Designing for others: the roles of narrative and empathy in supporting girls’ engineering engagement

Purpose Science museums provide a context for developing and testing engineering activities that support visitors in creating personally meaningful objects. This study aims to propose that narrative design elements in such engineering activities can foster empathy to support engineering engagement among girls ages 7–14. Design/methodology/approach Taking a constructionist approach to engineering design, the authors present results from an observational study (n = 202 girls) of engineering activities across three museums that were designed to foster girls’ engineering engagement by integrating narrative elements aimed to foster empathy in activities. Using quantitative counts from observation protocols, the authors conducted statistical analyses to explore relationships between narrative, engineering and empathy. Findings Linear regression demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between empathy and increased numbers of engineering practices within museum activities. Additionally, this led us to explore the impacts the potential narrative design elements may have on designing for empathy – multiple linear regressions found both narrative and empathy to be independently associated with engineering practices. Overall, the authors found that using narrative to design activities to elicit empathy resulted in girls demonstrating more engineering practices. Originality/value The authors offer design ideas to foster aspects of empathy, including user-centered design, perspective-taking, familiarity and desire to help.

A Critical Analysis of the Networking Experiences of Female Entrepreneurs: A Study Based on Small Business Tourism Sector in Sri Lanka

This study goes on to expand on current knowledge through the way it accounts for how female entrepreneurs form and develop their networks in the Sri Lankan context. It adopts social constructionism philosophy and narrative design to explore the female entrepreneurs' networking behaviour. Thematic analysis is used to understand the life stories of fourteen women entrepreneurs in the tourism sector. Findings suggest that female entrepreneurs are likely to rely on more informal recruitment methods and informal training practices. They have strong relationships with local communities, but they focus on customers beyond the locals. Seasonality within tourism has been the emphasis of tourism literature due to its disruptive effect on economic transactions. However, less of the literature has examined the social effects of seasonality, which is where this study can contribute by exploring how gender roles related to social and domestic responsibilities are renegotiated during the low and high seasons when tourism entrepreneurs re-adjust to new time-demand realities. Yet, the narrative research design is not widely used in the Sri Lankan context. Therefore, this article attempts to add to the entrepreneurial networking knowledge by analyzing stories towards female entrepreneurs' experience and social constructionist perspective.

Educating Interactive Narrative Designers: Cornerstones of a Program

In recent years, games with a focus on narrative have been a growing area. However, so far, interactive narrative aspects have not been the focus of video game education (with the noted exception of a small number of programs in game writing), which indicates that many narrative designers are self-trained. The insular status means that many designers use private vocabulary and conceptualizations that are not directly transferable. This state of affairs is an obstacle to productive discourse and has negative consequences for the further development of the professional field. By starting an educational program, we aim to address this problem using the opportunity to also include perspectives outside of games. We report on the first iteration of a minor in interactive narrative design, and reflect on lessons learned, while considering future trajectories for this and similar programs.

The Memories of Our Future: The Memories of Maūi

<p>This thesis proposes a way to re-inhabit and transform the adverse identity of an old offshore oil and gas platform. Located 35 kilometers off the West Coast of Taranaki, New Zealand, the Māui A Platform (also known as MPA) is transformed in this thesis design investigation into an Environmental Centre, a living retreat for ‘children’ (in fact, for adults who will be encouraged in the design to see life through the eyes of children). The intention is to generate knowledge and awareness about the environment. The Māui A and Māui B offshore oil and gas platforms are nearing the end of their economic lifespan. Globally, the current most common decommissioning method of oil platforms involves the use of explosives at the base of the jacket. The structure is then towed to shore and dismantled. The explosives leave scars not only on the landscape the platforms once inhabited; they critically damage the surrounding marine ecology, vast numbers of marine species. This is of severe concern for the marine life and ecosystems surrounding the Māui A & Māui B Platforms as they are located in an extremely sensitive marine area where over 30 percent of the world’s cetacean species inhabit or through which they frequently migrate. Only two of these marine mammal species are not listed as ‘species of concern’ in the New Zealand Threat Classification list. The future of these platforms does not need to cause more adversity to the environment, but rather can regenerate it. By re-purposing rather than exploding and dismantling these structures, this thesis aims to propose a way to re-inhabit the Māui A Platform and transform it into an educational retreat that enables further awareness, reconciliation, restoration, and protection of marine systems, environment, and threatened marine species. This thesis explores opportunities to create a closed circuit system as a means of providing food, fresh water, water treatment and energy for the platform. To achieve this regenerative solution in ways that will resonate with those who visit the Māui A Platform, this project enters the realm of the imagination. The imagination is fundamental to learning - hence the proposition that this design be framed as both mythological and experiential. Narrative design – story telling – is explored as a tool to connect sustainable awareness and consciousness as a means to help educate the beneficiaries of this world – our ‘children’. To encourage the adult visitors to fully recognise that the beneficiaries are indeed our children, the thesis investigation will design the new Environmental Centre through the eyes of the child. As a tool to enhance the historic narrative of the site and context, the design strategically frames traces of important or unnoticed elements or equipment of the Māui A Platform. In order to be understood and engaged with by ‘children’, this project enters the realm of the imagination enabling the design to be both mythological and experiential.</p>

The Memories of Our Future: The Memories of Maūi

<p>This thesis proposes a way to re-inhabit and transform the adverse identity of an old offshore oil and gas platform. Located 35 kilometers off the West Coast of Taranaki, New Zealand, the Māui A Platform (also known as MPA) is transformed in this thesis design investigation into an Environmental Centre, a living retreat for ‘children’ (in fact, for adults who will be encouraged in the design to see life through the eyes of children). The intention is to generate knowledge and awareness about the environment. The Māui A and Māui B offshore oil and gas platforms are nearing the end of their economic lifespan. Globally, the current most common decommissioning method of oil platforms involves the use of explosives at the base of the jacket. The structure is then towed to shore and dismantled. The explosives leave scars not only on the landscape the platforms once inhabited; they critically damage the surrounding marine ecology, vast numbers of marine species. This is of severe concern for the marine life and ecosystems surrounding the Māui A & Māui B Platforms as they are located in an extremely sensitive marine area where over 30 percent of the world’s cetacean species inhabit or through which they frequently migrate. Only two of these marine mammal species are not listed as ‘species of concern’ in the New Zealand Threat Classification list. The future of these platforms does not need to cause more adversity to the environment, but rather can regenerate it. By re-purposing rather than exploding and dismantling these structures, this thesis aims to propose a way to re-inhabit the Māui A Platform and transform it into an educational retreat that enables further awareness, reconciliation, restoration, and protection of marine systems, environment, and threatened marine species. This thesis explores opportunities to create a closed circuit system as a means of providing food, fresh water, water treatment and energy for the platform. To achieve this regenerative solution in ways that will resonate with those who visit the Māui A Platform, this project enters the realm of the imagination. The imagination is fundamental to learning - hence the proposition that this design be framed as both mythological and experiential. Narrative design – story telling – is explored as a tool to connect sustainable awareness and consciousness as a means to help educate the beneficiaries of this world – our ‘children’. To encourage the adult visitors to fully recognise that the beneficiaries are indeed our children, the thesis investigation will design the new Environmental Centre through the eyes of the child. As a tool to enhance the historic narrative of the site and context, the design strategically frames traces of important or unnoticed elements or equipment of the Māui A Platform. In order to be understood and engaged with by ‘children’, this project enters the realm of the imagination enabling the design to be both mythological and experiential.</p>