Work started in May 2019, and we worked with over 100 children, gathering information from them through mapping, and storytelling. Through these activities, we identified domains (e.g. home, school, park) which provided the contexts for situating law-related scenarios. We also started work on the legal capability framework.
Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, the project had to be suspended from December 2020. Work started again in January 2022, and the project also moved to the University of Sheffield. Academics at University College London were unable to continue work on the project, so handed over to a team at Nottingham Trent University.
After the project started again, we continued to work on developing the legal capability framework, engaging with the literature in critical pedagogy, and social psychology. We also worked with over 350 children on diamond-sorting legal scenarios, developing characters, and storyboarding. Drawing on this work, the research team developed ‘gamified’ measures to assess children’s levels of legal knowledge (multiple choice questions), skills (situational judgement tests), and confidence (psychometric scale, linked to the UNCRC).
These measures were applied in evaluations conducted by the research team, consisting of a small-scale qualitative case study involving 3-6 year olds, and a larger post randomized control study for children aged 7 years and over, based on a realist evaluation approach exploring the effects of play in school and in home settings.
For the younger children, engagement with the game was associated with improvements in knowledge of their rights in the majority of cases, but there was less convincing evidence that skills and confidence were impacted. For children aged 7-11 years, the evaluation indicated that repeated game play at school (but not at home) improved children's knowledge and skills in relation to their rights and the law.
Levels of knowledge improved most notably when the game was played on a whiteboard, as part of a teacher-led session. However, independent play (on individual devices) was also effective for developing knowledge, and this was also the most effective context for improving skills. There was some improvement in confidence, but not to a degree that was statistically significant.
Due to only 27 participants (of a possible 141) completing the pre- and post- tests, findings from the 11-15 year old age group were not included in the evaluation. Analysis of the available data indicates that levels of skills and confidence improved as a result of repeated play, but there was no impact on knowledge. However, further exploration is necessary with this age group to establish definitive findings.
A highlight of the project was working with two child advisory boards in Sheffield schools, one primary and one secondary. The children in the primary school setting met with the Sheffield team regularly, to be updated on progress, and to give advice on research activities. The young people in the secondary school setting were studying digital game design and offered advice on that aspect of the project in particular.
Later in the project, two more child advisory boards were recruited to help specifically on the design of the board game content. Members of these groups were already Rights Ambassadors in their schools (one primary, one secondary).
Work in progress has been presented at academic conferences and published in peer-reviewed journal articles. Further articles are under review, and/or in draft. We have returned to some of the schools who took part in the project, to share the research findings with participants, and we have facilitated large-scale Law Yeah! game-play sessions with school pupils (c. 250 primary, and c. 300 secondary).
Two of the child advisory boards attended a dissemination event at the University of Sheffield, to showcase the digital game and the board game to staff and students. The research team also delivered an online dissemination event, sharing the project findings with the scientific community, and external stakeholders.
