Gamification Approaches for Education and Engagement on Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Searching for Best Practices
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. A New Education Paradigm: From Information Exposure to Action
3. Gamification and Behavioral Change
4. Theoretical Frameworks
4.1. Octalysis Framework
4.2. Climate Change Engagement through Games Framework
- Cognitive involvement: what people think and know, and how many mental efforts they are willing to make. These are credible, experiential learning, concrete, challenging, leveling-up, fun, achievable, feedback-oriented, meaningful, narrative-driven, simulating.
- Emotional involvement: what and how strongly people feel about climate change. These are identity-driven, concrete, challenging, efficacy-enhancing, reward-driven, achievable, feedback-oriented, meaningful, narrative-driven, simulating.
- Behavioral involvement: what and how much people do to address climate change. These are social, efficacy-enhancing, reward-driven, leveling up, fun, achievable, feedback-oriented, meaningful, narrative-driven, simulating.
5. Materials and Methods
6. Results
6.1. Application of Octalysis Framework
- Consumption of Daily Life (score: <50): this aims to search for “power-eating monsters” at home through a webpage gamified calculator developed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan in 2018 [29]. It has been developed to provide trustworthy measurement for households, containing diagnosis, results and solutions for electricity performance. By providing a comparison between different electronic devices and with other households, the energy-saving recommendations keep the public from producing a great amount of electricity during peak hours.Core drivers: users are requested to fill in detailed information about their electronic devices, provoking an increase in the feeling of Ownership and Possession. Regarding the Epic Meaning and Calling driver, users are named as human heroes to beat down the electricity beasts and solve energy shortage issues. By comparing a household’s energy performance with the average records, together with allowing a person to share one’s electricity percentage on social media, individuals receive peer pressure driven by Social Influence and Relatedness. However, it seems that the application focuses mainly on the Loss and Avoidance core drive to persuade households to upgrade their power-driven appliances. People indeed prefer to pay the bill smartly. In avoidance of losing extra money, users with an eco-friendly mindset have the possibility to purchase energy-saving products, but, if the current appliance works functionally and users are not confident with new settings, the Loss and Avoidance factor could work oppositely.
- Recyclebank (score: <50): an online gamified platform allowing visitors to earn points from reading articles, doing small tests, recycling and playing small games to enhance climate change-related knowledge. Users exchange recycling and waste-reusing experiences with others to collect points and purchase green products using those points [32]. Points work as a rewarding system to encourage visitors to collect and spend points on the platform frequently. The membership of Recyclebank allows users to purchase eco-friendly products or visit partner business with a discount.Core drivers: the platform applies Epic Meaning and Calling, Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback, Ownership and Possession, and Social Influence and Relatedness. The call for sharing waste-reusing and recycling ideas, acting green, and buying environment-friendly products convinces users that their efforts are meaningful. People provide recycling tips as well as waste-utilizing ideas to exchange instant feedback and comments with other users. Each post gives the individual a sense of ownership so that users stick to the platform and frequently check every latest interaction. Simultaneously, people build up a social network and influence one another on the platform. However, the commercial-oriented rewarding system, as well as scarce exclusive discounts, could decreases the users’ feeling of doing meaningful work and intentions of modifying behavior. Therefore, there is unbalance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation drivers.
- My Little Plastic Footprint (score: 50~100): operated by Plastic Soup Foundation and support by the UN, this application aims to call the public to stop using plastic products and reduce ocean pollution waste [34]. Participants are seen as heroes and encouraged to collaborate with other plastic champions to fight against plastic and ocean pollution.Core drivers: Epic Meaning and Calling is one of the main drivers. Developers also include Ownership and Possession, Social Influence and Relatedness, and Loss and Avoidance core drives in the design but place less attention on Development and Accomplishment, Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback, and Scarcity and Impatience motivation. Players receive challenges from ocean-pollution-related multiple choice questions to earn points, unlock ocean milestones, and collect junk art creations to enhance the sense of accomplishment. By answering questions, signing up to campaigns, sharing environmental solutions, or publishing plastic waste-reducing announcements, participants are empowered to give benefit to the earth in their preferred way. The art gallery collection, posting ideas, and the intention to maintain a personal image consisting of behavior change announcements increase the users’ ownership feeling. Social influences also play an important role in supervising a participants’ behavior, preventing them from quitting, and influencing others to modify their living styles. However, the application begins by asking visitors to register their email accounts, publish an announcement, and share “like” comments on social media when they are new to the program. This might bring the risk of decreasing the users’ trust. In addition, participants can only provide pollution and waste suggestions and press “like/agree” to others’ statements but are unable to exchange feedback with one another.
