JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The amount of physical activity among the majority of children and adolescents around the world does not meet the recommended daily physical activity of the World Health Organization. Active school transport (AST) has been recognized as a potential method to increase children’s daily physical activity, which in many countries falls behind the World Health Organization’s recommended amount of daily physical activity. Gamification has been recognized as a suitable method to promote AST among children. We have previously developed a game named Tic-Tac-Training for promoting active transport at workplaces; however, the game has not yet been applied to school contexts.

Objective:

The overall objective of this study is to investigate the gamification of AST in northern Sweden. Specifically, we aimed to explore how the collaborative and competitive multiplayer game Tic-Tac-Training functions for promoting AST at schools, and how it can be improved to be more suitable for schoolchildren.

Methods:

First, we presented the features, technical implementation and architecture of Tic-Tac-Training, which was implemented using the Scrum agile software development method. Second, we conducted a formative evaluation with 16 schoolchildren (9 males, 6 females, 1 other; ages: 11-12) in Luleå, Sweden. For this purpose, a questionnaire was developed for measuring usability, motivation and impact. Third, we conducted focus group interviews with 33 children (13 males, 20 females; ages: 12-13) to gather ideas for gamifying AST. Fourth, we applied the Octalysis gamification framework to organize and analyze the collected ideas for future development.

Results:

The architecture of Tic-Tac-Training was built to be flexible so as to allow users (e.g. teachers) to create new content, thereby reusing the game for different purposes. However, the results of the formative evaluation with children indicated several issues, including lack of interesting game features, lack of support for continuous engagement, competitive features being disliked by children, and lack of incentives for discourse and participation. New features, such rewards, collectibles and levels, were added in the game based on the results. The focus group data collection revealed further ideas for gamifying AST, such as using avatars, virtual currency and trading, and context-sensitive tasks. Finally, a roadmap was created based on these ideas with feature suggestions for future development.

Conclusions:

Although the study has limitations, such as short length and inability to test the new version of Tic-Tac-Training due to COVID-19, the results have potential impacts on how reusable gamified AST interventions can be developed and what kind of gamification elements schoolchildren in the Swedish context wish to see. These results can be of interest to game researchers and teachers who wish to apply gamification to AST or more widely in school contexts. Finally, we aim to continue developing the game by following the proposed roadmap. Clinical Trial: Not applicable.