原文
http://670.wikispaces.com/The+Perfect+Job+Applicant
The Job Interview Workout
Lana Dabboussy - [url=mailto:lana.dabboussy@gmail.com]lana_dabboussy@yahoo.com[/url]
María Coronel - [url=mailto:mcoronel@mail.sdsu.edu]mcoronel@mail.sdsu.edu[/url]
Kamina Smith - [url=mailto:kamina.smith@gmail.com]kamina.smith@gmail.com[/url]
Table of Contents
Cover Art
Instructional ObjectivesPlayers will
pronounce different problem area sounds (like is and ink).
identify most common questions of the different phases in job interviews.
evaluate appropriate answers for common job interview questions.
formulate appropriate answers for the different questions in the job interview phases.
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Learners Primary audience: Many graduating students fail to get a job because they don't know how to answer questions during a job interview. The game is primarily designed to offer a great practice opportunity for upper intermediate or advanced ESL (English as a second language) or EFL (English as foreign language) college level students whose age varies between 19 and twenty two years. Since most of the game content should be read and spoken, the players should have reached a level where they are comfortable reading and speaking English.
Secondary audience: The game is versatile enough, however, that it could target a wider range of audiences like college students who are native speakers of English or even an older audience who is looking to acquaint themselves with common interview questions and how to tackle them.
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Context of UseThe game should be used as a speaking enforcement activity in an ESL or EFL classroom.
To the Instructor:Make sure you prepare participants prior to playing the game by providing information of effective and unsuccessful body language cues related to job interviewing. Also, incorporate practice activities that enhance oral communication skills practicing difficult sound combinations. In addition, review with participants the sections of the game "Interview Questions and Answer Tips" to help them practice possible responses. Students should respond to questions related to employment even if they have not held a job previously. Instructors must direct students to use extracurricular activities or past class projects to substitute job experience to answer to the questions. And last, allow participants to prepare for the game by providing them practice in using the evaluation sheet and on how to assess and score each other’s performance.
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Competing ProductsThere is an abundance of articles related to succeeding in job interviews, a number of online games that teach the skills necessary to ace the job interview, but very few board games targeting that topic. Business Education Publishing created two games dealing with this topic, Interview Challenge, which is a game where players learn vital skills for successful interviewing, as well as major types of questions and how to answer them, and You're Hired, which focuses on the reviewing of applications and interviewing of candidates identifying their strengths and limitations. Both games are designed from the vantage point of the employer rather than the one seeking employment: "Players in the game play the role of the employer. They evaluate job applications and interview the job candidates ." The Networking board game presents practices in different aspects of job hunting. This game also varies from out board game in that players develop skills to get the wanted job by networking, gaining confidence, and getting the desired interview, rather than practicing interviewing skills.
It is our goal to help English Language Learners to practice positive responses using appropriate pronunciation. The appropriateness of the response as well as using a combination of letters integrated in their answer will give them the opportunity to advance in the game. One game, Phonetic Board Game, gives participants the opportunity to perform a wide rage of phonetic sounds providing players practices in decoding phonetic symbols, our game, however, not only focuses on problematic sounds or combination of sounds, but on how they can incorporate the accurate pronunciation in an acceptable answer within the context of a job interview.
By and large, our game is different because is built to meet the needs of a specific audience whose native language is not English incorporating a focus on pronunciation and on body language. The players take turns in being the job applicant and answering questions, and then become the interviewer asking questions to another player. The game is mostly based on doing rather than answering questions and moving along the board.
Networking
You're hired
Interview Challenge
Phonetic Board Game
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Object of the GameTo win the game, the player must reach the Finish square before the others.
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Content AnalysisThe Job Interview Workout is a game that allows ESL or EFL college students who are in their intermediate or advanced levels to review the different steps of the interviewing process necessary to obtain a job. Some of the necessary steps provided are to answer questions that develop affinity (Building rapport), inquire factual information (Fact finding), evaluate the interviewee (Evaluation), and questions to conclude the interviewing stage (Closing phase). This game uses a board divided in four sections to present the different steps of the process. Each player will take turns drawing cards that will ask questions pertaining to each sections of the board. Each participant will move forward after each correct response, as evaluated by the rest of the team. The person who advances through all four sections first, wins the game. The goal is to get the job!
