Digital game-based education for Syrian refugee children: Project Hope

Abstract

Turkey is the top refugee-hosting country in the world, with more than three million registered Syrian refugees. An international research team was the first to document the educational and mental health needs of Syrian refugee children, finding that an overwhelming majority are not enrolled in school in Turkey, partly as a result of language barriers, and that about half suffer from Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression. The present study was designed as an innovative intervention using an online, game-based learning intervention for refugee children, named Project Hope. Data gathered from a controlled field experiment show significant improvements in Turkish language acquisition, coding, executive functioning and overall sense of hopefulness. Implications for policy, practice and research are discussed.

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Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies
An International Interdisciplinary Journal for Research, Policy and Care
ISSN: 1745-0128 (Print) 1745-0136 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rvch20
Digital game-based education for Syrian refugee
children: Project Hope
Selcuk Sirin, Jan L. Plass, Bruce D. Homer, Sinem Vatanartiran & Tzuchi Tsai
To cite this article: Selcuk Sirin, Jan L. Plass, Bruce D. Homer, Sinem Vatanartiran & Tzuchi Tsai
(2018) Digital game-based education for Syrian refugee children: Project Hope, Vulnerable Children
and Youth Studies, 13:1, 7-18, DOI: 10.1080/17450128.2017.1412551
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17450128.2017.1412551
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ARTICLE
Digital game-based education for Syrian refugee children:
Project Hope
Selcuk Sirin
a
, Jan L. Plass
b
, Bruce D. Homer
c
, Sinem Vatanartiran
d
and Tzuchi Tsai
b
a
Applied Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA;
b
CREATE, New York University, New York,
NY, USA;
c
Educational Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA;
d
Educational Sciences, Bahcesehir University, Instanbul, Turkey
ABSTRACT
Turkey is the top refugee-hosting country in the world, with more
than three million registered Syrian refugees. An international
research team was the first to document the educational and
mental health needs of Syrian refugee children, finding that an
overwhelming majority are not enrolled in school in Turkey, partly
as a result of language barriers, and that about half suffer from Post-
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression. The present
study was designed as an innovative intervention using an online,
game-based learning intervention for refugee children, named
Project Hope. Data gathered from a controlled field experiment
show significant improvements in Turkish language acquisition,
coding, executive functioning and overall sense of hopefulness.
Implications for policy, practice and research are discussed.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 23 June 2017
Accepted 31 October 2017
KEYWORDS
Syrian Refugees; Refugee
children; Digital games;
Game-based curriculum;
Mental health; Executive
functions
The United Nations (2014) estimates that, as of mid-2017, over 5 million people had fled
the civil war raging in Syria; half of which were children. This makes Syrians the largest
refugee group in the world in our generation. Turkey, with more than 3 million registered
Syrian refugees, is the top refugee-hosting country. A New York University (NYU) –
Bahcesehir collaborative research team –was the first to document the educational and
mental health needs of Syrian refugee children in 2013 (Sirin & Rogers-Sirin, 2015). As
highlighted in this report, an overwhelming majority of Syrian refugee children are not
enrolled in school in Turkey, partly as a result of language barriers, and about half suffer
from PTSD and/or depression indicating a deep sense of hopelessness for their future.
In response to this educational and psychological crisis in Turkey, and in recognition
of the reality that these urgent needs cannot be met via traditional, on the ground
service delivery, we designed an online and game-based learning intervention for
refugee children, titled Project Hope. The intervention was designed around the needs
of Syrian refugee children in Turkey identified by Sirin and Rogers-Sirin (2015),
specifically a lack of basic Turkish language skills, struggling in school when they do
attend and suffering from a sense of despair. In addition to these three domains, i.e.
improving Turkish language proficiency, improving educationally relevant cognitive
CONTACT Sinem Vatanartiran sinem.vatanartiran@es.bau.edu.tr
VULNERABLE CHILDREN AND YOUTH STUDIES, 2018
VOL. 13, NO. 1, 7–18
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skills of executive functions (EF) and developing sense of hope, Project Hope included
coding skills, a key twenty-first-century skill that is especially important for children
(Lafee, 2017). Children participated in this 4-week curriculum for 2 h a day during
weekdays, totaling 40 h over the course of 20 days. The daily curriculum included a
combination of four playful learning environments and games, including the commer-
cial game Minecraft (Mojang, 2017), game-based programming instruction from Code.
org (2017), the executive functioning training game Alien game (CREATE, 2016) and
Turkish language instruction using Cerego (2017). The curriculum and all research
measures were delivered via the DREAM platform developed at NYU’s CREATE lab
(CREATE, 2016).
