fazendo contato com Aliens”: comportamentos sociais acadêmicos Development and evaluation of the educational game “Space Ability: fazendo contato com Aliens”: academic social behaviors

Abstract

Educational games are strategies for teaching social behaviors. This study describes the process of building the game “Space Ability: making contact with Aliens” and reports evaluation data of its prototype. The game aims to teach behaviors of the class of academic social skills. It is a cooperative board game that creates learning situations of social performance by reinforcing the choice of verbal responses compatible with social behaviors. Its development comprised the following phases: identification of the target population, definition and sequencing of objective behaviors, planning of teaching contingencies through the formal elements of the game and elaboration and evaluation of the prototype, according to the iterative design procedure. Three children aged 10 to 11 years old participated in the evaluation. After applying the SSRS-BR inventory, eight sessions were held with the game. In Sessions 4 and 8 the inventory was reapplied. The data suggest changes towards improvement for some behaviors. As for usability and engagement, the data show that it is appropriate for the chosen age range. Aspects that may have contributed to the changes are discussed, such as: verbal behavior modeling and its effect on nonverbal behaviors and modeling of social repertoire during games - use of cooperative play.