Fostering Ethics and Morality in Adult Learning through Gameplay

This design-based research study, conducted by Rafael Leonardo da Silva at the University of Georgia, investigates whether a narrative digital game built around situations adult learners may face in real workplaces can improve moral reasoning, empathy, and the transfer of concepts into professional practice. Prior work on ethical gameplay has largely relied on commercial off-the-shelf games whose scenarios bear little resemblance to learners' own contexts, so the study targets that gap. The setting is an adult professional development course on internal controls in local governments, with the work framed around three questions: which moral characteristics of the course content can be addressed through a game, how learners make moral decisions within a simulated governmental setting, and how the design can be improved to heighten learners' awareness of their own decision-making.

The methodology followed an iterative cycle in which initial observation notes informed a simple interactive narrative prototype designed with learners' mobile device use and varying familiarity with narrative games in mind. The prototype was tested with four participants of differing gameplay experience. Analysis combined a multimodal examination of participants' choices and in-game interactivity with stimulated recall group interviews, and member checking was applied throughout to strengthen the credibility of interpretations. Results were situated against previous research on moral decision-making in game environments.

Findings indicate that participants recognized how their own subjectivities and biases shaped their moral and empathic judgments in professional settings and came to understand the process by which they reached those decisions. Notable influences included attachment to characters, hesitation driven by anticipated in-game emotional consequences, and difficulty balancing emotional responses against rules and regulations. Participants also drew on prior professional experience to interpret the narrative, with transfer outcomes differing across individuals. Because the sample was small and the work is described as preliminary, the conclusions are tentative, though the study suggests that accessibility across learner profiles and the fit between game content and subject matter merit further attention in game-based learning research.