Promoting systems thinking and pro-environmental policy support through serious games
Promoting systems thinking and pro-environmental policy support through serious games
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DOI：
10.3389/fenvs.2022.957204
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发表时间：
2022-10
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
P. Sajjadi;M. Bagher;J. Myrick;Joe Guerriero;Tim White;A. Klippel;J. Swim
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
P. Sajjadi;M. Bagher;J. Myrick;Joe Guerriero;Tim White;A. Klippel;J. Swim
我们评估了通过一个数字严肃游戏向公众讲授“关键地带”——地球的外层，对所有生命都至关重要——是否会影响成年人对环境的思考和对环境保护政策的支持。一项实验（N = 152）比较了玩“CZ调查员”和观看静态网站对系统思考食物-能源-水（FEW）关系和支持相关公共政策的影响。严肃游戏对那些过去科学教育程度较低的参与者的兴趣结果影响最大。对于这些人来说，相对于静态网站，严肃游戏增加了对食物、能源和水系统之间相互联系强度的感知（p < 0.01），并支持调节人类对环境影响的政策（p < 0.01）。中介分析显示，系统思维的增加解释了政策支持的增加。这组用户还表示，游戏比网站更容易、更有趣、更有效。中介分析还发现，感知学习效能对系统思维和政策支持的中介作用强于游戏的易用性和享受性效应。这些结果对环境教育很有价值，因为了解复杂系统内的相互联系对于解决环境问题至关重要，特别是对于科学背景较少的学习者。
We evaluated whether teaching the public about the “critical zone”–the Earth’s outer skin, critical to all life—via a digital serious game can affect adults’ systems thinking about the environment and support policies to protect the environment. An experiment (N = 152) compared the effects of playing “CZ Investigator” versus viewing a static website on systems thinking about the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus and support for relevant public policies. The serious game had the strongest effects on our outcomes of interest for those participants with less past science education. For these individuals, the serious game, relative to the static website, increased perceptions of the strength of interconnections across food, energy, and water systems (p < .01) and support for policies that regulated human impacts on the environment (p < .01). Mediation analysis revealed that increases in systems thinking explain increases in policy support. This group of users also indicated that the game was easier, more enjoyable, and more effective for learning than the website. Mediation analyses also revealed that perceived learning effectiveness was a stronger mediator than ease and enjoyment effects of the game on systems thinking and policy support. These results are valuable for environmental education because understanding interconnections within complex systems is vital for solving environmental problems, particularly for learners with less background in science.