Content Type Content Elements Game Elements
Facts
Pronunciation of problematic sounds (th, sh, v, ch, f, etc.)
When they land on a sound square, players must include the designated sound and its correct pronunciation into their answer.
Concepts
The game presents four different types of questions that apply to the process of interviewing. Players have to answer these questions and use/read body language cues.
Principles
The game allows students to practice responding to job interviewing questions while displaying behaviors appropriate for the task (referring to the job aid of gestures/postures), and expressing themselves fluently addressing the question given.
Procedures
Processes
The common interviewing process requires questions that build rapport (Tell us about yourself), inquire factual information (What is the name of your previous company?), evaluate interviewee attributes (What interests you about this job?), and questions in the concluding phase (What are you looking for in your next job?)
Probabilities
In each stack of cards there are two “chance cards” randomly placed which will indicate the players to move back to a previous stage, or forward, to the end of the current segment.
Context
In the context of job interviewing, the game provides valuable opportunities to practice the required skills necessary to successfully participate in an interview, and attain the desired outcome of getting the job. Obtaining employment will depend on how players answer the questions and respect time constraints, adequate pronunciation, and appropriate response as approved by fellow players as a judging panel.
Vantage Points
Interviewer
Interviewee
Judging panel
This game allows each participant to play three roles of the interview process. As one of them takes a turn being the interviewee, one takes the turn of the interviewer, and the others five take the roles of a judging panel.
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Game Materials1 board
6 pawns
6 Interviewee scoring sheets
6 Interviewer and Judging Panel Evaluation sheets
1 die
4 decks of 27 cards each including 2 chance cards in every deck.
1 sixty second sand timer
The Game Board:
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Sample Cards
Here is the whole set of the Building Rapport questions 
http://c1.wikicdn.com/i/mime/32/application/pdf.png[/img] phase1_building_rapport.pdf
Here is the whole set of the Fact Finding questions http://c1.wikicdn.com/i/mime/32/application/pdf.png[/img] phase2_fact_finding.pdf
Here is the whole set of the Evaluation questions http://c1.wikicdn.com/i/mime/32/application/pdf.png[/img] phase3_evaluation.pdf
Here is the whole set of the Closing questions http://c1.wikicdn.com/i/mime/32/application/pdf.png[/img] phase4_closing.pdf
Board Interviewer and Judging Panel Evaluation Sheet
Interviewee Scoring Sheet
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Time RequiredThe game rules are pretty straight forward and the game needs approximately 5 mn to set up.
The game would be played over a 50 mn class period.
The game cannot be carried out on a number of sessions.
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The RulesThe Job Interview Workout: Instructional Manual Is English not your native language? Do you have no idea how to behave or how to speak at a job interview? Are you aware of the job interview phases and the various questions asked in each phase? Simply put, are you confused by the job interview process? Don't be! In this game, you will have the opportunity to exercise your interviewing skills with the Job Interview Workout.
The Job Interview Workout is an educational game that helps you as an English language Learner at an advanced level to pay close attention to your pronunciation and to familiarize you with the job interview phases and their most common questions.
Are you ready to begin your training?
Game Elements In this game you will find the following items:
1 board
6 pawns
6 evaluation sheets
6 interviewee scoring sheets
1 die
4 decks of 27 cards each including 2 chance cards in every deck.
1 sixty second sand timer
The Board
represents the four job interview phases
is linear: starts with the start space and ends with the big red arrow in the middle
includes different letter(s) representing different sounds in the English Language. These sounds are the most difficult to pronounce for non-native speakers of English.
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Set Up This game can be played by two to six players but is best suited for four players.
Set the game board on a flat surface.
Shuffle the deck of cards by color group and lay them face down over their four matching places according to color and title.
Take a scoring sheet and an evaluation sheet from the box and bring a pen or a pencil.
Choose a colored pawn and place it on the Start space.
