Research Article
Learning about children’s rights through engaging visual stories promoting in-class dialogue
More Detail
1 School of Technology and Science, Hellenic Open University, Patras, GREECE* Corresponding Author
European Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Education, 6(2), July 2025, e02504, https://doi.org/10.30935/ejimed/16090
Submitted: 14 January 2025, Published Online: 08 March 2025, Published: 01 July 2025
OPEN ACCESS 184 Views 81 Downloads
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a game-ish approach which helps young students in the early elementary school classes to learn about their rights. Our research path involved utilizing short visual stories accompanied by relevant questions. These stories are accessible through the web. The supporting viewing mechanism can be operated in both individual and collaborative modes and ultimately offers suggestions for the topics that students should focus on for further study. The paper presents the approach, the evaluation methodology and the results of utilizing the visual stories to a cohort of 50 children and 6 teachers. The approach employed pre- and post-intervention assessments to get an estimate of the students’ understanding, along with questionnaires to gather the teachers’ perspectives. The evaluation results indicate that the stories enhance students’ motivation and engagement, ultimately leading to an improvement in their knowledge and they help to efficiently initiate a dialogue among the participants.
CITATION (APA)
Lazarinis, F., & Konstantinidou, S. (2025). Learning about children’s rights through engaging visual stories promoting in-class dialogue. European Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Education, 6(2), e02504. https://doi.org/10.30935/ejimed/16090
REFERENCES
- Archard, D. (2014). Children: Rights and childhood. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315740676
- Azadboni, T. T., Nasiri, S., Khenarinezhad, S., & Sadoughi, F. (2024). Effectiveness of serious games in social skills training to Autistic individuals: A systematic review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 161, Article 105634. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105634
- Belda-Medina, J. (2022). Promoting inclusiveness, creativity and critical thinking through digital storytelling among EFL teacher candidates. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 26(2), 109–123. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2021.2011440
- Bernardini, S., Porayska-Pomsta, K., & Smith, T. J. (2014). ECHOES: An intelligent serious game for fostering social communication in children with autism. Information Sciences, 264, 41–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2013.10.027
- Calvo-Morata, A., Alonso-Fernández, C., Freire, M., Martínez-Ortiz, I., & Fernández-Manjón, B. (2020). Serious games to prevent and detect bullying and cyberbullying: A systematic serious games and literature review. Computers & Education, 157, Article 103958. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103958
- Chow, C. Y., Riantiningtyas, R. R., Kanstrup, M. B., Papavasileiou, M., Liem, G. D., & Olsen, A. (2020). Can games change children’s eating behaviour? A review of gamification and serious games. Food Quality and Preference, 80, Article 103823. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2019.103823
- Clarke, V., & Braun, V. (2017). Thematic analysis. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(3), 297–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1262613
- COE. (n. d.). Introducing human rights education–Manual for human rights education with young people. COE. https://www.coe.int/en/web/compass/introducing-human-rights-education
- Correia, N., Camilo, C., Aguiar, C., & Amaro, F. (2019). Children’s right to participate in early childhood education settings: A systematic review. Children and Youth Services Review, 100, 76–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.02.031
- Criollo-C, S., Guerrero-Arias, A., Guaña-Moya, J., Samala, A. D., & Luján-Mora, S. (2024). Towards sustainable education with the use of mobile augmented reality in early childhood and primary education: A systematic mapping. Sustainability, 16(3), Article 1192. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16031192
- Elfeky, A. I. M., Najmi, A. H., & Elbyaly, M. Y. H. (2023). The effect of big data technologies usage on social competence. PeerJ Computer Science, 9, Article e1691. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.1691
- Gabriel, S. (2019). Serious digital games to further human rights education. In R. Orngren (Ed.), Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on e-Learning (pp. 169–175). Acpil.
- Howard, M. C., & Gutworth, M. B. (2020). A meta-analysis of virtual reality training programs for social skill development. Computers & Education, 144, Article 103707. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103707
- Jerome, L., & Starkey, H. (2022). Developing children’s agency within a children’s rights education framework: 10 propositions. Education 3-13, 50(4), 439–451. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2022.2052233
- Laamarti, F., Eid, M., & Saddik, A. E. (2014). An overview of serious games. International Journal of Computer Games Technology. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/358152
- Lazarinis, F., Alexandri, K., Panagiotakopoulos, C., & Verykios, V. S. (2020). Sensitizing young children on internet addiction and online safety risks through storytelling in a mobile application. Education and Information Technologies, 25, 163–174. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-019-09952-w
- Mailey, C., Day-Watkins, J., Pallathra, A. A., Eckerman, D. A., Brodkin, E. S., & Connell, J. E. (2021). Using adaptive computer-based instruction to teach staff to implement a social skills intervention. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 41(1), 2–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/01608061.2020.1776807
- ODIHR. (2009). Human rights education in the school systems of Europe, Central Asia and North America: A compendium of good practice. Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights), Council of Europe. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/CompendiumHRE.pdf
- Papadiou, F., Lazarinis, F., & Kanellopoulos, D. (2021). < A Day at School >: A serious game for social skills training. JITA - APEIRON, 22(2), 87-98. https://doi.org/10.7251/JIT2102087P
- Papoutsi, C., & Drigas, A. (2016). Games for empathy for social impact. International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy, 6(4), 36–40. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v6i4.6064
- Pashevich, E. (2022). Can communication with social robots influence how children develop empathy? Best-evidence synthesis. AI & SOCIETY, 37, 579–589. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01214-z
- Ramirez, F. O., Suárez, D., & Meyer, J. W. (2007). The worldwide rise of human rights education. In A. Benavot, C. Braslavsky, & N. Truong (Eds.), School knowledge in comparative and historical perspective: Changing curricula in primary and secondary education, vol 18 (pp. 35–52). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5736-6_3
- Sakka, T., & Gouscos, D. (2023). The children’s rights education via game-based activities: An intervention in kindergarten. International Journal of Serious Games, 10(1), 53–79. https://doi.org/10.17083/ijsg.v10i1.546
- Sever, E., Erbaş, A. A., & Günter, T. (2023). Teaching children’s rights by problem-based learning (PBL) approach: An action research. Journal of Theoretical Educational Science, 16(1), 163–198. https://doi.org/10.30831/akukeg.1125358
- Soberano Serrano, A. A., Mejía Victoria, O. D., Valencia Moreno, J. M., & Martínez Rodríguez, R. A. (2022). The dissemination of children’s and adolescents’ rights in the design of an application. The case of LUDIRECHO. In S. Hosseini, D. H. Peluffo, J. Nganji, & A. Arrona-Palacios (Eds.), Technology-enabled innovations in education: Select proceedings of CIIE 2020 (pp. 547–559). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3383-7_45
- Tan, C. K., & Nurul‐Asna, H. (2023). Serious games for environmental education. Integrative Conservation, 2(1), 19–42. https://doi.org/10.1002/inc3.18
- Walker, G., & Venker Weidenbenner, J. (2019). Social and emotional learning in the age of virtual play: Technology, empathy, and learning. Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, 12(2), 116–132. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIT-03-2019-0046
- Zheng, L. R., Oberle, C. M., Hawkes-Robinson, W. A., & Daniau, S. (2021). Serious games as a complementary tool for social skill development in young people: A systematic review of the literature. Simulation & Gaming, 52(6), 686–714. https://doi.org/10.1177/10468781211031283