"Why Doesn't She Just Leave?": Using Digital Simulation in MSW Education to Illuminate IPV Survivors' Help-Seeking Barriers

Background and Purpose: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health problem. Attitudes towards IPV are related to victim-survivors’ help-seeking behavior and their experiences with legal, justice, and support services. Social workers offer a critical resource for those experiencing IPV, yet research shows they are not immune to holding victim-blaming beliefs. Thus, we conducted a pilot evaluation of an innovative, web-based game designed to engage social work students around the help-seeking barriers faced by IPV survivors, promote empathy, and counter stigma. Our application of a web-based intervention was selected because research demonstrates the effectiveness of “serious games,” including video games and simulations, with evidence for more significant learning gains than traditional didactic instruction. This work contributes to the Grand Challenges for Social Work of 1) harnessing technology for social good and 2) building healthy relationships to end violence.

Methods: MSW students from three sections of the course Violence and Abuse in Adulthood at a large Northeastern university completed the game as part of their coursework and were recruited via digital flyers and email. Participants (n=57) were mostly white (58%), cisgender women (89%), aged 20-30 (66%), and were completing practicum placements with victim-survivors of IPV (54%). Participants completed a cross-sectional survey assessing the game’s utility and acceptability and its influence on their knowledge and attitudes about IPV. A subset of participants (n=10) also completed an optional follow-up interview, further eliciting behavioral changes as a result of completing the game. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded thematically using an inductive approach to qualitative analysis.

Results: Results indicate increased knowledge of and empathy for challenges faced by IPV victim-survivors, acceptability of the game’s interactive web-based format, and utility for training social workers to support diverse populations. Participants felt that the game facilitated recognition of individual- and structural-level biases, including how victim-survivors’ intersectional marginalized identities compound help-seeking barriers. While most participants (93%) indicated they would apply learnings to their roles as social workers, data suggest that learning gains were more significant for students without prior experience in violence- or trauma-focused practicum placements. Notably, in-person or live synchronous discussions with instructors and peers appeared to augment learnings from the web-based game.

Conclusion and Implications: This study contributes to the growing evidence base for experiential learning among helping professions, specifically the utility of serious games in IPV education and training for social work. Findings affirm previous research demonstrating that blended instructional models are especially effective for teaching those in helping professions, including in the domain of IPV and other forms of gender-based violence service provision.