 "play is a voluntary activity or occupation
executed within certain fixed limits of time
and place, according to rules freely
accepted but absolutely binding, having its
aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of
tension, joy and the consciousness that it is
"different" from "ordinary life"."
(Huizinga 1949, 28)

11. Components of a game (Costikyan
2002, 10-12, 15-16, 18-19, 22, 24)
 Player
 Interaction
 The players interact with the game and each other.
 Decision making
 Goals
 Clear victory conditions or ones that depend on the motivations of the
player
 Struggle
 Opponents, puzzle solving… etc.
 Structure
 Rules and mechanics
 Endogenous meaning
 Objects of the game have a meaning in the game world, that exists
solely in that imaginary reality

12. Games in education (1)
 Games are increasingly taken seriously in
education and research (Taylor, Backlund
&Niklasson 2012, 649)
 Various names are used for educational games,
e.g.: learning games, serious games, pedagogical
games, edu-LARPs, simulations
 Games are suitable for teaching problem solving
skills and furthering understanding of complex
systems (Schell 2008, 446)
 Games can be used to create insights and
promote curiosity (Schell 2008, 447)

13. Games in education (2)
 Role-playing game is an excellent platform for
practicing storytelling as all the participants have
an opportunity to move the story forward
 National Curriculum Guidelines on the Early
Childhood Education and Care in Finland states
that children should be given opportunities to
actively participate in varied artistic activities.
(Stakes 2005, 23-24) Including role-playing
games as an available early childhood education
method would increase the number of different
experiences available for use in early childhood
education.

14. Role-playing games
 Came to Finland in the 1970's (Leppälahti, M.
2009, 5)
 In role-playing games, participants assume a
make-believe character in an imaginary setting
(Stenros & Harviainen 2011, 63).
 Have much in common with the imaginary play
and role play of children as well as dramatic
play and improvisation theatre.

15. Types of role-playing games
 Tabletop role-playing games (RPG)
 Usually the game master describes the setting and actions of non-player
characters and the players describe the actions of their characters
 Usually involves a set of world descriptions and rules called a system
 The systems are often commercial products, e.g. Dungeons & Dragons
(Westerling 2013, 19)
 Live-action-role-playing games (LARP)
 Involve a physical aspect
 Players have a lot of freedom
 Number of players is not limited (Westerling 2013, 18; Leppälahti 2002,
20)
 Freeform/Jeepform role-playing games
 “Freedom to adapt the form to the story, for every story“ (Wrigstad 2008,
127)
 Combine features of RPG and LARP
 Game master controls the situation more than in larp

16. Implementation phases (1)
 Pre-production
 Concept development
 Game type: freeform role-playing game
 Genre: classic science fiction
 Target audience: groups of five to six year-old children
 Name: Star Travellers and the Mission in Outer Space
 Research and resourcing
 Gathering information on game design, social development,
early childhood education...
 Evaluationg the cost and availability of resources
 Printing, laminating, facilities for the test sessions etc.
 Most of the resources were made available by the worklife
partner

17. Implementation phases (2)
 Production
 Content design
 Game design and development was done in October
and November
 Testing
 A total of four playtests of the material were arranged
 One alpha test with two adult playtesters (18.10.)
 Three beta-tests in the group five to six year-old children
of Vilske kindergarten (30.10., 4.11. and 12.11.)
 The evaluation went on during the entire playtesting-process
 Evaluation was based on the feedback received from
the playtesters and the observations made during the
sessions

18. Implementation phases (3)
 Post Production
 Post-production took place in November after the
final playtest
 Creating the material-folder for the game
 English translation of the game manual
 Making the material available to the staff of the
kindergarten

19. Game design overview (1)
 Target group
 Five to six year old children
 Learning objectives
 Reacting to the needs and emotions of others
 Joining, participating and adhering in joint
activities
 Following of rules and asking for permission
 Sharing equipment
 Making choices and expressing preferences
 Recognising emotions
 Respecting others: rules and morality