The educational needs of Syrian refugee children
More than 90% of Syrian children were attending formal school before the civil war
started. Inevitably, the educational system collapsed with the beginning of the war, and
today, more than half of Syrian children are not enrolled in schools, with up to 70% of
children not being enrolled in the hardest hit areas (Watkins & Zyck, 2014). Turkey
presents a unique challenge for educating Syrian refugee children due to the language
barrier –Syrians speak Arabic, not Turkish, the official language of Turkey. As such,
according to the Turkish Ministry of Education, more than half of elementary school
age refugee children in Turkey are not currently enrolled in school. This figure is worse
for secondary school, where more than 70% are not currently enrolled (UNHCR, 2017).
Language is not the only barrier toward learning for refugee children. The disruption
in refugee children’s education before arrival puts them behind in all areas of academic
learning and, more critically, makes it difficult for them to catch up while learning a
new language and adjusting to an entirely new social and cultural environment (Brown,
Miller, & Mitchell, 2006). The acquisition of Turkish as a second language is particu-
larly challenging for children who have fallen behind in academic skills due to inter-
ruptions in their formal education (Robertson, Lafond, & Romah, 2010). More
importantly, the emotional trauma experienced by many refugee children may affect
cognitive, emotional and social development and compound the difficulties of ‘catching
up’academically (Fraine & McDade, 2009).
In our previous work with the Syrian refugee children in Turkey, we found that a
staggering 79% of the children had experienced someone die in their family, and about
60% of the children reported that they saw someone else get kicked, shot at or
physically hurt (Sirin & Rogers-Sirin, 2015). These are very high numbers when
compared to non-refugee children who live in relatively safe environments in the
West (Bean, Derluyn, Eurelings-Bontekoe, Broekaert, & Spinhoven, 2007). This level
of exposure to violence puts children at risk for PTSD and depression (Hasanovic,
2011). The onset of these mental health problems in childhood has long-term negative
consequences for the child and for society at large. Children who suffer from PTSD and
depression must find ways to cope with their symptoms while in refugee camps: a
setting that provides little, if any, support to address such symptoms. The potential
effects of not having caring adult figures –who may have died or been left behind –
only exacerbate these problems for refugee children who crossed the borders alone and
are now living without parents.
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Project Hope
Project Hope is a curriculum designed based on our previous research that identified the
most pressing needs of Syrian refugees in Turkey (Sirin & Rogers-Sirin, 2015).
Specifically, the target curriculum includes the following.
Turkish language skills
Linguistic competencies were included in the curriculum as the need to be able to speak
the Turkish language is well documented as a prerequisite for attending school in
Turkey (Sirin & Rogers-Sirin, 2015).
Cognitive skills development
The importance of cognitive skills, and especially EF, has been documented for out-
comes such as externalizing behavioral problems (Young et al., 2009), social functioning
(Miller & Hinshaw, 2010) and academic success (e.g. Blair & Razza, 2007; Yeniad,
Malda, Mesman, Van IJzendoorn, & Pieper, 2013). Given the relatively short duration
of the curriculum, it appeared to be more beneficial to train a cognitive skill than
specific subject areas.
Twenty-first-century skills
Computational thinking and coding have been identified as critical skills to succeed in
the twenty-first century (Grover & Pea, 2013), and entire school systems has adopted
coding curricula (e.g. New York City, the largest school system in the United States).
We have therefore added materials that teach computational thinking and algorithmic
thinking in a playful way to the curriculum.