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Starting The GameWho goes first? To see who should go first, each player rolls the die and the player with the highest number goes first and moves his pawn first.
After the first player finishes his turn, play continues to the left.
Rolling the die and moving across the board
Roll the die and move your pawn the number of spaces you rolled. Move in the direction of the arrows. You will land on a space representing a sound. For example you roll the die, get a three, and land on the "sh" sound.
When you play the role of the interviewee, you must answer a job interview question appropriately and use the sound on which you landed on. For example, you roll the die, get a three, and land on the "sh" sound. You draw a card, pass it on to the player on your left and he asks you the following question: "How are you today?" An appropriate answer would be: "I feel great! Thanks." The trick is to adapt your answer to the sound you landed on:"I feel great! especially with the kind of weather we are having at this time of year."
If you roll the die and land on a space that is already occupied by another player, you have to move back to a non-occupied space just before it.
Turns and Rounds
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Roles In this game, you will play three roles at different turns. Here's how you will play the different roles:
Interviewee: when it is your turn
Interviewer: when you are sitting on the left of the interviewee
A member of the Judging Panel: when you are none of the above
Roles always rotate clockwise from left to right.
Let us explain how the game is played using an example with four players.
Player 1
Draw a card from the deck of the phase you are currently in and pass it on to the player on your left. For example, after you roll a three, you are in the "Building Rapport" phase: draw a card from the "Building Rapport" deck and pass it on to the player on your left who asks you the question that features on the card
Respond to the question the way you would in a real job interview.
Use the sound on which you landed in your response. For example, you roll the die, get a three, and land on the "sh" sound. You draw a card, pass it on to the player on your left and he asks you the following question: "How are you today?" An appropriate answer would be: "I feel great! Thanks." But to move to the next round you must adapt your answer to the sound you landed on:"I feel great! especially with the kind of weather we are having at this time of year."
Stick to a one minute time limit response. Make sure you monitor the time by checking the 60 second sand timer.
For a variety of ways to use the sound spaces, read the Alternate Rules and Sound Spaces section.
Pay attention! While you are responding, the other players in the game will be evaluating your response.
===Response Criteria===
===After I finish my turn, what do I do?===
Wait for the verdict
Write it on your scoring sheet
Get ready to play a different role according to your seating arrangement
Player 2
# Ask the question on the card
Time the answer using the 60 second sand timer
Write the time limit on the evaluation sheet
Players 3 and 4
Player 3 : Member of the judging panel (sitting on the left of interviewer)
Evaluate validity of the response
Write your evaluation on the evaluation sheet
Player 4 : Member of the judging panel
Check the sound inclusion in the response
Evaluate correct pronunciation of the sound
Write your evaluation on the evaluation sheet
Interviewer and Judging Panel: Decision MakingBasing yourself on the evaluation sheet, discuss out loud your notes and decide one of two options:
Complications:If the panel cannot agree, the interviewer decides what happens to Player 1.
After the decision making, what do the interviewer and the judging panel do?Get ready to play a different role according to your seating arrangement.
Rounds and Roles
Turns
Player 1: Roles
Player 2: Roles
Player 3: Roles
Player 4: Roles
Player 1
Interviewee
Interviewer
Judging Panel member
Judging Panel member
Player 2
Judging Panel member
Interviewee
Interviewer
Judging Panel member
Player 3
Judging Panel member
Judging Panel member
Interviewee
Interviewer
Player 4
Interviewer
Judging Panel member
Judging Panel member
Interviewee
When does a round end? When all players have played the role of the interviewee and received their verdict.
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The Second Round And BeyondAt the beginning of the second round, the players will continue the turns as specified by the roll of the die at the beginning of the game. Keep playing as specified in the roles section until one of the players reaches the end of the circuit.
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Winning The GameThe player who goes through the four phases of the interview process, and first reaches the big red arrow in the middle of the board, wins the game.
Alternate EndingIf you would like to end the game and none of the players reached the Finish space, the winner is the person who is ahead of all the other players.
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Alternate Rules and Sound Spaces Beginners:
The player rolls the die and depending on the sound space he lands on, the player must include this sound once in his response.
