When the LAN “party”, Virtual World Gaming Technology, and Middle School Classroom Collide: Will Sex Ed Ever Be The Same

Background: Innovative, tailored, confidential, and effective HIV/STI/pregnancy prevention interventions are needed to delay early sexual initiation of middle school youth. “It's Your Game, Keep It Real" (IYG) is an effective curriculum designed to address these challenges. This abstract describes the innovative LAN-based “virtual” world gaming component of this curriculum, demonstrates key functional elements, reports on the results of usability testing and implications for this technology on school-based health education. Methods: The IYG virtual world comprises eight 40 minute sessions. Content is tailored by gender, sexual experience, and sexual intentions and comprises knowledge and skills training for the domains of friendships, personal limits, refusal skills, puberty, reproduction, HIV, STIs, pregnancy, and condom and contraceptive use. Content is delivered within a 3D “virtual world” interface (Conitec 3D Game Studio) and embedded FLASH games and tailored activities, and provides LAN-based student feedback. IYG has been evaluated in a randomized controlled trial conducted in ten Texas urban middle schools and assessed for usability and feasibility. Results: Students rated IYG highly on usability parameters including ease of use, credibility, understandability, acceptability, and motivation (all over 70%). IYG significantly impacted immediate psychosocial outcomes (p<0.05). Field experience indicates the feasibility of this technology and its potential for future theoretical and empirically-based learning applications, while raising awareness of challenges in this type of application. Conclusion: IYG offers an innovative, confidential, salient, motivational, and feasible use of LAN and “virtual world” gaming technology in the service of middle school classroom-based HIV/STI, and pregnancy prevention.