The Evaluation of a Serious Game to Improve Cross-Cultural Competence

Despite the growth in the use of serious games to train and evaluate cross-cultural competence, few studies have examined the content & dialogue development methods associated with these training systems. This study presents a framework for generating content for serious games targeting culturally appropriate communication and an evaluation of a game designed with the framework showing improved performance. This framework provides a means for game developers to leverage existing Cultural Dimension Theory to target training objectives tailored to specific participant types. A study experiment with 25 participants compares the effects a training system using this framework has on participants' in-game score versus no training. Results show significant differences in game score when controlling for Cultural Intelligence. Additionally, the results show significant differences in variance between the trained group and the control group. These findings contribute to the current understanding of content development methods with respect to Cultural Training Serious Games. These findings warrant further investigation to understand the significance to other cultural training applications.