PLAY

Play, Learn, fight back AnxietY

Overview and Objectives

While stress is an inevitable part of life, it is very present and becoming more prevalent among university students. In addition to anxiety and stress, depression can also impact higher education students’ life to such an extent that in-depth research is necessary in order to help future students. Studies show that in some cases almost 10% of university students have been diagnosed with, or treated for, depression over the past 12 months. Academic pressures of meeting grade requirements, test taking, volume of material to be learned and time management has been shown to be a significant source of stress for higher education students. While academics can be perceived as a positive challenge, potentially increasing learning capacity and competency, if viewed negatively, this stress can be detrimental to the student’s mental health and wellbeing. The project’s objective was to design and develop a 3D Virtual World (3D VW) using the potential of a gamification-based approach in which university students will anonymously engage in activities that will help them be better prepared for University curricular activities and ultimately help them reduce anxiety while simultaneously monitoring their mental health.

The objectives of the project were:

To design games related to activities that usually induce anxiety.
To create a psychological counselling environment with the virtual word aiming to remove the restrictions of physical representation, reduce anxiety related to this process, fostering anonymity. The 3D VW should comprise a visually appealing and relaxing virtual environment consisting of rivers, mountains, waterfall, flowers, trees, beaches etc.
To provide support for the Counselling Centre of each University which could monitor the overall mental health of their students by examining students answers in virtual world surveys (related to anxiety, wellbeing, mental health).

Activities/Outputs

Experts in software development, and in particular with 3D Virtual World Learning Environments (Options), experts in game-based learning, gamification and interaction design (Upatras), psychology experts in anxiety and students’ mental health (ICEP Europe) and psychology experts in teaching university students (ISMAI) worked together with educators in both campus-based learning (UPatras, ISMAI) and distance-learning (OUC) to create game scenarios. A customisable 3D Virtual World Learning Environment (VWLE) was then designed and developed. Following the iterative development of the 3D virtual world learning environment, the PLAY partners began inviting students, educators and professionals into the environment during piloting and dissemination events as feedback on the virtual world was collected and used to make alterations and improvements. The virtual world is an innovative approach towards fighting student’s anxiety which is becoming a major problem for university students.

Impact

The PLAY project uses participatory approaches and an ICT- based methodology (through the development of a 3D virtual world learning environment) in order to enhance the engaged users’ awareness and knowledge on fighting anxiety. Those directly involved are the students who are engaged in scenario-based gamified activities inside the 3D VWLE, but also educators, higher education administration, university counselling offices, even university students’ parents are expected to be affected by the project’s implementation. Additionally, the outcomes of PLAY project are expected to impact external stakeholders such as mental health professional and mental health organisation, student and parent associations, education research institutes, and other interested parties working on the formation of educational counselling and wellbeing and educator professional development.

Partners

Project PLAY is carried out by ICEP Europe in conjunction with University of Patras, Optionsnet, University Institute of Maia and Open University of Cyprus.