At Penn State University, a card game is quietly reshaping how undergraduates think about each other and the world around them. Called the IMPACT Deck—short for Inclusive and Multicultural Perspectives with Action, Characters and Technologies—the tool was born during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to spark meaningful conversations in college classrooms, and new research shows it's working.
The study, published in the Journal of Play in Adulthood and led by Sarah Zipf, a research project manager at Penn State University Libraries' Teaching and Learning with Technology program, assessed whether gameplay could actually develop empathy and critical thinking among college students. The answer appears to be yes. What makes IMPACT distinct is its character-driven design: players encounter cards depicting individuals with rich backstories, then navigate the game by playing action and technology cards that prompt questions about how different innovations affect those characters' lives—and their own.
The research team, which included graduate assistants Tehniyet Azam and Pauline John alongside TLT staff member Zach Lonsinger, surveyed 104 Penn State students from 30 different classes who had used the deck in their coursework. They measured empathy using the Basic Empathy Scale, a standardized assessment tool, combined with custom reflection questions and qualitative feedback. The results were striking: students consistently described the deck as a "fun way to learn" and credited it with helping them adopt new perspectives and connect more deeply with classmates.
The most frequent themes in student responses centered on "perspective-taking and playfulness," followed by "peer interaction" and "personal development." But the quantitative data told an equally compelling story. Students' emotional and cognitive empathy scores showed a positive correlation with statements like "I learned something new about my peers" and "IMPACT helped me have hard conversations." Nearly all students agreed that learning about diverse populations matters, and they strongly felt the deck helped them think critically about how different groups experience technology.
Zipf emphasized that this isn't about forcing connection—it's about creating the conditions for it to happen naturally. "Contemporary college students' empathy development is 'entangled' with their overuse of technology," she explained, "and part of their education should include empathy development because it leads to an understanding of those around them and other important social aspects of what it means to be a good citizen and member of society." The IMPACT Deck, she noted, offers a "low-stakes, safe and playful activity to explore others' experiences and ideas"—precisely the kind of space many students need.
What strikes observers most is how simple the mechanism is. By wrapping empathy development in the engaging framework of a card game, Penn State's researchers have found a way to make something abstract—understanding how technology shapes different lives—tangible and even enjoyable. As college campuses grapple with rising polarization and screen fatigue, tools like this suggest that sometimes the most powerful learning happens when we're focused on play, conversation, and the stories of the people sitting next to us.