Designing a Virtual Learning Environment to support the study of crime and its prevention for teenagers Lynne Hall1, Karen Padmore2, Mike Hodge3 and Giles Oatley1 1
School of Computing and Technology, Sunderland University, Sunderland, SR6 0DD, UK {lynne.hall, giles.oatley}@sunderland.ac.uk 2 Technium CAST, Parc Menai, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 4DD, UK
[email protected] 3 Greater Manchester Police, Chester House, Boyer Street, Manchester, M16 0RE, UK
[email protected]
Abstract. This paper focuses on our approach to developing a Virtual Learning Environment, CrimCity, aimed at learning about crime and its prevention. We describe the approach taken to gaining information relating to interactivity and the learning potential of CrimCity, presenting a user study involving 27 novice learners. A number of interesting results have emerged, including the clear disinclination and negative perspective of virtual learning environments experienced by women in the 14-19 age range along with the positive response from older adults, particularly women. Responding to the results of this study has resulted in greater clarity for learning approaches within CrimCity and the interaction styles required to support them.
1 Introduction Personal and social educational support typically falls within the citizenship curriculum. In 14-19 education citizenship is part of core learning and “lays the foundation for the future, when young people will continue to develop their citizenship skills and have increasing opportunities to put into practice what they have learned about being active citizens” [4]. Citizenship spans a wide range of issues, with crime and criminal justice seen as one of the main areas of citizenship. Like other topics in citizenship, it is difficult to explore crime and its prevention within the classroom situation. A potential solution for the studying of crime and its prevention is provided by Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). Here, we are focusing on CrimCity, a VLE being developed in line with curriculum requirements for the 14-19 age range. CrimCity has an extensive, robust cityscape and navigation system. It has been widely used in workshops and evaluated by professionals in law enforcement. However, its use as a VLE with novice learners has not been studied in any depth. In this paper, we discuss our approach to involving teenagers in the design of CrimCity. Section 2 discusses the CrimCity project and details the current status of the CrimCity VLE. Section 3 briefly outlines the method used for the study and describes the sample. Section 4 presents our results and a brief interpretation of these. Section 5 briefly discusses the informed design that has emerged from those results and current work.
2
CrimCity
CrimCity is being developed within a two year European Project funded under the Minerva programme. CrimCity, see fig. 1, is a fictitious place largely based on a UK Victorian town, slightly damaged in the Second World War and more damaged by post war reconstruction. The focus is on a fairly generic shopping parade constructed in the early 1970s with some Victorian terraces and also newer low socio-economic housing built in the 1980s and newer private dwellings constructed in the 1990s. In addition to the streets and houses, CrimCity provides a recreational area for children, a bank on the high street with an ATM and a small shop selling a wide range of food and recreational consumer products
Fig. 1 CrimCity Screenshot
Fig. 1 CrimCity Crime Zones
CrimCity has emerged from the UK Designing Out Crime initiative [3]. An objective in the design of the cityscape has been to create areas where certain crimes are prevalent, and where such crimes could be reduced by appropriate re-design of the physical and architectural environment. We have already gathered extensive information from stakeholders and professionals in the police force, architecture and urban design professions, etc. This information gathering has highlighted the suitability of CrimCity to investigate alternative designs to reduce crime for professional users. CrimCity focuses on 4 main crime types: anti-social behaviour, retail crime, street crime and burglary. The 4 zones of CrimCity, see figure 2, provide environments which mitigate rather than prevent criminal activity of each of the types, e.g. ATMs positioned close to bus stops, thus giving a criminal a rationale for being near an ATM if questioned by police. The user can interact with CrimCity through navigating around the city. At this early stage, whilst the streets and cityscape are complete, they are relatively empty, with few characters and interactive objects. Our current focus is in extending CrimCity to create an interactive learning experience.