Mental health
The need to reduce hopelessness and despair has been identified as another critical need
for Syrian refugees in Turkey (Sirin & Rogers-Sirin, 2015). Since there is an insufficient
number of trained mental health providers available, we used a game-based approach to
address these issues, which has been shown to be a promising method (Schoneveld
et al., 2016). Minecraft is especially of interest in this context as it also includes elements
of computational thinking and design thinking.
The pedagogical approach we employed takes into account the situation of refugee
children outlined above:
(1) In order to assure that children will be engaged and enjoy learning, we used a
playful learning approach (Plass et al., 2010; Plass, Homer, & Kinzer, 2015).
Given the age of the participating children, and the fact that many of them had
not been exposed to formal education for some time, we believed that a playful
approach to learning would be the appropriate way to engage them. In particu-
lar, the use of playful methods to train cognitive skills is of advantage some of the
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tasks involved are not inherently interesting. Similarly, in order to enhance
participants’linguistic competencies, we used Cerego, a personalized learning
platform with playful elements, as language learning is often not something that
the participating age group finds intrinsically motivating.
(2) To make the program affordable and immediately available, we took advantage
of existing learning materials rather than designing materials ourselves. There
are many resources available online that have been used with a large number of
participants, and taking advantage of these resources, which are largely avail-
able for free, allowed us to design the curriculum quickly and at a low cost per
participant.
(3) In order to be able to deliver these materials and track outcomes, we used
online resources delivered by our own platform. All digital tools we used for
learning, as well as the DREAM platformweusedtodelivertheinstruction,
recorded individual student performance, which allowed us to track student
progress in ways traditional classroom instruction cannot. Tools such as
Cerego are adaptive to each individual’s needs, therefore allowing for a level
of personalization that a teacher couldnotprovideforaclassof25ormore
students.
(4) To respond to the shortage of qualified teachers, we included teacher training
materials but generally aimed for minimal preparation time required for tea-
chers. The curriculum we designed was ready to use without much preparation,
and the teacher guide provided specific information for the teachers in case there
were questions.
The immediate goal of this project was to test whether this curriculum could
effectively be implemented with refugee children in Turkey, and whether our interven-
tions had the intended outcomes. The longer term goal is to use this project to develop
and implement a curriculum that will allow Syrian refugee children to gain the required
competencies to be eligible to attend school in Turkey. Here, we report on a pilot study
to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach.
Method
Participants and design
We conducted a pilot study to test the effectiveness of Project Hope in Sanliurfa,
Turkey. Participants for the study were recruited with the help of a local agency that
provides assistance to Syrian refugees. The initial sample included 147 children, ages
9–14 (M= 11.75; SD = 1.23), who were randomly assigned to be in either the
intervention (n= 75) or a wait-list control (n= 72) group. The intervention and
control groups did not differ significantly on key demographic variables (e.g. age,
number of siblings, paternal education). Children in the control group were given
access to the intervention materials after the study was completed. Human Subjects
approval was obtained from the Bahcesehir University in Turkey, where one of our
authors works.
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Materials and measures
The curricular materials consisted of four different environments, Cerego, Alien game,
Code.org and Minecraft.
Cerego (2017) is an adaptive learning engine that allows users to quickly create sets
of items, such as vocabulary, which can then be presented to learners using a spaced-
repetition paradigm (Greene, 2008). For the purpose of the current project, we devel-
oped 20 themed sets, each with 10–15 Turkish vocabulary words and phrases, covering
topics from numbers and colors to everyday phrases. These sets use the target language
(Turkish) and visual images only, not the learners’first language.
Alien game (CREATE, 2016) is an intervention to train EF which has been shown to
be effective for adolescents from middle school, high school and early college (Homer,
Plass, Raffaele, Ober, & Ali, 2018; Parong et al., 2017). For the current project, a version
of Alien game was developed with the same gameplay, but all instructions translated
into Arabic.
Code.org (2017) is an online platform for learning how to code using age appro-
priate, playful self-guided activities with explanatory feedback. The code.org site reports
student achievement by showing how many levels have been solved, how well they were
solved and how many lines of code students wrote. For the current project, the students
used the Arabic versions of the International Computer Science Fundamentals unit and
were assigned the first three courses in this unit to complete.
