Abstract:

Nearly 4% of Italian students are reported to have a disability, necessitating special accommodations, such as support teachers or assistive devices. However, several factors often make it difficult to support students effectively. The lack of consistent and adequate funding, for example, hinders the possibility of hiring enough specialized educators. Moreover, teachers may struggle to propose inclusive and engaging activities. This results in higher school drop-out rates, social isolation, and generally lower well-being in students with disabilities when compared with peers without disabilities. Physical education (PE) lessons are among the most challenging activities to adapt to diverse needs, as they require careful consideration of physical capabilities and individualized modifications to ensure participation and safety. All these aspects are often difficult to implement when considering that a single teacher must handle a whole classroom. Technological solutions, on the other hand, can help craft a customizable experience that can engage children while alleviating the burden that encumbers PE teachers.

To remedy this situation, this study details the co-design, iterative development, and evaluation of a multiplayer gaming platform aimed at promoting motor activity among primary school children, focusing on inclusivity and cooperation, during the ActivE3 project. Collaborating closely with a team of child neuropsychiatrists, psychologists, psychomotor therapists, and educators, the game was co-designed to meet a variety of accessibility requirements. This was achieved by introducing four interaction modalities and allowing the teacher to toggle facilitations to cater to different needs. Indeed, the gameplay supports up to five players, who can choose to use the most appropriate input device to interact with the game among the Leap Motion Controller, which leverages hand tracking; the Homing system, which leverages full-body tracking; the Cosmo Switch accessibility buttons; and Android tablets.

The platform includes two minigames, preceded by an obstacle course set up in the real world to help children immerse themselves in the upcoming activity. In the first game, the children must help Blaze, a dragon, choose the correct ingredients for their breakfast. In the second one, players need to help the dragon avoid obstacles while traveling toward their destination. Therefore, both games require cognitive and physical tasks.

A total of 23 healthy primary school children participated in the testing phase, engaging in group gameplay sessions and providing feedback through structured 5-point Likert satisfaction questionnaires. The findings indicate a high level of usability and enjoyment among the participants, with a median satisfaction score of 5 (Interquartile Range = 0.25).

Moreover, data regarding the children’s performances were collected to assess the impact of the device used. Accuracy in avoiding the obstacles in the second game was considered, and the best-performing devices were the ones using body tracking (mean accuracy of 0.92) and the tablets (mean accuracy of 0.90). Conversely, hand tracking obtained the worst results (mean accuracy of 0.76).

The positive response suggests that the game effectively engages children across various ability levels and fosters an inclusive environment for collaborative play. These results are promising and pave the way towards a broader study with children with disabilities.

Keywords:

Physical education, inclusion, disability, serious games, gamification, multiplayer.