To move to another round, the interviewee must receive 2 (+) signs on the Evaluation sheet.
Intermediate:
The player rolls the die and depending on the sound space he lands on, the player must include in his response the sound he was on before rolling the die and the new sound on which he landed .
To move to another round, the interviewee must receive 2 (+) signs on the Evaluation sheet.
Advanced:
The player rolls the die and depending on the sound space he lands on, the player must include in his response all the sounds represented on the board from where he was located until the new space he landed on.
To move to another round, the interviewee must receive 3 (+) signs on the Evaluation sheet.
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Interview Questions Answer Tips (This section should be covered by the Instructor before beginning the game. If you are playing this game without an instructor, read this section before you start the game.)
1. “Tell me about yourself.”
It is almost guaranteed that this question will be asked in an interview. Although you might want to talk about where you grew up or your favorite hobbies, it is important to answer the question as it relates to the position. Speak to your job relevant personality qualities, educational experience, work experience, and be sure that the information you share is the most important information that they interviewer should know about you.
Be sure to:
Speak with confidence. Do not be afraid to talk about your accomplishments, talents, and ambition.
Tell the truth. Provide an answer that is an accurate, positive representation of yourself, not just what you think the interviewer wants to hear.
Follow the format of your resume/CV (Curriculum Vitae).
- “Why do you want to work here?”
This is your opportunity to show what you know about the company, it's culture, it's products and/or services and demonstrate how you will contribute and fit in to the company.
Be sure to:
[]Research the company and be familiar with their products, major events in the news, top competitors, etc.
[*]Give the impression that the company is your ideal company based on your experience and career goals
[]Review the company's mission statement and speak to how you can contribute to that mission.
[*]
[/list]3. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
This question is asked to ensure that the company won't be wasting their time and money training you if you will be leaving the company relatively quickly.
Be sure to:
Base your response on the type of positions that you are interested such getting experience in marketing, finance, and human resources.
Ask the interviewer about employee development programs.
Be general but express desire to grow within an organization.
4. “Why should I hire you? How are you qualified for the job?”
This question is your opportunity to explain your experience, skills, and knowledge and how you will incorporate them in to the position. If you did not have previous job experience, refer back to your extra-curricular activities, previous class projects and assignments, or life experiences to answer the question.
Be sure to:
Be confident and enthusiastic.
Clearly identify your relevant unique skills for the position, how you would contribute to the organization, and why you are the best candidate.
Do not speak negatively about other candidates.
5. “What are you strengths?”
This question is designed to determine whether the candidate can identify a beneficial quality about himself/herself that will be an asset to the organization.
Be sure to:
Identify a unique skill that would separate you from the average candidate.
Be honest about your actual skills and not skills that you aspire to or wish you had.
Give an example of when the strength produced a positive outcome.
- “What are your weaknesses?”
With this question it is important to turn a weakness into a strength. For example “I tend to overwork myself by taking on additional projects and responsibilities because it is important to me that I help my team when I can. To improve this weakness, I meet with my manager to set priorities to ensure that the most important projects are completed first, then the lower priority tasks are completed."
Be sure to:
[]Describe how you are working to turn the weakness into a strength by taking classes, employing tools, or receiving coaching.
[*]Do not identify a weakness that would cause an employer to view you negatively such as always being late for meetings, never meeting deadlines, or not being a team player.
[*]Show that you are willing to admit your weaknesses but also how you are working to improve these weaknesses or your other strengths will compensate for this weakness.
[/list]
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Motivational Issues
Our game operates at the top 2 tiers, self-esteem and self-actualization, of Maslow's Hierachry of needs (cited in Schell, 2008). His Theory of Human Motivation states that people have a hierarchy of needs and that they are not motivated to pursue the higher level of needs until the lower needs are met. By practicing answering real-life interview questions, players develop a sense of achievement and mastery because as they answer questions correctly, they move to the next phase of the interview which builds confidence and a sense of achievement. Due to the high number of interview questions in the game, players are motivated to play the game multiple times to become exposed to as many potential interview questions until they feel that they mastered the questions available and the interview process. After playing the game, participants will have a high level of confidence that they will be able to successfully complete the interview process and land a job. Also, confidence is built from the acceptance gained from their fellow players when they have advanced to the next round. This element of social recognition provides an additional source of motivation.