- Oroeco (score: 50~100): this is a gamified website and mobile application platform developed by Oroeco and the University of California, Berkeley [30]. The application records an individual’s daily behavior and checks one’s carbon value monthly and yearly. Users are encouraged to behave in environment-friendly ways and purchase green products. There are a few studies associated with this case [17,21].Core drivers: the main focus is on Development and Accomplishment, Empowerment, Creativity and Feedback, and Ownership and Possession. Epic Meaning and Calling, as well as Social Influence and Relatedness, are also included in the design. Oroeco empowers participants with instant feedback, as well as multiple quests, scoreboards, and batches, so that people can perform their preferred actions to do meaningful environmental improvements. Users collect virtual currency by updating their proactive eco-friendly behavior achievements and sharing carbon-eliminating tips. A set of batches of collection and experience-sharing posts increase the owners’ pride and social influence on the gamification platform. In this case, white hat gamification receives greater attention, while black hat motivations such as Scarcity and Impatience, Unpredictability and Curiosity, and Loss and Avoidance, which can stimulate an instant response, are avoided. Oroeceo highly relies on participants’ “voluntary” act. Once users get hooked by another gamified design or other appealing topics, they might leave the platform.
- SaveOhno (score: 100~150): this first appeared on Kickstarter to raise funds [37]. Within five years, it became an influencing social venture institute focusing on climate-change-related works and engaging the public with behavior change [31,37]. This online platform gathers environmental activists to deliver messages, raise funds, and encourage visitors to sign up petitions.Core drivers: Epic Meaning and Calling and Social Influence and Relatedness are the strongest drivers. By addressing participants as environmental activists and heroes of the virtual family members, people understand the influence of their actions. When clicking on the “sign for the petition” button, participants follow the trend to save the earth and natural species. By deciding whether other users’ eco-friendly actions are meaningful, receiving followers or participating in group campaigns, players are empowered as social influencers to affect the others on the platform. Development and Accomplishment, Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback, and Ownership and Possession core drives are also applied. Users own the right to engage with environmental concerns in multiple ways and can feel the sense of accomplishment via fund-raising, petition-signing, and gaining fans’ strategies. SaveOhno creates a virtual character coming from the next century, who writes emails to players to keep them active in visiting the platform. Therefore, this case focuses on developing white hat core drives. Black hat gamification, such as via Scarcity and Impatience, Unpredictability and Curiosity, and Loss and Avoidance motivations, also receives attention, but less.
- JouleBug (score: 100~150): this is a gamified mobile application aiming to engage users to behave in environment-friendly ways, as well as to develop a deeper connection between the local community and nature [33]. Unlike wearable devices that automatically record human behaviors, JouleBug participants need to actively click on the “buzz” button whenever they perform the desired actions to keep, record and collect points.Core drivers: Social Influence and Relatedness, Epic Meaning and Calling, and Development and Accomplishment are the three strongest core drives. The platform provides a follower/following system to encourage participants to actively update their achievements. Those who share the same values and interests can easily make links with each other. Users gain self-confidence, become more willing to join local challenges and get self-activated to do word-of-mouth communication when their social influence increases. Users can also accept taking extra actions or dealing with local challenges. Offering extra points to the beginners can ensure players to stay longer in the application. Loss and Avoidance and Scarcity and Impatience are used by providing limited opportunities and unique challenges to make the winner’s record outstanding. Black hat motivations work when players participate in time-limited group challenges. The application provides multiple options for users to choose their desired behavior modifications. However, there is a lack of urgency. According to Chou [18], if there are only 3–5 options to select, the quests should last within a limited time to improve the player’s engagement experience. This specific case seems to also find a balance between white and black hat motivations [35].
6.2. Application of Climate Change Engagement through Games Framework
- Achievable: promoting possible actions within the reach of the individual.
- Challenging: a task that requires a certain degree of effort to perform.
- Credibility: trustworthy information and inspirations.
- Feedback-oriented: evaluation of current performance relative to a goal.
- Meaningful: evoking intense feelings.
7. Discussion and Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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NAME | TOPIC | SCORE |
---|---|---|
Consumption of Daily Life | Energy saving | <50 |
Recyclebank | Waste management | <50 |
My Little Plastic Footprint | Ocean waste pollution | 50~100 |
Oroeco | CO2 emissions and energy saving | 50~100 |
SaveOhno | Environmental activism | 100~150 |
JouleBug | Daily sustainable practices | 100~150 |
Consumption of Daily Life | Oreoco | SaveOhno | Recyclebank | JouleBug | My Little Plastic Footprint | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Achievable | y | y | y | y | y | y |
Challenging | y | y | y | y | y | y |
Concrete | y | y | y | y | ||
Credibility | y | y | y | y | y | y |
Efficacy enhancing | y | y | ||||
Experiential learning | y | y | y | y | y | |
Feedback oriented | y | y | y | y | y | y |
Fun | y | y | y | |||
Identity-driven | y | |||||
Leveling-up | ||||||
Meaningful Narrative-driven | y | y | y | y | y | y |
Reward-driven | y | y | ||||
Simulating | y | y | ||||
Social | y | y | y | y | y |
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Share and Cite
Ouariachi, T.; Li, C.-Y.; Elving, W.J.L. Gamification Approaches for Education and Engagement on Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Searching for Best Practices. Sustainability 2020, 12, 4565. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114565
Ouariachi T, Li C-Y, Elving WJL. Gamification Approaches for Education and Engagement on Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Searching for Best Practices. Sustainability. 2020; 12(11):4565. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114565
Chicago/Turabian StyleOuariachi, Tania, Chih-Yen Li, and Wim J. L. Elving. 2020. "Gamification Approaches for Education and Engagement on Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Searching for Best Practices" Sustainability 12, no. 11: 4565. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114565