3
Informing CrimCity’s Design
In this paper, we discuss our attempts to inform our design through an experimental study, where users were asked to use CrimCity as part of a learning experience
about crime and its prevention. This study sought to provide an evaluation of CrimCity and an exploration of potential future design activities. In the evaluation of CrimCity we focused on its appearance, navigation and usability for the specific task of how the environment of the relevant crime zone in CrimCity could be changed to reduce crime. In exploring how to extend CrimCity discussions were intended to be as wide reaching and creative as possible. The main foci of exploration were to Identify interaction preferences, seeking to understand the users expected to be able to do in CrimCity. Determine back story requirements, intending to discover what information the users felt they needed to understand the situation. Identify character requirements: CrimCity will be VLE populated by synthetic characters that represent the various characters in the crime scenario. Interaction with these characters will be key for users to gain back story. 3.1
Method
27 1st year Forensic Computing students (M: 16, F: 11, Age range: 18 – 42, Mean: 22 Mode: 18 Median: 18) took part in a CrimCity Workshop as part of their induction week at the University of Sunderland, UK. A brief presentation of the CrimCity project was provided to the participants. Each participant was provided with a CrimCity Workshop pack containing crime descriptions, criminal profiles and crime information. The participants were divided into 4 groups and each group was allocated a crime zone in CrimCity. The participants were provided with access to CrimCity via a computer, a crime description and criminal profile. Each group read the material and was then asked to determine questions that they would ask the criminals, local inhabitants and the police. These questions were then discussed by the whole group and some solutions provided by the group and others by an expert in forensics. Each group was then asked to determine solutions to prevent the crime within their crime zone. The groups were then asked to determine a pragmatic, readily achievable solution and a radical, off-the-wall solution that were to be presented to the rest of the group. The participants completed a questionnaire on CrimCity’s interactivity and briefly discussed their experiences in a whole group session. The questionnaire included structured questions that were mainly measured according to a 5 point Likert scale, enquiring about: Perceived level of use: users were asked how much they had used CrimCity during the workshop. Impact on solutions: this focused on whether participants perceived that CrimCity had improved the solution generation process. Preferred interaction partners: Participants were asked to specify how they would prefer with CrimCity, alone, in pairs, small / large groups. Usability rating for CrimCity: this asked participants to rate the satisfaction and appropriateness of the CrimCity environment, focusing on navigation, appearance and satisfaction. Potential of CrimCity: participants were asked to identify possible user groups and possible subject disciplines.
4
Results and Interpretation
The workshop involved participants taking part in three main activities. Firstly, identifying questions that they would like to have answered. Secondly, brainstorming to provide solutions; and thirdly, presenting 2 solutions, one “off-the-wall” and the other sensible for the crime zone that they had been working with. The participants identified a wide range of questions that they would like to have answered within CrimCity. These were focused at: a) the criminal querying their history, behaviour, modus operandi, attitudes and expectations b) the police and crime support agencies querying magnitude of crime type, crime zone and criminal characteristics and activities and punitive measures c) the inhabitants of the area querying crime zone lifestyles, attitudes, history, awareness of criminals and experience of being a victim. Participants identified significantly more questions for the criminal than for either the police or the local inhabitants. Although the questions were wide ranging, there was a strong focus on the punitive aspects of crime prevention. In general the solutions proposed by the participants focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation and education, with relatively few suggestions and little innovation. Participants spent considerably longer on negative and punitive solutions than on either changing the environment or constructive approaches, although participants could clearly recognise ways to change both the physical and social environment. Whilst some off-the-wall solutions were proposed, most of these seemed to be extreme forms of punishment. In general the solutions were not particularly radical and tended to make use of existing approaches and infrastructure. Table 1. Examples of solutions proposed by participants Punitive Solutions
Constructive Solutions
Environment Solutions
Electronic Tagging / Curfews / House Arrest Public Hangings / Firing Squads / Floggings Criminals sent away to temporary hostels Stiff sentences, removal of benefits, sterilisation Attendance at drug rehabilitation programs Drop-In Centres / Counselling More access to employment Community centres / youth groups Training / education – back to school People focused: Raise Policing in area, Visit by crime prevention officer, Neighbourhood watch Give civilians “tools” to defend against crime Physical: Barricaded Houses, Remove fences and have metal railings, Better security – provide local community with window locks / door locks / bars