From an ARCS motivation perspective, The Job Interview Workout fulfills all aspects of Keller's (1988) theory: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. The attention is maintained with all players involved because the current player have to answer the question as the interviewee (inquiry arousal), one player be the interviewer asking the question (perception arousal), and the other players must serve on the judges panel to determine if the answer given was sufficient enough to advance to the next round (perception arousal). Relevance is fueled by the direct application to the player's life as the majority of people will need to find employment at some point in their life. Familiarity is provided through the pronunciation component that the students would have been exposed to in their ESL and EFL course work. Also, to answer the questions, the players must pull from their own personal experience to find an appropriate answer. In terms of confidence, players are presented with the challenge setting of advancing to the next phase of the interview and being the first to land the job before the other players. As players move from phase to phase, they build confidence in knowing that they can successfully advance to the next phase on an interview based on their ability to construct a response that their peers approved of. For satisfaction, players will have the ability to experience natural consequences by transferring the knowledge obtained in the game into a real-life interview. In addition, players are provided with positive consequences and equity by not only answering the interview questions correctly and moving to the next round, but by also having the opportunity to evaluate the response of their fellow players which ensures that the rules are fairly applied.
The game also follows several individual motivations as described by Malone and Lepper (1987). For ESL players, the game is definitely a challenge. Not only do they have to answer questions smartly and positively, they also are also restrained by a time limit and a sound element. Concerning performance feedback, the players have a chance to know immediately whether or not they have done well on a particular question. The other players acting as a judging panel will deliberate out loud and let the person know their verdict once they are done. The players are also equipped with an individual scoring sheet that allows them to monitor their progress and work on areas of weakness. Control, specifically the degree of freedom that the players have, is crucial to this game. In fact, players have the freedom to pull from any type of experience to answer the interview questions. Another element is contingency. If the players' responses are adequate this will almost certainly help them in advancing across the board. All players have an equal opportunity of winning the game and this almost solely depends on whether they can answer the questions appropriately or not. The judges are there to make sure the rules are applied, not to hinder any player from advancing to a different stage, which brings to the final element from Malone and Lepper's theory of motivation: endogenous cooperation. Cooperation in this game, especially when the other players come together to solve the evaluation problem, is not just mere decoration to prevent players from wasting their time. In a way, also the person who is playing the interviewee has to cooperate with the judges and try to convince them; otherwise, he is bound to fail in his task.
Finally, our game meets Csikszentmihalyi's (1980) description of optimal experiences, even if minimally. There are four different stages in this game pertaining to the job interview process. The first phase of the game is more of an icebreaker. The questions of this phase are not very challenging but they are challenging enough when coupled with a new set of rules to learn and with a new environment to adapt to. So this phase moves the players smoothly from anxiety to flow. As the phase threatens to become boring once the players "get the hang of it," the players are more likely by this time to be in the following phase: Fact Finding. This phase presents more challenging questions. The same concept is in play to move players between the phases as answering questions becomes harder and harder across the phases, thus allowing players to be in flow while oscillating between boredom and anxiety.
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Design ProcessInitial StagesOur initial idea focused on teaching players how to interpret body language signals and we thought it best to have a corporate setting. We also knew that we were targeting an audience whose native language is not English.
As job applicants usually have different backgrounds and different skill sets, we thought that role cards would fit greatly into the overall scheme. We envisioned having different cards that represent different players with a different set of skills. For example, Wendy (or perhaps a more fantasy-like name) would be perceptive, shy, and fluent in English.
Board Draft 1
As the idea branched out, we realized that body language could be used as one of the categories we would have in the game to give the players guidelines as how to succeed in a job interview. The players also would be representing different characters, each worth a number of points. The board would represent different social spheres present in the real world: A university, a cafe or an outdoor activity, home and family, and the final destination, the workplace. Then, as the players would move along the board they can acquire points from these different localities. Players need to accrue 100 points from the different social spheres on the board before they could move to the workplace where the job interview will take place.
