The Mystery of Pandora: A Serious Games Approach With 360-Degree Videos on Domestic Violence Against Women

Introduction

In recent years, domestic violence against women has been a significant social and public health problem faced by Brazilian society, and as such, it needs to be faced due to its severity (Freitas et al., 2013; Pierotti et al., 2018). Unfortunately, it can be observed that this type of violence is still a very rooted problem in Brazil, constituting one of the most common forms of violence suffered by women (Schraiber & d’Oliveira, 2002).

Violence against women manifests itself in different forms of aggression, from physical violence to moral violence, such as slander and defamation. This type of violence needs to be fought, as it can cause severe damage to its victims and even lead to death. Many combat actions are still focused on treating the consequences of violence, particularly physical and psychological damage, making it difficult to approach the problem beyond the scope of health (Souza et al., 2016).

For Sousa et al. (2016), it is necessary to think about improvements not only in the effects of violence, but in the expansion of health promotion and prevention actions, that is, actions that can positively contribute to eliminating violence and still be followed by a cultural change. New pedagogical strategies must be developed to combat domestic violence against women, promoting knowledge about the causes, its forms of manifestation, and postures for its effective eradication.

Technologies with educational purposes can be a guiding thread for many of these actions, acting mainly in health education to transform knowledge. Among these, digital games with educational purposes are presented as a viable possibility to use in this context.

In the literature, it is possible to find several terms used to describe such games, but in this work, the term Serious Educational Games (SEG) will refer to all digital games with educational purposes. Serious Games (SG) have been standing out in this context. They can be used as pedagogical tools in the teaching-learning process and raising awareness (Almeida et al., 2018). They propose to transmit pedagogical content while the player plays, stimulating and encouraging it to progress and develop its skills or knowledge in a specific content (Dörner et al., 2016).

Recently, Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) experiences, in particular 360-degree video, have become popular when it comes to engaging educational experiences (Rupp et al., 2019). The use of 360-degree videos can provide the user with a greater sense of immersion and presence, enabling more immersive experiences and enhancing player engagement. For Pirker et al. (2020), immersion is seen as an essential factor for learning in many studies. For example, Argyriou et al. (2016) and Ivkovic et al. (2018) show in their findings that immersion had a positive impact, allowing users to be more interested in learning more about the content presented in immersive 360-degree videos.

Therefore, the present study seeks to combine the benefits and potential of SGs in the teaching-learning process with the immersive potential of 360-degree videos to develop more realistic and engaging experiences. Such a combination can provide an immersive and interactive SG capable of strengthening the players' affective aspects, allowing a greater understanding and reflection on the topic addressed and a greater awareness and learning. According to Bloom et al. (Bloom et al., 1976), all learning has an affective component, and that emotions and feelings can impact the willingness to interact and experience new experiences. Therefore, it is intended to enhance such components to favor the learning process.

This study presents the development and assessment of the serious game “The Mystery of Pandora”. The game was developed to enhance the affective aspects of the players to provide more significant learning and awareness about Domestic Violence Against Women (DVAW). The work aims to present a tool that can be used as a pedagogical resource in the educational sphere and to stimulate and promote a change in attitude and behavior in adolescents, young people, and adults regarding DVAW.