Prevention of violence against children and adolescents: development and validation of an educational game.

Abstract

Objective: To develop and validate an educational game aimed at preventing violence against children and adolescents.

Method: This is an applied methodological research conducted between April and August 2023. To develop the game, two workshops were initially held with 19 children and adolescents aged 10 to 14, participants in a social project within a community in a medium-sized city in the Midwest region of São Paulo state, Brazil. The workshops began with a screening of the short film LOU (Disney Pixar®), followed by expressive activities such as drawing and writing, as well as group discussions on the topic addressed. The game was developed by a research team comprising undergraduate and post-graduation students, based on data collected during the workshops with the target audience and a review of the relevant literature. This process highlighted different types of violence, reflections, and experiences shared by the participants, which directly contributed to defining the rules, characters, narrative, dynamics, and content of the game. Validation involved the participation of 12 expert judges, and a content validation index was used to measure agreement among evaluators.

Results: A card game titled "Peacing: for a World without Violence" was developed and validated, achieving a Content Validation Index of 0.99 in the second validation round, indicating significant agreement among the judges.

Conclusion: The educational game was considered validated by expert judges and proved to be an interactive and engaging tool with the potential to prevent violence among children and adolescents.