4.1 Response to CrimCity – Questionnaire Results
Table 2. Use of CrimCity and Impact on Solution
Solution attribute Amount of use Solution Impact (3 point scale) Overall Total (max: 8)
14-19 Male Fem. 3.55 2.71 2.18 1.57 5.73 4.28
20+ Male 3.2 2.6 5.8
Fem. 3.5 2.25 5.75
All participants used CrimCity during the Workshop, with almost half of participants indicating that they used CrimCity most or all of the time, see table 2. The majority of participants felt that CrimCity had had an impact on their solution generation, with 20+ males identifying that it had had most impact. There is an association between use of CrimCity and the amount of impact this use was felt to have had on the solutions. The data highlights an increase in usage being matched by an increase in the impact on solution generation. However, when both gender and age are taken into account, whilst older adults and young men all used CrimCity at a similar level and felt that it had had an impact on their solutions, young females produced a different perspective, not using CrimCity nor believing that using CrimCity had had an impact on their solutions. As can be seen from table 3, young women rate the impact on their solutions from interaction with CrimCity less positively than any other group, a result to be expected from their low rating and lack of use of CrimCity. Older women were consistently more positive about CrimCity than any other group. Table 3. Solution generation: differences by age and gender 14-19
Solution attribute Male
Clumsy- Sophist. Slower-Quicker Sensible-Radical Worse-Better Total (max: 20)
Fem
20+ All
Male
Fem
All
3.27
3.29
3.28
3.6
3.75
3.67
3.73
2.86
3.39
3.6
4.25
3.89
3.00
2.57
2.83
3.6
3.25
3.44
3.45
3.14
3.33
3.8
4
3.89
13.45
11.86
12.83
14.6
15.25
14.89
As can be seen from table 4, again 20+ women were significantly more favourable to CrimCity than all other groups, with 14-19 women again being the least positive about CrimCity on almost all categories. Young women found CrimCity less interesting, harder to navigate, least realistic and most sedate than all other groups. The only category in which young women were more positive, was for the level of fun in the game, with young men rating CrimCity least favourably. The age of participants was significant for their rating of the realism, interest and level of fun in CrimCity. 14-19 year olds were doubtful of the fun and interest of the application, although young men rated navigation positively. Whilst older participants found CrimCity realistic, younger participants did not, nor did they find it fun nor busy.
Table 4. View of CrimCity by age and gender CrimCity rated on Repetitive-Interesting Boring-Fun Hard to Navigate- Easy Unrealistic-realistic Sedate-Busy Total
Male 2.91 2.27 4 3.09 2.57 14.84
14-19 Fem 2.86 2.57 3 2.71 2.29 13.43
All 2.89 2.42 3.5 2.9 2.43 14.14
Male 3.4 4 3.2 4 2.8 17.4
20+ Fem 4 3.75 4 4 3.5 19.25
All 3.7 3.88 3.6 4 3.15 18.33
As can be seen from the above figures the participants felt that the main use of CrimCity would be for educating teenagers, the police and crime scene investigators. CrimCity was seen as being relevant for a range of subjects, and most appropriate for ICT, Design & Technology and Citizenship. 4.2
Response to CrimCity – Qualitative Results
Qualitative data was collected through focus groups and open-ended questions on the questionnaire. In general, participants identified that CrimCity was a useful environment for learning about the crime: CrimCity “is interactive, interesting and helpful when trying to prevent crime and improve areas” “gives a visual interpretation of the current situation and offers new ideas” and “showed the area of the criminal and what was wrong in that area.” Participants valued the ability to look around the city and found that “being able to see what was where showed ways that the problem could be solved.” Although some participants found that CrimCity had “good graphics” and that it “looked fairly real” others stated that it was “boring and bad looking.” Participants did like the level of detail in CrimCity: “useful that they included details like CCTV cameras,” however, there was general agreement that more detail was needed: “it’s a very empty, tidy looking place.” Currently, the only interaction available in CrimCity is that of movement and many participants enjoyed this sensation “it was great being able to fly” and “I liked being able to swoop into an area where the criminals were.” The interaction approach mimics that found in many games involving investigating an area (e.g. first person shooters, such as Doom, Quake) thus CrimCity is applying a tried and tested approach to navigation through a city with general success. Although some participants found CrimCity “difficult to navigate at first,” for example “couldn’t work out how to turn,” this problem was soon solved and navigation “became obvious as we moved about.” However, several participants felt that the navigation “was clumsy” and “looked dated when you look at the games coming out now.” Participants also disliked the bounded nature of CrimCity into zones “You could only navigate a certain area” and “the Zone restrictions spoilt it.” There was some variety of opinion about the characters in CrimCity “the strange looking people really fitted in” “loved the main character’s hair,” however the general opinion was that the characters need additional work: “cardboard cut-out people” and that they “looked totally wrong.”
