RAPID: Development and deployment of a digital game to combat COVID-19 misconceptions

早期的报告显示，公众对新型冠状病毒的风险、传播、预防和治疗存在一些误解。如果不采取行动，这种误解可能对个人和社会造成严重和不可逆转的伤害。该项目回应了更有效地纠正对COVID-19的误解的迫切需要，并改善了先前失败的尝试，以改变对有争议或充满情感的主题的信念。通过数字游戏促进情感参与，该项目旨在克服信仰改变的一些心理障碍。通过游戏化进行广泛传播的潜力将为游戏化数字平台是否可以成为克服传统信仰修正直接途径局限性的场所提供重要见解。 该项目将提供重要的见解，以解决游戏化的教育内容是否能有效地纠正充满情感和两极分化的COVID-19误解这一紧迫问题。该项目为成功纠正COVID-19误解提供的解决方案集中在两个相互关联的目标上：（1）设计专门的内容，以促进已知的认知过程的形式，以纠正误解和（2）开发一种新的交付方法来呈现这种内容，以减轻负面影响和偏见的推理。这个项目将解决这两个问题，一个新的数字游戏，集成了认知和游戏化设计原则的信念修订，并可能代表一个转型的增强个人如何与具有挑战性的教育内容互动。这款数字游戏将在美国在线广泛传播，可以在移动的或桌面设备上玩。总的来说，问答游戏将被设计为积极参与学习者，因为他们通过游戏元素和机制处理教育内容。平台上的情感、信念和用户交互将被数据挖掘，以获得相关的学习者分析变量、配置文件和成功预测因素。研究结果将用于迭代修改后续的游戏开发和设计，以优化成功指标。该项目将推进数字学习环境和过程的基本知识，以纠正具有挑战性的误解，并解决加强公众对COVID-19的认识的重要国家问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Early reports show that the general public holds several misconceptions regarding the risks, transmission, prevention, and treatment of the novel coronavirus. If not acted upon, such misconceptions may lead to serious and irreversible harm to individuals and societies. This project responds to the urgent need to more effectively correct misconceptions about COVID-19 and to improve upon prior failed attempts to change beliefs about controversial or emotionally-laden subjects. By promoting affective engagement via digital games, this project seeks to overcome some of the psychological barriers to belief change. The potential for broad dissemination through gamification will provide important insights into whether gamified digital platforms may be a venue to overcome limitations of traditional direct routes of belief revision. The project will provide important insights into the pressing question of whether gamified educational content can effectively correct emotionally-laden and polarized COVID-19 misconceptions.The solutions this project provides for successful revision of COVID-19 misconception centers on two interlocking objectives: (1) design of content specifically to promote the forms of cognitive processes known to revise misconceptions and (2) develop a new delivery method to present such content that mitigates negative affect and biased reasoning. This project will address both problems with a novel digital game that integrates cognitive and gamification design principles for belief revision and may represent a transformational augmentation in how individuals interact with challenging educational content. The digital game will be widely disseminated online in the U.S. and can be played on mobile or desktop devices. Overall, the quiz game will be designed to positively engage learners as they process educational content via game elements and mechanics. Affect, belief, and user interactions on the platform will be data mined for relevant learner analytic variables, profiles, and predictors of success. Findings will be used to iteratively modify subsequent game development and design to optimize success metrics. The project will advance fundamental knowledge of digital learning contexts and processes in correcting challenging misconceptions and address important national concerns of strengthening the general public’s knowledge of COVID-19.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.