Minecraft (2017) is an open-ended sandbox game that allows users to construct
buildings and structures using 3D blocks in a virtual world with different terrains and
habitats. We designed three activities for participants to complete: (1) design your
dream room, (2) design your dream house and (3) design your dream community. The
idea behind this task was encouraging children to imagine a better future for them-
selves, even for a moment for the purposes of a video game. These tasks were chosen
based on evidence for the mental health benefits of using specific types of video games
(e.g. Homer, Hayward, Frye, & Plass, 2012; Schoneveld et al., 2016).
Measures consisted of the questionnaires and surveys listed below. All materials were
translated from English into Arabic, with translations validated by a native Arabic
speaker from Turkey.
Demographic questionnaire
This instrument collected basic demographic, including age, gender, number of siblings,
father’seducation and the like. The questionnaire was administered online.
Turkish language pre- and posttests
The language pre- and posttests consisted of multiple choice vocabulary definitions of
words included in the Cerego sets, as well as additional vocabulary items. The questions
were administered with visual prompts, and participants were asked to select the correct
words. The pretest included 30 words, and the posttest included 40 different words.
Dimensional change card sort task
The dimensional change card sort task (DCCS) is a standard measure from the National
Institutes of Health toolbox (Zelazo et al., 2013) that assesses the EF subskill of shifting.
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In the DCCS, children are shown a series of images that vary along two dimensions –
color and shape. Children are first asked to sort the cards into one of two boxes based
on one dimension (e.g. color). For example, if shown a picture of a blue boat and asked
to sort by color, they must press a key to place the image in the ‘blue’box. The rules
then shift, and children must sort according to the other dimension (e.g. shape). For
example, the blue boat must now be sorted into the ‘boat’box, regardless of color. After
the rule switch, younger children will typically perseverate and initially sort by the old
rules, and older children will show a performance delay after a rule switch. The DCCS
has been normed and validated for ages 3–85 and has been shown to have good
reliability and validity (Zelazo et al., 2013).
Beck’shopelessness scale
This scale is measured to use hopelessness through 20 item self-report questionnaire
(Beck & Steer, 1988). This self-report has been shown to have an internal consistency
ranging from .82 to .93 (Beck & Steer, 1988), and the measure has been shown to
predict depressive symptoms in general and suicide in particular is one of the most
widely used scales for sense of despair (Alansari, 2014). We used a well-established
Arabic version of the scale, which was also shown to be highly correlated with depres-
sion and anxiety (e.g. Alali, 2016).
Satisfaction survey
This survey was designed to measure how satisfied participants in the intervention
group were with each of the four elements of our learning materials (i.e. Cerego, Alien
game, Code.org and Minecraft). For each curriculum component, we asked three basic
questions: ‘How much did you like using this tool?’,‘How much did you learn from this
tool?’and ‘Would you recommend this tool to a friend?’. Participants answered each
question using a 5-point Likert scale.
Procedure
The intervention was administered in Sanliurfa, a city on the border to Syria. We chose
Sanliurfa because, after Istanbul, it has the second largest Syrian refugee population
with numbers exceeding a half million people. It is also a city with the largest class size
and highest birth rate, both among Syrians and Turks. Given these demographic
challenges, most Syrian refugees in the city lack basic educational services. We con-
ducted the intervention in collaboration with a local school and municipality, whose
support made it possible to provide computer labs and transportation for children from
and to the section of the city where they live.
The intervention was designed to run in three sessions a day in 2-h segments for
5 days a week, over a 4-week period, totaling 40 h of game-based experience per child.
Children were placed into one of three sessions of 25 students that went through the
intervention together (i.e. in the morning, early afternoon or late afternoon). All
learning sessions took place in the computer lab of a local community center.
Participants were taken to the center and returned home in arranged buses. A pair of
instructors supervised each of the session. Instructors were provided with a detailed
lesson plan for each day.
