AUTHOR=Zhang Jiayi , Xu Jing , Li Muru 

TITLE=The impact of educational live action role-playing games on social–emotional competence: a mixed-method study with Chinese college students

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 16 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1538761

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1538761

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=BackgroundSocial–emotional competence is critical for university students’ personal development and social adaptation, and exploring effective educational interventions in this regard is an important research area. Live action role-playing games (LARPs) have shown potential in promoting social skills and emotional regulation, but their specific impacts on Chinese university students remain largely unexplored.ObjectiveThis mixed-method research was designed to explore the influence of real-time educational role-playing games (LARPs) on the social–emotional competence of Chinese university students.MethodsA sample of 84 participants was recruited, with 42 assigned to the control group and 42 to the experimental group. Over an 8-week period, the experimental group engaged in the educational live action role-playing games project for 2–5 h per week. To comprehensively evaluate the social–emotional competence of the participants, the Social–Emotional Competence Questionnaire was employed for quantitative assessment. Additionally, in-depth one-on-one interviews were employed within a qualitative research design to conduct thematic analysis. Based on quantitative and qualitative research, an explanatory sequential design was adopted to comprehensively identify the research findings.Results and DiscussionThe results demonstrated that, compared with the control group, the experimental group exhibited a significant increase in social–emotional competence. In the dimensions of Engaging with others, Collaboration, and Open-mindedness, the improvements were remarkable. Further in-depth analysis indicated significant progress in specific sub-dimensions within each competency. In Engaging with others, Assertiveness and Sociability were enhanced; in Collaboration, Empathy and Co-operation were improved; and in Open-mindedness, Tolerance and Curiosity showed growth. Both the qualitative and quantitative data consistently suggest that educational live action role-playing games can arouse the interest of a wide range of students and effectively enhance their social–emotional competence. Drawing from the results, this research offered pedagogical and analytical insights to enhance the integration of educational live action role-playing games into co-curricular programs at the higher education context: providing high-quality scenario scripts with pedagogical significance, creating immersive contextually authentic environments, and implementing professional development programs for facilitators. This research also provided a new perspective on integrating game-centered elements and cooperative mechanisms into official curricula.