Prospective ICT Teachers’ Perceptions on the Didactic Utility and Player Experience of a Serious Game for Safe Internet Use and Digital Intelligence Competencies

Nowadays, young students spend a lot of time playing video games and browsing on the Internet. Using the Internet has become even more widespread for young students due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, which resulted in transferring several educational activities online. The Internet and generally the digital world that we live in offers many possibilities in our everyday lives, but it also entails dangers such as cyber threats and unethical use of personal data. It is widely accepted that everyone, especially young students, should be educated on safe Internet use and should be supported on acquiring other Digital Intelligence (DI) competencies as well. Towards this goal, we present the design and evaluation of the game “Follow the Paws” that aims to educate primary school students on safe Internet use and support them in acquiring relevant DI competencies. The game was designed taking into account relevant literature and was evaluated by 213 prospective Information and Communication Technology (ICT) teachers. The participants playtested the game and evaluated it through an online questionnaire that was based on validated instruments proposed in the literature. The participants evaluated positively to the didactic utility of the game and the anticipated player experience, while they highlighted several improvements to be taken into consideration in a future revision of the game. Based on the results, proposals for further research are presented, including DI competencies detection through the game and evaluating its actual effectiveness in the classroom.