MASTER’S RESEARCH

Creating a Mobile Application on Sexual Assault for Campus Advocacy Network

  • Advisor: Kelly Cloninger MS, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

    Research Committee:

    Sam Bond MS, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

    John Daugherty MS, Former Program Director, University of Illinois at Chicago

    Content Advisor:

    Kelly Maginot PhD, Assistant Director of Advocacy Services, Campus Advocacy Network

  • How can a bystander focused serious game be developed to increase understanding about the prevention of sexual assault in college students?

  • Sexual assault is a widespread global problem affecting human rights that costs billions of dollars in healthcare per year (Kuo et al., 2018). Nationally, sexual violence has been experienced in over 50% of transgender individuals, 43.9% of women, and 23.4% of men (O’Donohue & Schewe, 2019). Sexual assault is an endemic that plagues universities nationwide and necessitates training for potential abusers, victims, and bystanders (Orchowski et al., 2020). Despite current sexual assault training programs in place, as of 2020 it has been shown that rates of sexual assault have not decreased (Orchowski et al., 2020). Online training courses are by far the most prominent educational resource on sexual misconduct and are taken immediately prior to a student’s first semester on campus (Zapp et al., 2021). However, it has been demonstrated that within six months, students do not retain information (Orchowski et al., 2020). It is necessary to provide additional training programs throughout a student’s time in college to promote long term retention (Orchowski et al., 2020).

    Following a review of all applications focused on topics of sex education, researchers concluded that only 1% met criteria for evidence-based sexual health information. Most are created without following guidelines and learning theories in mind (Kalke et al., 2018). This important research will be conducted in collaboration with the Campus Advocacy Network (CAN) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). It will result in the creation of a serious game based mobile application to practice bystander intervention techniques using role-playing mechanics. Over 73% of college students own a smartphone and over 75% of those have downloaded some form of health application as of 2018, making it an effective platform to host educational content (Kalke et al., 2018). From this feedback, a framework document will be compiled based on prior literature and research findings, which will contain recommendations for future developments of similar sex education materials.

FINAL PROTOTYPE

The final deliverable that the committee reviewed and tested was a prototype for the full application with the final goal to create a “framework document” detailing how to create similar serious educational games.

The prototype application can be played online by clicking the button below. (*Note - you can enter full-screen mode to best play the application by clicking on the “Expand to Fullscreen” button in the bottom right corner of the game)

GAME DESIGN DOCUMENT (GDD)

Creating a solid plan for the final application was vital for completing the deliverable in a timely manner. It also allowed the research committee to review and give feedback before even starting to create assets or start in Unity. Below if a few select pages of the GDD which totaled at about 12 pages. It includes:

  1. Audience

  2. Single/ multiplayer

  3. Platform

  4. Story structure

  5. Learning goals

  6. Game mechanics

  7. Game motivations

  8. Rules and physical gameplay

  9. Asset list

  10. Dialogue script

  11. Pseudocode

Finally, the researcher prioritized a clean, organized Unity file. This is important for future use of the file if the project is further fleshed out in the future. Additionally, if anyone else takes over the file for any reason, they should have a clear idea of where to find all models, interactions, etc.

PROJECT MANAGMENT

Although the researcher worked on the project individually, there was still a lot of collaboration and feedback from the research committee at all levels of the research. Therefore, it was important to accurately time the deliverables for each weekly meeting and maintain a clean project file.

At the beginning of the research project, a clear Gantt chart was utilized for larger goals and shared with the entire committee.

For more acute, weekly goals, the researcher put together a chart to clearly communicate expectations with the research advisor and gather feedback on appropriate timeline. This included time estimates and a section to record actual work completed. It was a living document to be discussed and revised at each weekly meeting.

UX WIREFRAMING

After deciding the basics of how the game would work, it was important to create a low-fidelity wireframe and allow user testing. This allowed the researcher to get a basic understanding of how the game would function, what it would look like, and how users would interact with the UI on screen.

ASSET CREATION

Not only did the researcher design the game, but she also created all the assets used.

  • The game utilized a calming color scheme with bright colors to keep players’ attention and to keep them relaxed throughout the play.

  • UI style considerations For this game, the UI was based on the artwork and color scheme. It was determined to have rounded edges, a simple design, and incorporated a similar style to the artwork.

Character Design

All the characters were thoughtfully designed to represent real people you might see on a college campus

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