EduCAC has started the year with the project “What do you bet?”, a proposal that goes deep into the context of video games and online gambling from the students’ experience. It results from the collaboration between the CAC through the eduCAC program, IDIBELL, and the Pathological Gambling Unit of the Bellvitge University Hospital.
On one hand, “What do you bet?” study the habits of students in the higher cycle of ESO related to video games and online gambling. On the other hand, the project performs an intervention in the classroom to promote critical and responsible consumption. The intervention is the didactic unit “What do you bet?”, created expressly for this project.
Two educational centers participate in the project: the Bellvitge Institute in Hospitalet de Llobregat and the Virolai School in Barcelona, both are highly aware of the need to introduce media education in the student’s curriculum. They consider that the context of video games facilitates real and motivating situations to work on the necessary skills in the digital environment.
Now, a pilot test is being carried out in the two educational centers in three phases. An initial pre-assessment phase with questionnaires that include gambling habits, video game use, cognitive distortions, attitudes and social perceptions about gambling, the impact of advertising and knowledge of bookmakers. An intervention phase in the classroom (didactic unit “What do you bet?”), and a final post-assessment, in which the students will answer the same questionnaires.
Each school defined two groups of students: experimental and control groups. Both groups will answer the questionnaires, but the intervention phases will be carried out at different times. The experimental group has already started the intervention that will last until March and, when this group finishes, the intervention will be with the control group. In this way, in the final phase, it will be possible to compare the results and check whether there have been changes related to the intervention program.
The initial pre-evaluation phase took place on January 11 and 14. The upper secondary school students participating in the study responded to the psychometric questionnaires with the advice of the experts from IDIBELL and the Hospital de Bellvitge.
Since January 17, the intervention phase is being developed in the classroom through the didactic unit “What do you bet?”. The activities make proposals to incentivize the critical analysis of the reality of the students to lead them towards self-knowledge and the responsible consumption of video games and digital content.
Finally, to achieve families, informative sessions have been held to explain the study in which their sons and daughters participate.
Text adapted from EduCAC piece (link)
Image credit: Vu Hoang. Flickr.
The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) is a biomedical research center created in 2004. It is participated by the Bellvitge University Hospital and the Viladecans Hospital of the Catalan Institute of Health, the Catalan Institute of Oncology, the University of Barcelona and the City Council of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.
IDIBELL is a member of the Campus of International Excellence of the University of Barcelona HUBc and is part of the CERCA institution of the Generalitat de Catalunya. In 2009 it became one of the first five Spanish research centers accredited as a health research institute by the Carlos III Health Institute. In addition, it is part of the “HR Excellence in Research” program of the European Union and is a member of EATRIS and REGIC. Since 2018, IDIBELL has been an Accredited Center of the AECC Scientific Foundation (FCAECC).