Unsurprisingly, participants felt that CrimCity offered very limited interaction facilities, “It stood still … there was no action.” In terms of how participants felt that CrimCity could be used, there was a focus on investigation: “people could find clues and work out how crimes were done,” “you could follow a mugger and see what they did.” Participants also wanted to be able to investigate freely and wanted “lots of clickage, like a game” and “everything should tell you something or it shouldn’t be there.” Participants also wanted the ability to evaluate and assess their solutions: “How do you know if something works if you can’t see it happen,” and “it should be like SimCity where they do stuff on their own and you find out what after.” As to how interactivity should be supported, participants were keen on multimedia “the criminal could be a talking head” and “you could watch a crime take place, like on CrimeWatch.” In finding out back story participants indicated that relatively pragmatic solutions would be acceptable “it’d be fine to have a menu of topics that the police could tell you about” “you could have a list of questions and then the criminal could say his piece.” Participants were very keen on “clickage” and wanted “to be able to look at the ATM machine and find out stuff like how much had been nicked from it in the last month” “if you clicked on characters you could get their story, with a picture and some text or even better an animation or video”
5
Developing an informed design
In its current version, CrimCity is a cityscape, where certain areas of the city reflect likely crime zones. Although there are some characters and objects they are passive and the only interaction possible for the user is to navigate the city. However, even with only this simplistic interaction potential most users engaged significantly with CrimCity and used it as part of their problem solving process. CrimCity was considered to be a useful educational tool by participants and many felt that it would be of use in teaching teenagers about crime. CrimCity is aimed at the 14-19 age range. However, as can be seen from the results reported here, CrimCity appears to be viewed more positively by 20+ adults, than the intended age range. Most notably, young women are not enthused by CrimCity, with a disinclination to use or approve of CrimCity in this group. Although it could be that more exposure would improve user view of the impact of the use of CrimCity, more likely is that those users who felt that CrimCity was of little value to their discussions used it less during the problem solving activity, that is the young women in the study. This is reflected in their consistently low rating of CrimCity and obvious reluctance to use or engage with the application. This reflects the finding that young women are notoriously difficult to engage with ICT. CrimCity clearly is a value-added problem solving tool for older participants, particularly women. Perhaps, the influence of teachers and educational staff, many of whom are female in the 20+ category has had this impact, creating a tool for the teacher rather than the learner. A key issue for CrimCity is to determine how to become equally as positive for the intended age range.
It would seem likely that a key aspect for young women will relate to the narrative of CrimCity. Developing this narrative is supported through the questions identified by the participants as being necessary to understand the back-story. Identifying a more complete list of questions and determining how they can be asked and answered will improve CrimCity’s interactivity through embedding information into the environment and the characters. Many of the questions identified by the users can be answered through objects and triggered events in the VLE as well as through interaction with the characters. There is currently a lack of action and interactivity in CrimCity. This was widely recognised in the focus groups and reflected in the poor rating of CrimCity by young men, many of whom had high expectations from other applications, particularly games. These results were expected, as we are seeking to determine how to increase interactivity. However, they do highlight a clear need for more action, activity and interaction in CrimCity. Current work focuses on increasing the interactivity in CrimCity, with the design and development of interactive objects that present back story to users. This need for a coherent back story will be supported through the use of a script developed for police training. As can be seen from the results CrimCity was perceived by learners as improving solution quality and speed. Future work will focus on this characteristic of CrimCity as a scaffold for problem solving and consider how this can be supported through appropriate interaction mechanisms. This study also permitted the exploration of preferred user role in CrimCity. This resulted in two main interaction mechanisms, both of which are to be developed over the coming year. 5.1
User as designer
