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Method

Setting

The “Play2Talk” program was implemented from December 2016 until November 2017 in two elementary schools, one Israeli-Palestinian and one Israeli-Jewish, in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.  […]

 […]during the study period, students took part either in the “Play2Talk” intervention program or in a Minecraft Computer Activity (MCA) control program. […]

Procedure

The “Play2Talk” program was comprised of six “virtual” 90-min sessions in which students played a video game together from their schools' computer rooms. For these virtual sessions, the Minecraft video game environment was specifically customized in order to encourage cooperation between the players and enable fluent online writing communication. Moreover, certain precautions were built in to reduce the potential for aggressive or violent behavior. For example, the virtual world was monitored constantly to ensure that a safe gaming environment was maintained. Though a fair number of Israeli-Palestinian students know Hebrew, the system automatically translated the chat messages into Arabic or Hebrew via the Microsoft translator to ensure the flow of written chat communication between the two groups during the virtual sessions. Preceding the virtual meetings, a preparation workshop lead by a gaming expert was held for each class, presenting the intended program, its rationale, and its schedule. Students in the experimental group were told they were going to participate in a special program that will enable them to play video games together with children from a Palestinian or Jewish school, respectively, from their city.

In each virtual session, the two experimental classes, each from its own school computer room, logged in simultaneously to a shared game world. Each session had a main task assignment (see Table 1 for the program's outline and see Pictures 1 and 2 for examples). In the first session, students were provided with the opportunity to get acquainted with the virtual environment of the game. From the second session on, students were divided into intergroup teams, each composed of half Jewish and half Palestinian students. The teams were arranged in growing numbers of team members. Thus, in the second session, teams were comprised of two randomly assigned students, making up a total of 23 pairs. In the third session, 11 teams of four members each were randomly assigned from the previously-assigned pairs. In the fifth through seventh sessions, two groups of 23 members were randomly assigned from the teams of fours created in session 3. The two teams faced a series of challenges and tasks constructed so as to require an increasing level of communication and cooperation between the players within each team in order to win points. Students could communicate via the game's chat system as well as through additional social media platforms outside the game. Furthermore, the game world was open once a week for after-school play sessions, and the children were encouraged to take part and carry on with “bonus” challenges after school.

In addition to the virtual sessions, a preparatory workshop took place in each of the schools, and two face-to-face encounters were held. [...] the first face-to-face meeting was held during the fourth session. It was aimed to further familiarize the students with their playmate counterparts. The Jewish students hosted the Palestinian students at their school, prepared a small show for them, played social games with them, and gave them small gifts. The second face-to-face meeting was held at the Palestinian school, intended to celebrate the end of the project and announce winners in the competition. In this session, the Palestinians prepared a small show for their guests, played social games with them, and gave them small gifts. The students presented the final Minecraft products, and winners were announced. Notably, both Palestinian and Jewish parents attended the last face-to face meeting. […]

Measures
We included as dependent variables a combination of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral indicators of intergroup tolerance: […]

Emotional prejudice […]

Positive and negative characteristics […]

Negative stereotyping […]

Negative behavioral expectations […]

Willingness for social contact […]

Actual contact […]