The aim of this study was to design a digital game that imparts the concept of urban heat island effects to aid in environmental education. Within the play-time limits, gamers must be alert to signs of warning from the environment and keep the balance between economic growth and the temperature of the environment, so they can safely manage the development of a virtual city. We investigated gamers’ learning efficiency in terms of a city’s development scale, socioeconomics and the environment, environmental sustainability, increasing areas of green metropolitan space, and heat management of environmental knowledge and gaming experience through a survey of 209 sixth graders. Interestingly, results indicate that heavy gamers are less interested in serious games; they exhibit shorter periods of concentration and lower levels of immersion. If an individual exhibits a high level of fluency in the dimensions of challenge, player skills, control, and clear goals, then she or he is able to acquire knowledge through message involvement when gaming. This allows a serious game to appear less didactic and more fun. This study explored the means by which gamers acquire procedural and descriptive knowledge related to environmental protection through gameflow and immersion.

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This study developed a game simulation based on problem solving in the management of urban waste. We then investigated the factors affecting the decisions made by players. During gameplay, the players sought to guide the development of a city via management strategies involving a balance of economic growth and environmental protection. Nature served as an anonymous recipient of the pollution caused by the actions of players. Within a very limited time period, the players had to determine the degree to which they could conserve nature, learn the limits of growth, and develop insight into the dynamic operations necessary to manage a clean city. It was found that the 34 Taiwanese undergraduate students valued economic growth highly and were willing to sacrifice nature for the sake of progress. In contrast, 35 students from Taiwanese elementary schools tended to strive for a balance between conserving nature and promoting economic growth through the building of sustainable houses that produce less pollution. However, this led to an inappropriate allocation of resources, embodying a self-interested ethos. This game taught players about the costs associated with waste processing as well as the values of fairness and reciprocity, particularly with regard to resource utilization and solid-waste management.

Background: Children are very curious. They like to play games but lack reading fluency. Conventional interfaces for information-seeking in digital libraries are unsuitable for children because they are rigid, text-based, and task-oriented. Thus, this study developed a customized interface for a digital library. To facilitate children in online searches, the design concepts included user-friendly target icons, icon recognition, and way-finding in a two-dimensional visualized environment.

PurposeThis study aims to explore preadolescents' opinions of the social media marketing strategies hosted by libraries to promote collections.Design/methodology/approachAn experimental Facebook page was created with posts containing interesting animations, games and book recommendations. A questionnaire survey was administered to 262 preadolescents between 11 and 13 years old to seek their opinions about the posts, and confirmatory factor analysis was used to measure their acceptance of the marketing strategies.FindingsThe authors examined the effects of five marketing strategies: word-of-mouth marketing, buzz marketing, event marketing, viral marketing and gamification marketing. In terms of sharing, word-of-mouth marketing proved the most popular, followed by buzz marketing. Participants were least accepting of viral marketing. The authors found that gamification marketing resulted in higher engagement than did event marketing. The preadolescent participants preferred engagement marketing strategies over information sharing strategies.Originality/valueAccording to the uses and gratification theory, preadolescents seek, share and engage with information in ways that differ from other age groups. With specific reference to hedonic engagement by preadolescents, the authors built a two-fold model to describe the information-seeking behaviors of preadolescents from the perspective of marketing strategies. The study findings indicate that librarians who use Facebook to promote library collections should first employ gamification and word-of-mouth marketing to build trust with preadolescent users. Event and buzz marketing will then be more effective when applied within the context of this trust.