Equity in College Access
Competitor: Mission Admission
According to the Pullias Center for Higher Education, Mission: Admission is an online game designed to help high school students understand the strategies and skills needed to apply to, afford and enroll in college (https://pullias.usc.edu/digitalequity/games-tools/). This game is designed to provide college guidance to high school students — especially first-generation and underserved students — so they can improve their odds of getting into the university of their choice and obtaining the financial aid that they’ll need. It was developed in conjunction with three other games in the University of Southern California’s Game Innovation Lab.
Here is a trailer for Mission: Admission
To explore the features of Mission: Admission, here are tutorials.
Mission: Admission was chosen as one of the best solutions to review as a competitor because its learning goals are the same as ours--increasing students’ understanding of the processes involved in paying for college and enrolling into college. This game was also chosen as one of the best competitors because its creators claim it increases students’ college-going self-efficacy. Another reason Mission: Admission was chosen as a competitor is because it has already been successfully launched both in school and in homes.
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Strength: The calendar feature includes “to-do” items—one of which entails meeting the deadline to apply to graphic design school. Once the user clicks on this application deadline, a screen pops up--describing the requirements to successfully submit an application to graphic design school. The college application “to-do” item supports students in understanding the strategies needed to apply to college. The college application “to-do” item helps students understand the strategies needed to apply to college is by including text about the admission requirements of a particular imaginary college. For example, seen in the screenshot provided, the pop-up screen describes that “Graphic Design School is selective in that admission is based on experience and skills in fine arts. Grades are not as important to this school as artistic talent.” This feature also elaborates on the requirements to successfully submit an application to Graphic Design School, explaining that a user needs at least a level 2 in fine arts, a level 1 in academics and one letter of recommendation.
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Weakness: The calendar feature includes “to-do” items—one of which entails attending a college fair. Once the user clicks on this application deadline, a screen pops up--describing the requirements to attend a college fair. The college fair “to-do” item does not support students in understanding the strategies needed to apply to, afford or enroll in college. The college fair “to-do” item fails to help students understand the strategies needed to apply to, afford or enroll in college because it does not explain what a college fair is, how it works or why it is a helpful strategy for applying to, affording or enrolling in college. The game only requires users to press the “apply” button and spend six “energies.
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Weakness: Another “to-do” item within the calendar feature entails meeting the deadline to apply to graphic design school. In the description for every college, the tuition is included. The college application “to-do” item does not support students in understanding the strategies needed to apply to, afford or enroll in college. The college application “to-do” item fails to help students understand the strategies needed to apply to, afford or enroll in college. It only states the tuition required to attend the college, without providing students with strategies to afford that cost. Showing students the cost of attending college without demonstrating ways to cover that cost is a weakness because paying for college is the biggest factor for low college-going self-efficacy for underrepresented students--the target audience of this game (Border & Gibbons, 2010).
Competitor: FutureBound
In addition to Mission: Admission, another game developed by USC’s Game Innovation Lab was FutureBound. According to their website, FutureBound is a downloadable, digital game that targets middle school students and “is an aspirational game to help them gain understanding of careers and make choices that will put them on a path toward achieving their goals” (https://www.gameinnovationlab.com/futurebound). Students face their fears (anxiety, doubts, etc) in the form of monsters that they have to overcome through developing their powers through exploration of their interests.
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Here is a trailer for FutureBound
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To explore the features of FutureBound, here are tutorials.
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We chose FutureBound as a competitor because its target learners (middle schoolers) and overall focus (going to college) are the same as ours. An additional similarity FutureBound holds to what we hope to develop is an immersive learning environment where the player creates a character that can interact with world around him or her. Lastly, FutureBound is one of the best competitors for us to analyze because its goal is to help users overcome doubts and fears to produce college going belief.
Strength: FutureBound’s greatest strength is in its mission driven game play. As the player progress through the game, his or her character must complete tasks to advance to the next level. Those tasks include things like having your schedule changed to take more rigorous courses. That task teaches not only that rigorous courses are important for admission to college, but requires to the student to go through a typical ‘how to’ of getting a schedule change: first, first the player speaks with his counselor, then he talks to each of his teachers in turn for recommendation. Incorporating this real world example as a mission in the game proves impactful in college going self-efficacy.
Weakness: The character creation and customization portion is a weakness for FutureBound. While there is some customization available, it is minimal. For example, names can be chosen from a given list, however, the player cannot enter their own name. A more critical example of this feature is with the player’s interests. Regardless of customization, each player is given the same set of ‘interests’ to explore. They range from soccer to creativity. This lack of customization takes away from the ability for the users to ‘see’ themselves as the character, and thus, as the student going to college, a key component when developing self-belief.
Weakness: Another weakness FutureBound faces is in its singular focus on social interactions. The entire game is driven by interactions with the nonplayer characters (NPC) in the game. To earn points towards interests, you must have conversations with NPCs. To further complete missional tasks, you must talk to the appropriate NPC. Talking with NPCs even prevents your ‘doubts’ from attacking. The focus on social interaction, while no doubt key in developing a well rounded student, takes away from the opportunity to learn about other strategies students can use to develop their interests.