Gaming for Peace : Exploring the Gamification of Soft Skill Training

This thesis was created for the Gaming for Peace -project. The project’s objective is to develop a learning game that is used to train the soft skills of the personnel in conflict prevention and peacebuilding operations. The project has been deemed to be necessary due to gaps in the personnel’s skills and knowledge. Soft skills are widely applicable in various areas of life, which serves as further justification for conducting this thesis as well as the GAP-project. The objective of this thesis was to research soft skill training methods in game environments. In the case of this thesis, training entails both direct training methods as well as motivational methods. This thesis was limited to identifying methods that are suitable for training communication and decision-making skills. The theoretical frame of reference covers scientific research, publications and other sources concerning the topics of gamification, soft skills, conflict prevention, peacebuilding, pedagogical approaches and role-playing games. Gamification is a topic that has not yet been researched extensively, which shows in the lack of reliable sources. The lack of credible sources available on gamification makes the work of this thesis notable. The thesis was conducted heuristically using multiple research methods that are both qualitative and quantitative. In addition to reviewing literature, the data were gathered by using a survey, interviews and benchmarking. The survey and interviews were limited to only competitive gamers as a source of information. The benchmarking was conducted on two previous conflict management learning games. The purpose of the benchmarking was to discover how previous conflict management games have utilized soft skill training methods. The results of this thesis show that intrinsic motivational methods are more important than extrinsic motivational methods. The margin between the two motivational methods is not large, which suggests that both extrinsic and intrinsic motivational methods should be utilized. Repetitions, communicating with other people, dialog with game characters and feedback were among the most useful direct training methods. The results also suggest that a large variety of different training methods should be used. This thesis recommends Gaming for Peace to implement multiplayer features into the learning game. The game should utilize a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic motivational methods, with a focus on intrinsic motivational methods. Lastly, this thesis highlights the usage of dialog, repetitions and feedback combined with multiplayer features as direct training methods. Utilizing a wide variety of training methods is likely to lead to players of the game improving their soft skill