On March 10, 2020, I entered a new chapter of my time at play4REAL. The following week would make six months since walking into the Church Street building for the first time, a brand-new Nashville transplant eager to join my amazing team to start a research trial of Invite Only VR. What started as nervous passing whispers from teachers and students during daily visits to schools, became declarations from the CDC, and finally I learned that I would not be returning to my daily routine of data collection, follow-up with teachers and administrators and planning for two new projects back in the lab.
I never imagined that six months of daily meetings with the team would turn into more than a year of remote meetings over Zoom, collaborative web documents, and a careful dance of coordinated scheduling around time zones, wi-fi outages, and the other obstacles of remote research. While the trials of remote collaboration have been humbling, it has been great to see us overcome challenges creatively together.
For our vaping prevention study of Invite Only VR, we managed to move forward smoothly with follow-up surveys of students because our follow-up surveys were already completed online using students’ Google Chromebooks. With the help of teachers and administrators, we had great success in following most of the students enrolled in our study. Because we managed to keep the study moving forward, we managed to submit our findings less than six months after the end of data collection, while also publishing our preliminary research study findings. We also used the time to present our findings at virtual academic and game conferences over Zoom, making sure that we shared our insights with the community despite the restrictions placed on in-person gatherings.
For our development of One Night Stan, we worried that our game development process would be hindered by holding brainstorming meetings and focus groups with Black teen girls exclusively over Zoom. What surprised me was how the switch to Zoom was, by that point, a comfortable way for teens to talk to each other, and Zoom chat was also helpful in letting our participants share information they may not otherwise have felt comfortable sharing to the larger group. Also, while the nationwide demonstrations against police brutality were very emotionally heavy, we were able to uncover a more comprehensive understanding of what barriers, fears, and sources of resilience Black teen girls found through their lived experience, and the richness of their reported experience led us to pursue two qualitative research papers while also enriching and grounding our game content. While COVID-19 precautions have delayed our schedule for testing our game with teens, we are using this time to prepare to start testing as soon as it is safe to do so.
For our development of No Time Wasted, I figured it would be difficult to test the game prototype for the Magic Leap One and work with the team to create a rich story that made creative use of the capabilities of AR technology, but again I was pleasantly surprised to find out how capable were of meeting that challenge. While we are not able to safely use the AR lenses to test our game with teens, we are looking forward to beginning that process when safety precautions allow.
While our team has had to make the tough decision to postpone some of the in-person joys of working at play4REAL, like meeting with teachers, students, game developers, conference attendees, I’m happy to say that the past year, despite all its challenges, has been a great one to work at play4REAL.
-Brandon Sands
2nd Year Research Associate at play4REAL