Learning about Sustainable Mobility in Primary Schools from a Playful Perspective: A Focus Group Approach

Abstract

Nowadays, educational activities need to be oriented towards sustainable mobility as a tool to guarantee a better future for younger generations. Two focus groups (FGs) of children aged 10–12 years were formed, for the design, development, and evaluation of educational tools for gamification techniques on the subject of sustainable mobility. The study involved a group of children from three classes in the fifth-year of primary education at a school in the City of Burgos (Spain). The first focus group revealed the cognitive perceptions of the children toward sustainable mobility and their cognitive understanding of its need. The information was used in the design of learning activities of gamification techniques. The children in the second focus group, after the educational experience, were evaluated with regard to the knowledge they had acquired on the topic and changes in their attitudes. The basic knowledge of children before their participation in the research was limited to the environmental aspects of sustainable mobility, as we observed in the first focus group. Through the use of the gamification tools, the children acquired new concepts that clarified the importance of social and economic components linked to sustainable mobility, and they started to develop an awareness of how to play an active role in changing their behavior.

Mapping Role-Playing Games in Ibero-America: An Educational Review

“…Trends suggests a more theoretical approach at the beginning of the period studied, becoming more practical at the end, with a key influence from LARPs and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). For example, it can be observed that some topics are related to video games, two of them from a negative perspective [57,62], one about educational benefits [22], and finally a recent article about Classcraft [8], very related to MMORPGs [7,9]. Others are related to more physically interactive situations, like roleplaying [58,60,63] and LARPs [61] with applications for socialization, attitudes, and physical education, and several proposals including history [27,56], attitudes and values [30,55,60], mathematics [40], politics [59], sustainability [39], etc.…”

“…Without the monograph from EKS in 2010, interest in the literature would not have been so strong. RPGs would have been found, especially compared with popularity of gamification [41,42,64], for example, with the use of Classcraft [7][8][9], or GBL. Both tendencies have a strong relationship with RPGs, a methodology with a huge potential in education [59].…”

“…It seems there are a lot of different RPG applications within the context of education. Educational trends such as gamification [41] may change the old negative perspective, incorporating elements of RPGs in applications, e.g., LMS "Classcraft" [7][8][9], with elements based on classic RPGs, as characters, experience points, levels, etc. The importance of games as a basic part of didactic design is clear, and RPGs can play an important role as an active methodology inside GBL and gamification.…”

“…Gamification can be defined as the use of game elements and mechanics in non-recreational contexts [6]. It is frequently supported by online applications, such as Classdojo or Classcraft (Figure 1) [7][8][9]. On the other hand, GBL takes another approach, incorporating games in the educational process [10].…”

Nurturing Environmental Education at the Tertiary Education Level in China: Can Mobile Augmented Reality and Gamification Help?

“…Recently, with the exponential growth of information and communication technology (ICT), mobile computing devices have become commonplace among university students [7,8]. Along with this trend, there also emerges a research interest in gamifying EE in recent years [9][10][11][12][13][14]. However, at present, it is not rare for university teachers to characterize mobile devices as detrimental to the quality of university education.…”