CoE Evaluation

Project objectives

The Code of Everand massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) is a digital computer game developed as part of the Department for Transport’s (DfT) THINK! Campaign. The aim of the game is to improve children’s attitudes towards traffic safety and their road-crossing behaviour.

The aim of this project is to evaluate the effect of the MMOG Code of Everand (CoE) on childrens road-crossing behaviour and attitudes to traffic safety. The project is led by the SGI as an international centre of excellence for serious games, virtual worlds and interactive digital media, and the partners are the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), one of the largest and most comprehensive independent centres working in transport in the world and Futurelab, a world leading centre for the study of games in education.

The comprehensive evaluative approach consists of the following five strands of research:

• a review of the relevant literature;
• a large scale survey on road use and computer gaming behaviour as well as attitudes to traffic safety and traffic education amongst a nationally representative sample of children and young adolescents (aged 9 to 13), including a subsample of CoE players; the survey will aim to explore the target group’s current levels of exposure to roads and road crossing situations as well as computer games and will highlight potential differences between Code of Everand players and non-players; the information gathered would support the development of hypotheses as well as structural models, and will inform sampling for the subsequent experimental work.


• web-based survey with current Code of Everand players (aged 9 to 13) would provide information on the characteristics of player demographics (insofar as this information is not already available), would explore typical patterns of usage such as the number of sessions typically played, preferred gaming session length, perceived appeal of the Code of Everand and perceived aim of the game. This survey will help assess when and in how far current players understand the connection of the game with road safety since studies suggest the efficacy of analogical problem solving is closely linked to the scaffolding and support learners receive when transitioning skills (Gick and Holyoak, 1980). Furthermore, the study will analyse the specific attractions of the game are to the target group so that such success criteria can be replicated in other gaming approaches. The information obtained on current playing patterns of the Code of Everand would inform the development of an appropriate approach to the experimental evaluation of the game, i.e. the number and length of session participants in the controlled trial should play to replicate typical Code of Everand playing patterns.
• detailed qualitative case study work with young people in schools and;
quantitative experimental evaluation of the game’s capacity to

• support attitudinal change among the target group through controlled trials assessed by pre- and post- survey
• impact children’s actual road crossing behaviour, specifically stopping at the kerb and checking for vehicles in both directions before attempting to cross the road

Project contact

Dr. Adam Qureshi

Project Partners



Project Support

Funded by United Kingdom's Department for Tranport (DfT)