Emotional competences and the interaction with digital games in childhood: Scoping review

Abstract

Emotional competences are fundamental to social interactions and influence school learning. This work focuses on using digital games to improve emotional competences. This scoping review analyzed studies that addressed digital games and emotions to identify the methodological designs, map the games used, ascertain the emotional competences and emotions considered, and synthesize the results. The review was conducted on the Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, and Psycnet databases. The initial search resulted in 689 papers; from reading titles and abstracts based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 92 were read in full, and 33 were analyzed. Most of the studies proposed interventions based on the use of games (n = 22), others analyzed the effect of the games without interventions (n = 5), and the rest focused on aspects of the development of games aimed at improving emotional competences (n = 6). The abilities related to identifying and recognizing emotions, empathy, and emotional regulation prove more susceptible to improvements in interventions, and many focus on anxiety and anger. This review offers some indications of how the development of digital games may favor the exercise of emotional competences, directing those interventions to be longer and continuous.