To cater to the needs of the ESL or EFL player, we decided to focus on key words or phrases of the interview process. Let us take the phrase extra curricular activities as an example. This phrase will come up in one of the question cards in one of the determined locations (the cafe most probably). It will not only be used in the bigger context of the game but it will also be used in a sentence with a clue so that the player would know what it means. We could include a picture if the name is not abstract, or we could provide a definition of the word at the back of the card. We also thought of including a glossary of the key terms. This first step would expose the players to the vocabulary in context, and it will be later "tested" during the interview process where the players are not allowed to use the glossary.
We realized then that the player had no way of interpreting his scores if he was just accumulating 100 points. So we decided that a scoreboard divided into categories would constantly show the players in which area they need improvement. For example, a player might obtain 25 points in verbal communication skills but only 5 in body language. The player will know then that he has to go back to the theater (body language) in order to work on his communication skills. The player can only move if he answers the question correctly and then he can roll the die to move along to his destination, and he can move either left or right. The different locations that bestow skills on players are inspired from the game Prophecy as described by Scott.
By answering questions, players would be not starting from scratch but working on enhancing their skills on the role cards. Here, however, we are at a loss as how to include this in the game mechanics without the game losing its elegance.
Board Draft 2
Since to succeed at a job interview, the applicant must follow a winning process, we decided that strategy games would perhaps elucidate some problems we've been having with mechanics. A game we played recently was a french game created in 1999: "Les voleurs de Baghdad" or "The Thieves of Baghdad." Coincidentally the game contains different locations where players go to receive their resources, and then they go on to exchange cards and then buy goods. What is interesting here is that you can actually buy the number of spaces you would like to move on the board and this is the only way a player and his different pawns could actually move on the board. The game relies heavily on the strategic placing of the pawns and the careful financial decision making. What we really liked while playing this game is we felt empowered in a way and that our destiny is closely intertwined with the decisions we made. Not only that, but we were able to move somewhat freely along the board in whatever way we thought was going to bring us closer to the Palace of the Grand Vizier. We liked this feeling so much that we decided to empower our own players and let them move along the board not thanks to the roll of the die, which is quite random and irrelevant to the interview process, but to how well they can answer questions. Then depending on the score they receive, they can move however they fell will bring them closer to the office building. The players this way will have immediate feedback for their responses and a sense of control of their movements. This will show that the process of acing the interview can only be perfected through skills and competence and not by sheer luck.
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Game Focus and MechanicsTwo weeks later, all grandiose ideas were dropped. We finally realized that the scope of our game was too big and we needed to shift our perspectives, focus on one aspect of the game, and most importantly keep it simple. We wanted to create a mechanism that would make the game fun, would generate an infinite number of answers, and would not be too complicated to understand.
In the light of narrowing the scope of our game, we decided to focus on the interview process and the most common interview questions. It was clear as we were writing these down, that some of them fitted nicely into different categories. We identified four main categories: Warm up, Work experience, Personal Expectations and Wrap Up. We needed to verify our findings, and indeed most of the websites that offer tips on how to handle job interviews divided the interview process into four phases: Building Rapport, Fact Finding, Evaluation, and Closing. We decided that our game would have four phases and that our board would be divided into four color coded sections.
The interview questions were only the starting point of our game. To discuss the appropriateness of the game for an ESL audience, we presented our game idea to Dr. Johnnie Hill who is a regular collaborator to the academic journal Simulation and Gaming. She was kind enough to give us a considerable amount of her time and suggested that since The Perfect Job Applicant is a speaking game, we should focus on oral fluency rather than on vocabulary expressions like we initially thought. In our discussions, it became obvious that the game needed to focus somehow on sounds that are usually problematic for ESL learners. From my teaching experience, problem area sounds for Arab speakers are usually "th" in this and "th" in think which are almost always pronounced /z/ and /s/, and "p" is more often than not pronounced as a "b". French speakers have similar problems with the "th" sound but they also cannot pronounce the aspirated /h/ sound. Dr. Hill noted that /l/, /m/, /n/ were problematic for Chinese students and /f/ and /v/ for a Spanish audience. And this is how we decided to incorporate these sounds on our game board. We also decided to focus on consonants only as they are easily represented by letters unlike vowel sounds which must be represented by phonetic symbols. These certainly would be more appropriate from a phonetic point of view but we did not want to increase the learning curve of our players.