20. Game design overview (2)
 Setting and theme
 Setting: Space travel
 Themes: Cooperation, trust, managing in a group
in a confined space
 Materials and equipments
 Economic and ecological concerns were
considered
 Materials and equipment consist mainly of prints,
laminated prints, recycled materials and objects
commonly found in kindergartens

21. Game design overview (3)
 Characters, story and scenes
 Simple characters are created by the participants in a pre-game-
workshop
 The events are set on a space voyage, on which the
characters embark after receiving a message from outer
space.
 The structure of the session consists of exercises selected
or created to promote at least one of the learning goals
 Session structure of the playtests
 Warm-up
 Enactment
 Debrief
 Feedback

22. Observations and feedback
 There are many things that had an effect on how
the playtest sessions went
 The warm-up of the game master
 Mood, preparedness, emotions regarding the upcoming
experience
 Lighting and soundscape
 How the instructions are given
 Clarity, purposefulness
 Having the materials quickly available
 Interest, use of imagination, attitude and disposition of
the participating children

23. What I leaned about using role-playing
games in education
 Role-playing game
 ...is a flexible medium
 ...allows various learning contents to be
incorporated
 ...allows reusing materials
 Playtesting is essential in creating repeatable
games
 ...a finished game requires a lot of time to plan
thoroughly
 How to connect the exercises with the learning goals?
 Requires knowledge of the medium, child developmnet
and the subject matter

24. Ethical considerations
 Anonymity and confidentiality
 The thesis is published in Theseus, which must be
taken into consideration when describing the setting
and participants
 Informed consent
 Parents and children
 Avoiding coercion
 Role of the kindergartenteacher
 Multicultural issues
 Wordings in the game material do not presuppose a
certain nationality of the participants

25. References
 Bricker, D. & Pretti-Frontczak, K. 2004. VARSU: Varhaisen oppimaan ohjaamisen suunnitelma arviointimenetelmä
3-6-vuotiaille. Jyväskylä: PS-kustannus.
 Bruce, T. 2011. Early Childhood Education. London: Hodder Education.
 Costikyan, G. 2002. I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games. In: Mäyrä F. (ed.)
CGDC Conference Proceedings. Tampere: Tampere University Press, 9–33.
http://www.digra.org/dl/db/05164.51146.pdf
 Huizinga, J. 1949. Homo Ludens: a Study of the Play Element in Culture. Translated by No Name. London:
Routledge.
 Kauppila, R. A. 2007. Ihmisen tapa oppia: Johdatus sosiokonstruktivistiseen oppimiskäsityk-seen. Jyväskylä: PS-kustannus.
 Leppälahti, M. 2002. Etnografiaa roolipelaamisesta. Lic.Phil. Turku University. Accessed 11 September 2013
http://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/37272/lisensiaatintyo2002Leppalahti.pdf?sequence=1
 Nurmi, J-E., Ahonen, T., Lyytinen, H., Lyytinen, P., Pulkkinen, L. & Ruoppila, I. 2006. Ihmisen psykologinen
kehitys. Helsinki: WSOY Oppimateriaalit Oy.
 Salmivalli, C. 2008. Kaverien kanssa Vertaissuhteet ja sosiaalinen kehitys. 2nd Edition. Juva: WSOY.
 Schell, J. 2008. The Art of Game Design A Book of Lenses. USA: Elsevier.
 Stenros, J. & Harviainen, J. T. 2011. Katsaus pohjoismaiseen roolipelitutkimukseen. In: Suominen, J., Koskimaa,
R., Mäyrä, F., Sotamaa, O. & Turtiainen, R. (ed.) Pelitutkimuksen vu-osikirja 2011, 62-72.
http://www.pelitutkimus.fi/vuosikirja2011/ptvk2011-kaikki.pdf
 Taylor, A-S., Backlund, P. & Niklasson, L. 2012. The Coaching Cycle: A Coaching-by-Gaming Approach in Serious
Games. Simulation & Gaming, 43 (5), 648-672. Accessed 12 October 2013.
http://sag.sagepub.com/content/43/5/648
 Vygotsky, L. S. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge
Massachussets: Harward University Press.