This involved the user in the role of urban planner, re-designing the environment with the possibility to incorporate objects and modify the current environment. Users highlighted the need for immediate visualisation of change and some way to gain understanding of the impact. Supporting the learner in the role of a crime prevention designer has been well considered in the Designing Out Crime initiative [1]. There are extensive guidelinees available to identify how the environment can be changed to prevent and reduce crime. Information relating to the likely costs and results of each change are available. There are also plentiful games and recreational software that permit the redesign of an environment, thus providing an interaction approach well tested with the teenage age group. 5.2
User as detective
Many users were interested in the investigation and detection of crime, a result found in other studies with VLEs [5]. Participants were interested in interviewing witnesses, searching for clues, etc. and identifying the back story themselves. Although a wide number of pedagogical approaches could be taken to support this user
role as detective, in CrimCity we intend to follow the methods used within the police force for learning problem solving behaviour for crime and its prevention. Within the police, there is growing recognition of the value of problem-oriented policing (POP), and the related use of SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment) which can be used to guide problem solving. This methodical process for problem solving is an integral part of the philosophy of community policing in the US and is of use to crime reduction practitioners in any field. SARA has four stages, all of which are relevant to CrimCity. Scanning: the grouping together of incidents into “problems” that are similar, related or recurring. Analysis: the identification of the conditions that give rise to a particular problem determined through examining the characteristics and impact of the problem in greater detail. Response: any action taken to try to address a problem. Assessment: involves the review attempts to deal with a problem and evaluate how successful they have been. Current work focuses on supporting the first two of these stages, scanning and analysis. In CrimCity, the scanning task has already been done, with the zoning of the city into 4 problem areas, enabling the user to focus on specific types of crime within each of the zones. However, although broad scanning has occurred, there is still the potential to incorporate scanning into CrimCity and introduce a game element in the need for the user to find the relevant characters, all of whom will be drawn to certain locations where the behaviour they typically exhibit is more typical. Analysis aims to support practitioners in their identification of the conditions that give rise to a particular problem by examining the characteristics and impact of the problem in greater detail. This typically involves collecting information about offenders and victims, the time of occurrence, location and other details of the physical environment, the history of the current problem, the motivations, gains and losses of involved parties, the apparent (and hidden) causes and competing interests, and the results of current responses. The interaction design for this stage is based on the use of a tool which has been used successfully, the Problem Analysis Triangle (PAT) derived from the Routine Activity Theory developed by Cohen and Felson[2]. PAT breaks incidents down into three constituent elements: the features of the incident’s location
the features of the caller/victim
the features of the offender or of the source of the incident.
Providing interaction to achieve each of these provides ideas for plentiful, detailed content within the CrimCity environment. However, it still remains unclear as to how to incorporate the interactivity and access to this information to maximize its benefits. Although it may appear a very simple solution, many of the participants in the user study identified the benefit of clickage, and the majority of products aimed at the educational and recreational markets do make high use of this facility. Current work
focuses at creating objects and characters and their related information for CrimCity and determining how to interact with them.
6
Conclusions
This study of CrimCity has highlighted the potential of CrimCity for studying crime and its prevention for teenagers. CrimCity clearly offers potential as a problem solving tool, with participants readily using the application to explore crime and its prevention. This study has highlighted two distinct interactive approaches for CrimCity, the user as designer, and the user as detective. Using pedagogical approaches from the relevant professions of town planning / architecture and policing, both of these will be incorporated into CrimCity.
Acknowledgements This research was carried out with support from the European Community Minerva project, CrimCity and by a UK HEFCE research development grant.
References [1] [2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Association, D. O. C., "DOCA website available at http://www.doca.org.uk/," 2005. Cohen, L. E. and Felson, M., "Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach," American Sociological Review, vol. 44, pp. 588-608, 1979. Cozens, P. M., Hillier, D., and Prescott, G., "Defensible Space: Police and Burglars Evaluate Urban Residential Design.," Security Journal, vol. 14, pp. 43-62, 2001. Department of Education and Skills, "Citizenship: A scheme of work for key stage 4 - Teacher's guide," Department of Education and Skills, London 2002. Hall, L., Woods, S., and Dautenhahn, K., "FearNot! Designing in the Classroom," presented at British HCI, Leeds, UK, 2004.
