Supervisor: Dr. Martin Turner.

What will you be doing?

You will be working primarily with Dr Martin Turner, with a PhD student Zarah Eve, to compile a comprehensive review of research which looks at how computer games are used to deliver CBT. You will gather all relevant research and work with Martin and Zarah to write a report on what has been found in the research, and how it can inform the development of a new CBT computer game. This will involve searching for papers, understanding them, and feeding back to the research team. It will also involve researching the current games that are on the market to understand how our new game can be different, and better.

What will you achieve?

You will learn how to carry out sophisticated systematic searches across a range of academic databases using advanced searching techniques. You will gather all relevant material together. You will then evaluate and synthesise the material. You will learn how to write a coherent report with an executive summary. You will also learn important collaboration skills. You will be part of something big and exciting, and will help in the development of a game resource that will help people access CBT support.

What will you produce?

The synthesis will be produced in report form, and will be a review of relevant high-quality research, and a breakdown of what games are available on the market currently. This will be incorporated into a project bid application.

The report may also be used as a basis for one or more peer-review articles.

The bigger picture…

This internship is one of various internships for the Grand Challenge “Serious CBT Adventure Game”. In this Grand Challenge a team of academics are developing a serious computer game that engages players in CBT. The team are working on market research, literature reviews, demo production, demo testing, community engagement for co-production, storyboarding, and illustration. The team plan to submit a funding grant in late July 2022, and therefore the internships will help prepare for this.