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At the beginning of each session, students would individually sit at a computer and
log into the DREAM system, which would then take them through that day’s curricu-
lum. The instructors would assist any students that needed help with the computer. A
typical day’s curriculum would consist of 30 min of Cerego language learning, 10 min
of Alien game play, 30 min of Code.org and 40 min of Minecraft play. Pretests were
given in the beginning of week 1, and posttests at the end of week 4. The wait-list
control group received only the pre- and post test measures. They were bused into the
computer lab for the pretest in week 1, and for the posttest in week 4, which were given
in groups of approximately 25 students.
Results
Retention rates for the intervention group were above 95%, a very high rate for a study
involving refugee children outside of a refugee camp. Attendance records indicated that
most children only missed 1 day out of the 20-day intervention (mode atten-
dance = 19 days; M= 14.7 days). Some data were lost due to participants missed
days. Unfortunately, in addition to data missing for participants who were absent for
individual sessions, due communication errors between the experimenters and the
instructors, not all of the intervention and control groups receive all of the posttest
measures (i.e. the DCCS was not given to two of the control groups). Because these data
were not missing at random (MAR), performing multiple imputations would be
difficult and unlikely to yield reliable estimates (Sterne et al., 2009). Therefore, in
each of the separate analyses, cases with missing data were omitted.
Means, standard deviations and correlations between the outcome variables (inter-
vention and control groups combined) are reported in Table 1. No significant effects
were found for any of the demographic variables (i.e. age and gender), with the
exception that girls scored significantly better than boys on the language posttest.
Satisfaction
To examine students’perception of the intervention, the anonymous weekly satisfaction
surveys given during weeks 2–4 were analyzed, see Table 2. Overall, satisfaction was
high, students reported that they felt they were learning from the interventions and
stated that they would recommend the intervention to their friends.
Table 1. Mean, standard deviation and correlations for posttest outcome measures.
MSD Age Language (posttest) EF (DCCS) posttest
Age 11.7 years 1.6
Language 23.6 10.9 .2
(n= 89)
EF (DCCS) 5.3 2.1 .28 .35*
(n= 48)
Hopelessness 1.79 .06 .16 .14
(n= 121)
*p= .016.
EF: executive functions; DCCS: dimensional change card sort task.
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Executive functions
Posttest measures of the EF subskill of switching were examined. As predicted, by the
end of the study, students who received the intervention had significantly higher EF, as
measured by the DCCS (M= 6.12, SD = 1.88, n= 14) compared to children in the
comparison group (M= 4.98, SD = 2.05, n= 37), t(49) = 1.88, p= .036, d= .58.
Coding
Completion of a level in Code.org requires demonstrating competency in the concept
being taught by that level; therefore, a separate assessment of coding was not given. On
average, children in the intervention group completed 182 levels of Code.org, writing
over 1800 lines of code. Successfully completing these levels indicated that the children
in the intervention demonstrated understanding of basic concepts of coding.
Language skills
During the intervention, students studied over 200 Turkish words via Cerego. At the
end of the intervention, language awareness was assessed through a test of 40 Turkish
words given to both the intervention and control groups. Students in the intervention
group (M= 29.2, SD = 8.8, N= 17) had significantly higher language scores than
children in the control group (M= 22.3, SD = 17.3, N= 72), t(87) = 2.43, p= .017,
d= .50, indicating that the students in the intervention group had significantly better
Turkish language knowledge compared to the control group.
Hopelessness
Beck’sHopelessness scale (Beck & Steer, 1988) was given as part of the pretest and
posttest to the intervention group and as part of the posttest to the control group.
Pretest scores for the intervention group were not significantly different from the
posttest scores for the control group, t(119) = .02, n.s. For the intervention group, a
paired-samples t-test was conducted comparing their pretest hopelessness scores
(M= 2.69; SD = 2.08) to their posttest hopelessness score (M= 1.20; SD = 1.84). The
analysis indicated a significant decrease in hopelessness for the intervention group, t
(73) < 5.69, p< .001. d= .76. Furthermore, comparing the posttest hopelessness scores
of the intervention and control groups indicated that the intervention group had
Table 2. Student satisfaction with intervention components (final week).
