Game-Based Socio-Emotional Skills Assessment: A Comparison Across Three Cultures

Abstract

Hall of Heroes, a digital game, was used to compare social and emotional skills of 63 adolescent female students matched for age across Malaysia, South Africa, and the United States. Participants were assessed on six social and emotional competencies during game play, namely impulse control, cooperation, communication, social initiation, empathy, and emotional regulation and assigned to high, average, and low categories. Chi-square and odds ratio analyses revealed novel, significant correlations between various social and emotional skills for all cultures, suggesting similarities in socio-emotional development. In view of the increasing cross-cultural compositions of classrooms, these results may be beneficial to educators and school administrators.