Home > News > August 2007 > 29 August 2007

Finance game earns award nomination

'Student Survivor', an online game that provides information about student finances, has earned the companies behind it a place in the finals of the National Training Awards 2007.

The game aims to encourage more students from low-income backgrounds, who may be put off by fees and loans, to sign up for higher education.

The partners behind the game include UNIAID, a charitable organisation sponsored by HSBC and others, and e-learning provider Epic.

Alistair Lomax, chief executive of UNIAID, said "Despite significant Government investment there has been no noticeable shift in the social classification within higher education (HE) for 30 years.

"There is a whole generation affected by the fear, confusion and misunderstanding of a burden of cost which, for the first time in England, would be upon their shoulders."

Judith Austin, sponsorship manager of HSBC Holdings plc, said "The partnership with UNIAID and the innovative approach that they took to this challenge has enabled HSBC to support financial learning to an audience, which both strongly needs this information and is notoriously hard to engage."

Lomax said: "An online, interactive, role play and scenario-based approach to learning was chosen as this would give students an engaging experience of the realities and challenges of university life.

"The fact that the learning materials were competing for 16-19 year olds' free time was taken into account across the board in the design, i.e. concept, language, interface, look and feel, use of rewards, etc."

The game aims to enable young people with little or no idea about the challenges of independent living to rehearse and prepare in a safe environment.

Since its launch the partners report that more than two million young people have played Student Survivor - many using it for up to an hour.

Lomax added: "Although surveying a captive audience within a school will never be an exact representation of the sort of online audience you get online through viral marketing, this approach to evaluation did show that 97 per cent of those asked would be more likely to go to university as a result of the training."

External link

'Student Survivor' website

Training Reference is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites.

Related information

For related news, case studies, articles and research, visit our
e-learning home page

Books for training professionals

• Bookshop home page
• e-Learning books
• Blended learning books

Find e-learning providers

Visit the Training Reference Directory to view supplier details for a wide range of courses, products and services.

Sponsored links

Back to top