Component Liked using. . . Learned from. . . Would recommend
Cerego (language) 78% –much or very much
(6% neutral)
82% –average to very much 83% –average to very much
Alien game (EF) 34% –much or very much
(37% neutral)
65% –average to very much 75% –average to very much
Code.org (coding) 55% –much or very much
(30% neutral)
82% –average to very much 75% –average to very much
Minecraft (mental health) 65% –much or very much
(17% neutral)
79% –average to very much 82% –average to very much
EF: executive functions.
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significantly lower hopelessness scores compared to the control group (M= 2.70;
SD = 2.00), t(119) = 4.21, p< .001. d= .78. While we do not know whether the
whole intervention or the Minecraft intervention per se affected children’s sense of
hopelessness, we know that children who participated in Project Hope had a signifi-
cantly lowered sense of hopelessness.
Discussion
The results of the current study provide evidence of the effectiveness of the computer-
based, playful learning approach of Project Hope. Students in the intervention group
demonstrated evidence of language learning, improved EF, a decrease in hopelessness,
and an increased understanding of proficiency in coding. Furthermore, the refugee
children reported enjoying participating in the intervention, indicating that they would
recommend it to someone else.
Although the results are positive, there are a number of limitations to the current
study. First is the amount of missing data due to communication errors between the
experimenters and the instructors. Another limitation is that the intervention took
place in only one location, which may reduce the generalizability of the findings. The
conditions in which it may be useful to introduce a program like Project Hope may
vary greatly –for example, the current study took place with refugee children who
had been in Turkey for a while and were living in apartments in a city, not in a camp.
Each location will have its own set of challenges that will influence the results.
Because of these limitations, the current study may be considered more of a pilot
study or proof of concept. Nonetheless, the study does yield some promising results
for the use of well-designed digital materials to support the education of refugee
children.
There is a great cost to society for failing to address the educational needs of refugee
children. The costs of failing to address their mental health problems may be even
higher. Individuals with mental health problems demand more resources in school and
during the transition to work and are not able to take full advantage of their educational
opportunities. They are also more likely to leave jobs and stay unemployed. This can
have a critical negative effect on the host countries of Syrian refugees, as well as on Syria
in the future, as it attempts to recover when the war finally ends.
Our study shows that using a game-based, playful learning approach can be an
effective, cost-efficient way to teach refugee children much needed skills, including
cognitive skills, language skills and essential twenty-first-century skills such as coding.
The ultimate goal of a fully developed program would of course not replace schooling
but rather would help refugee children get to a point academically where they could
then take advantage of the educational opportunities provided by the host country, in
this case, Turkey. The project also showed that providing a structured environment
reduced hopelessness and gave distressed refugee children an outlet to imagine a better
future for themselves.
While it is preliminary, it is our hope that the findings from this study demonstrate
that even with limited resources, and even when there are language barriers, we can
make a difference in the lives of children by leveraging technology. Future research
should build on these initial findings and find innovative ways to help address the
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urgent needs of refugee children, needs that could not be met with traditional, on-the-
ground service delivery. Researchers, practitioners and developers must work together
to take full advantage of the power of digital media.
Acknowledgments
This project was supported in part by Mr. Enver Yucel (Bahcesehir Ugur Foundation), by
Cerego, Inc. (Andrew Smith Lewis), and by Microsoft Turkey (Asli Arbel and Eyupcan
Keskin). We thank the graduate student volunteers at New York University (Patrick O’Malley,
Rabia Yalcinkaya, and Esther Sin) and at CUNY Graduate Center (Ayşenur Benevento, Teresa
Ober, Maya Rose, and Anna Schwartz) who helped develop the Turkish language learning
materials and the outcome measures. We also thank Essum Aslan (Urfa Bahçeşehir Koleji),
Ísmet Gokkan, and Mustafa Madenli at Bahcesehir Koleji. Finally, we thank Eyyubiye
Municipality, Turkey, for their local support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Selcuk Sirin http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5161-6989
Bruce D. Homer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1832-6784
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