Exploring the use of the Media Equation in childrens educational cybersecurity games

MediaSmarts vision is to ensure children and youth have the critical thinking skills to engage with media as active and informed digital citizens. This project will redesign one of MediaSmarts cybersecurity games to increase its effectiveness and engagement, through the use of Media Equation principles. The Media Equation is a communication and HCI theory on how humans respond to and interact with computers and new media. The project has three main objectives: to conduct an initial user study of the existing Jo Cool or Jo Fool game with children aged 9-11 years, to design and prototype a new game using Media Equation principles, and to conduct a user study assessing the effectiveness of the new game. By incorporating the results of our proposed research, MediaSmarts will be able to produce improved educational games that are more effective at achieving their educational goals.

Faculty Supervisor:

Sonia Chiasson

Student:

Christine Mekhail

Partner:

MediaSmarts

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Information and communications technologies

University:

Carleton University