On the mechanics level, it was Dr. Hill's idea to use a linear board similar to that of Candy Land except that instead of candy ours would represent the different sounds.
Board Draft 3
And this is how our game mechanism was born. Not only do players have to answer the questions of the different phases, they also have to incorporate the sound on which they landed. The answers can almost never be the same twice! We were finally pleased with a mechanism that was very simple, yet that would yield an infinite number of answers.
This was all great, but not all game players were accounted for. We knew that the interviewee would be very involved answering the questions and thinking of an answer that could include the problematic sound. There was certainly a need for an interviewer role but what were the others to do? The worst element a game can have is down time when players whose turn it wasn't, sit and bide their time waiting for their turn to arrive. To remedy that problem, we decided that there should be an all powerful judging panel who, along with the interviewer, gets to decide whether the interviewee's answer should be accepted or rejected and therefore whether the player playing the interviewee should move to the next round or lose a turn.
As great as this idea sounded, we knew it was going to be tricky to let the players evaluate one another, especially with the tendency that some players might have of giving a negative verdict whatever the answer may be to impede the interviewee from moving along the board. This might have been true if the roles are always fixed as such in the game, but since roles rotate upon each new player's turn, there was a big chance that revenge can be easily sought by whomever was misjudged and therefore it wouldn't be a smart move to sabotage someone else's turn. More important than anticipating the "Sabotage Plan", we knew it was necessary to create a very detailed and clearly written evaluation sheet that the interviewer and the judging panel would refer to in order to come to a decision concerning the interviewee's answer.
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Background InformationWhen we started with our idea of including several aspects related to job interviewing, from writing a curriculum vitae, dressing appropriately for an interview, participating in the interview, and getting the job, we started researching the Internet to see if there were board games addressing these topics. As it was expected, the specific combination of skills we were targeting were too broad to be found in one single game. We did find games that help in the preparation of job interviewing but it practiced, in our view, a narrow set of skills focusing only on the perspective of the employer. As we progressed in our project, we found ourselves having to deal with such a broad number of topics and subtopics that we began defining the content we wanted to cover and decided to narrow our scope to interviewing skills. In order to find other companies who were targeting some of the same skills, we began our search of games in two fields: interviewing skills and pronunciation practices. Again, we went online to see what companies had created in this topic, and although these companies advertise hundreds of games, we only found three that were somewhat relevant to our topic, but not one of them was similar to our proposed game. We also visited sites advertising games targeting English Language Learners but the vast majority of them focus mostly in the drilling of grammatical structures and vocabulary building, which does not compare to our game features. We saw many board games that did not involve critical thinking skills, rather, required knowledge of the mechanics of the language.
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Playtesting and ImprovementsNow that our game elements were complete, we needed to playtest the game before jumping into conclusions. As we believe that first impressions are ver important and that aesthetics can make a great impression on first time players, we created a colorful board using the 10x24 Ai templates provided by the Game Crafter. We prepared a set of 10 questions per phase for our prototype. and we wrote these unto flashcards whose border we colored using the color codes of the board. We gathered pawns and a die from other games and our prototype was ready to be playtested by four EFL students from the University of Balamand. We also equipped ourselves with the emotions grid designed by Mehrabian and Russell, Michael Compton's Playtesting rubric, and a questionnaire we adapted from this site.
