JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Physical activity (PA) promotion should start early in childhood and adolescence. Digital approaches have the potential to make activity promotion attractive and age-appropriate for the target group. KIJANI is a mobile application approach to promote PA in children and adolescents via gamification and augmented reality.

Objective:

This study protocol describes the KIJANI intervention in detail, as well as the evaluation approach.

Methods:

KIJANI is based on the concept that virtual coins can be earned through PA e.g. in the form of collected step count. With these coins, in turn, blocks can be bought, which can be used to create virtual buildings and integrate them into the player’s real-world environment via augmented reality. KIJANI can be played at predefined play locations that were comprehensively identified as safe, child-friendly, and attractive for PA by the target group in a partner project. The evaluation process will be divided in two different stages. Phase-I-evaluation will be a mixed-methods approach with one-on-one semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to evaluate the user experience and receive feedback from the target group. After the implementation of results and feedback from the target group, phase-II-evaluation will proceed in the form of a two-arm randomized controlled trial in which the effectiveness of KIJANI will be assessed via objectively measured PA as well as questionnaires.

Results:

The study received ethical approval by the ethical board of the Technical University of Munich. Participants for phase-I-evaluation are currently being recruited.

Conclusions:

The study will help to determine the efficacy, applicability and user experience of a gamified activity promotion application in children and adolescents.