Climate change is one of humankind's grand challenges, and how we think about it influences how we perceive its risks and act. Understanding people's mental models of climate change (that is, how they internally represent it) and potentially challenging and changing them can be a fruitful avenue towards engagement. However, our understanding of how games can affect climate change mental models is limited, especially in the lack of control conditions with comparable content. In this experiment, participants created cognitive maps of climate change before and after experiencing an immersive VR game, a desktop PC game, or a text with graphs. We show that all conditions improved the quality, focus, and systems orientation of cognitive maps, but no significant differences were found between groups. The intervention effectively increased the salience of issues such as health and biodiversity impacts, even though changes were limited in scope. The game was on average more enjoyable than the text, with the VR version significantly more so than the other two conditions. The findings suggest that games can be a viable and attractive communication and learning method where engagement is a struggle. We provide avenues for future research and, especially, game design in this area.

Widespread climate change engagement is needed to confront our current environmental crises, but it remains difficult to attain. Methods such as visualizations and experiential learning activities, including games and gamification, have been proposed to engage citizens beyond what generic and one-way information sharing can, but rigorous studies comparing the effects of game-based learning with traditional methods are rare. Therefore, this study investigates the effects of a serious game vs. control on learning outcomes related to climate change concepts. We conducted an experiment involving N=105 participants randomly assigned to two treatment groups (a desktop screen-based video game and an immersive VR version of the same game) and a control (a text with charts) and investigated the differences between pre- and post-intervention measures of knowledge. The results show that all three conditions had a large effect on learning, but there were no significant improvement differences between groups. Therefore, video games, either on desktop or virtual reality, may be as effective as more traditional instructional materials. Based on detailed observations of the questionnaire data, we also provide game design recommendations. Future studies could focus on specific features of learning and cognitive engagement and expand this experimental design to affect and behavior.

Games are considered promising for engaging people with climate change. In virtual worlds, players can adopt empowering roles to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and/or adapt to climate impacts. However, the lack of a comprehensive exploration of existing climate-related identities and actions prevents understanding their potential. Here, we analyze 80 video games and classify avatar identities, or expected player roles, into six types. Climate selves encourage direct life changes; climate citizens are easy to identify with and imitate; climate heroes are inspirational figures upholding environmental values; empowered individuals deliberate to avoid a tragedy of the commons; authorities should consider stakeholders and the environment; and faction leaders engage in bi- or multilateral relations. Adaptation is often for decision-making profiles, while empowered individuals, authorities, and faction leaders usually face conflicting objectives. We discuss our results in relation to avatar research and provide suggestions for researchers, designers, and educators.

Games have been used for utilitarian purposes since at least the 1960s, with gamification pursuing game-like experiences in areas such as education, health, and sustainability. While these methods generally attempt to improve life for players, a central and underexplored issue is the friction between a design that wants players to attain a utilitarian outcome, such as learning, and players who often strive for self-directed play. Based on data collected from user testing of a digital serious game and following an inductive process, we created a thematic framework that focuses on the frictions and tensions that may arise between design and player. This framework may be used to understand how players engage holistically with serious games, but also to improve such games to maximize engagement with the content while acknowledging and allowing for player agency and emergent behavior.

Due to the datafication of our society the necessity to increase data literacy is at an all time high. In this brief paper we present the design of the gamified application GANDALF, aiming to promote data literacy and used in experiment-based research. Following a methodology of research through design, we account for the different phases of the process and frame them as explorative and insightful epistemic stages. Such recount allow us some critical reflection over the design of GANDALF and to formulate five key design considerations that we hope will be useful in the future for the creation of software with similar purposes.

Gamification is increasingly employed in learning environments as a way to increase student motivation and consequent learning outcomes. However, while the research on the effectiveness of gamification in the context of education has been growing, there are blind spots regarding which types of gamification may be suitable for different educational contexts. This study investigates the effects of the challenge-based gamification on learning in the area of statistics education. We developed a gamification approach, called Horses for Courses, which is composed of main game design patterns related to the challenge-based gamification; points, levels, challenges and a leaderboard. Having conducted a 2 (read: yes vs. no) x 2 (gamification: yes vs. no) between-subject experiment, we present a quantitative analysis of the performance of 365 students from two different academic majors: Electrical and Computer Engineering (n=279), and Business Administration (n=86). The results of our experiments show that the challenge-based gamification had a positive impact on student learning compared to traditional teaching methods (compared to having no treatment and treatment involving reading exercises). The effect was larger for females or for students at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.