Playtesting at the University of Balamand, Lebanon
Old rules and Gameplay document http://c1.wikicdn.com/i/mime/32/application/x-zip.png[/img] Rules and Gameplay.docx
Interviewer and Judging Panel Evaluation Sheet http://c1.wikicdn.com/i/mime/32/application/x-zip.png[/img] Interviewer and judges’ scoring sheet.docx
Playtesting questionnaire http://c1.wikicdn.com/i/mime/32/application/x-zip.png[/img] The Perfect Job Applicant_questionnaire.docx
Draft Body Language Job Aid http://c1.wikicdn.com/i/mime/32/application/x-zip.png[/img] hasty_job_aid.docx
Playtesting confirmed that by keeping things simple and narrowing down the scope of our game, we were definitely heading in the right direction. The overall playtesting experience was rather positive and the emo tests were almost always in the yellow and green.
Here were the most important recommendations by the players:
Re-write the rules to make them clearer and using language that targets ESL learners.
Re-write the questions to make them more specific and also more oriented to college graduates.
Create a reference to appropriate answers during the interview.
Give general tips on how to answer questions.
Re-design the scoring sheet of the judges to make it more specific, especially the part concerning body language.
Design an individual scoring sheet for the interviewee.
Playtesting revealed a flaw in the scope of the game. Although players had a global understanding of body language, they had no idea how to demonstrate their understanding or how to evaluate the other players' body language. This section had to be altogether removed from the game.
Improved Evaluation Sheet http://c1.wikicdn.com/i/mime/32/application/x-zip.png[/img] Interviewer_panel_evaluation_sheet.docx
Interviewee Scoring Sheet http://c1.wikicdn.com/i/mime/32/application/x-zip.png[/img] Interviewee scoring sheet.docx
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LessonsWorking in the development of the design document and our board game has taught us important lessons. One of them is to set realistic goals. We began sharing of ideas for our game that included a wide variety of activities to take students through the process of applying for a job and to successfully complete the interviewing process. The many steps were unrealistic and difficult to manage. As we discovered how difficult was to advanced with our project due to the many details we needed to work on, focusing to only work in the interviewing skills made it attainable.
Another lesson refers to the importance to focus all attention on the content of the game and not rush into unnecessary artwork as much of it may be discarded.
Having a clear direction of what content to use in our game was necessary in order to move forward to the details of the board game. As we discussed the different phases of the board, it made sense to conclude that because the board design had been worked thoroughly all aspects of the game, like the job aid, sets of cards, and the art design, would have been all relevant and applicable. That was not the case. After the game was tested a suggestion was to have this game as a reviewing activity omitting some of the initial work done.
A third one covers the importance to use appropriate language that is clear and concise for our target audience. We targeted English language learners in their intermediate to advanced levels. As we worked on the type of questions to use and rules to include, we reviewed the vocabulary used and made suggestions for modifications keeping in mind the intended group of students. When the day came to test the game and presented the rules and questions to students, they provided feedback about what information was unclear and what vocabulary was not appropriate. Having to evaluate the meaning of the questions or trying to understand the rules of the game as they tried to continue forward with the game could have brought adverse results. Fortunately they still had a positive experience playing the game even after the short moments of confusion. We did learn the importance to always present information that will seem reasonable to the participants and to use accessible language appropriate for the target audience.
The last lesson learned has to do with taking advantage of feedback provided by participants during play testing. Since their valuable comments shape the direction of the game, play testing should happen across all development phases of the game whenever possible.
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References
Books & Journals
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.
Chapter 4: The conditions of flow
Keller, J. M., & Suzuki, K. (1988). Use of the ARCS motivation model in courseware design. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.). Instructional designs for microcomputer courseware. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Malone, T. W., & Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic motivations for learning. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.). Aptitude, learning and instruction. Volume 3: Conative and affective process analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Nierenberg, A. (2005). Winning the interview game: Everything you need to know to land the job. New York: Amacom Publishing
Reese, C. & Wells, T. (2007). Teaching academic discussion skills with a card game. Simulation and Gaming, Vol.38 No 4 December 2007 546-555. DOI: 10.1177/1046878107308063. Sage publications
Schell, J. (2008). The art of game design: A book of lenses. Massachusetts: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. Massachusets Institute of Technology
Pease, A. & J. (2004). The definitive book of body language. London: Orion House
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