War in Your Own City. Transformative Learning through Experiencing the Newsgame I am Mosul

This study investigates whether people’s mindsets can be transformed (i.e., transformative learning) through a geolocalized narrative news game. An online 2 (agency: high/low) x 2 (personal relevance: yes/no) between-subjects experiment was done (n = 215) using the newsgame I am Mosul. The participants experienced the impact of war in a personally (ir)relevant Dutch city with or without the agency to make choices for the main character influencing the storyline. The results show a positive effect of agency on transformative learning mediated by identification and - through identification - transportation. Personal relevance positively affected identification.