Feeling at Home form the First Day: Using Mobile Location-Based Games for Welcoming New Students

Abstract

New students' orientation events in Higher Education typically focus on information delivery (rules, duties, procedures, etc). Consequently, new students might feel overwhelmed,lonely and anonymous. Our study describes an attempt to take advantage of the mobile technology available to all for conducting an active orientation event that addresses students' needs for safety and belonging and focuses on their emotional experience rather than on information delivery. The main activity during the event was a "treasure hunt" game played throughout the campus, using students' personal smartphones. The game was developed with Treasure-HIT, an authoring system that enables the design of location based games and activities operated by mobile devices. At the end of the first day of their studies (a week after the orientation event) students who participated in the event and students who did not, described their feelings regarding the new beginning. The psychological wellbeing of the students who participated in the orientation event seemed to be markedly higher that those who did not: they felt more at home, with a better sense of orientation in the campus and a sense of belonging, having already formed friendships. The findings suggest that team location-based games supported by mobile technology may efficiently support the adjustment and socialization of new students. The paper further describes the scaling-up potential of Treasure-HIT based orientation activities as manifested in spontaneous self-directed adoption of the system for supporting similar events conducted in schools.