Social and citizenship competencies in a multiuser virtual game

Colombia is a country that is growing in technological and economical areas, but cultural diversity, armed conflict, and everyday violence are forces that lessen the progress. The Ministry of Education proposed in 2004 standards for citizenship competencies that intend to teach children and youths abilities to live peacefully and respect the others. These standards have encouraged multiple initiatives and innovation to achieve goal in social and citizenship competencies. A research group of Universidad de Caldas created and evaluated a serious virtual game to support this policy. The game is a multiuser virtual game called Civia that shows a metaphor of collective challenge. Peaceful interaction, participation and respect are values required for survival in the game. Players can take individual decisions that affect positively or negatively the collective status, but an overall positive balance is needed to maintain collective resources. It was expected that collective auto regulation led to the learning of patterns and competencies to live peacefully together. Currently, there is no consensus in the research community about what and how video games can take learning outcomes and behavioral effects. An evaluation of the game shows positive results; however, some concerns about the complexity of everyday life about social interaction and learning transferability arise. The authors discuss findings according to proposed theories and models about effects of video games in education and behavior.