Adapting a Game-Based Data Collection Tool for Needs Assessment/Opportunity Mapping with Program Participants

Abstract Information: This session will outline the use of a game-based data collection tool, “Pathways to Change” by Pathfinder International, to inform a needs assessment. Over nearly eight years, the Duke Social Science Research Institute has worked with a program that serves middle and high school girls in rural Appalachia that aims to ensure educational and career success for these girls in their community. Recently, the program wanted to determine whether it was continuing to meet program participants’ needs given the shifting context since its inception and in a post-COVID era. We worked with the program to undertake a participatory needs assessment/opportunity mapping, which involved engagingkey stakeholders in the community as well as the girls who participate in their summer programming. For the latter group, we worked with program partners to consider how best to collect these data; given the age group, partners were enthusiastic about using game-based data collection. We adjusted the focus of “Pathways to Change” to align with the goals of the program and use it to elicit key needs for girls in the community through a fun and engaging alternative method.

After introducing its use, participants in this session will have the opportunity to play our adapted version of this game, which centers on developing a story for an early high school girl in a rural county who hopes to attend college. The game is designed to elicit barriers and facilitators at three levels: individual, social, and community. This framework structures a focus-group like conversation that engages participants through story-telling and de-centers the need to speak to individual experience (which may have particular benefits when speaking about risky and/or sensitive topics). Through this hands-on activity, participants will get a sense of how to play the game, facilitate conversation, and collect qualitative data generated through gameplay.

After playing the game, facilitators will ask groups to share back about their experience and discuss any questions, challenges, or interesting moments that occurred while playing. Together, we will discuss how this activity could be used with different types of stakeholders and in different contexts. Additionally, we will share how this activity informed the broader needs assessment/opportunity mapping, and how the voices of participants directly informed planned programmatic shifts and added supports.