“From Gamers into Environmental Citizens”: A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research on Behavior Change Games for Environmental Citizenship
As the global environmental crisis intensifies, there has been a significant interest in behavior change games (BCGs), as a viable venue to empower players’ pro-environmentalism. This pro-environmental empowerment is well-aligned with the notion of environmental citizenship (EC), which aims at trans...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2023-08-01
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| Series: | Multimodal Technologies and Interaction |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/7/8/80 |
| _version_ | 1797583625682681856 |
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| author | Yiannis Georgiou Andreas Ch. Hadjichambis Demetra Paraskeva-Hadjichambi Anastasia Adamou |
| author_facet | Yiannis Georgiou Andreas Ch. Hadjichambis Demetra Paraskeva-Hadjichambi Anastasia Adamou |
| author_sort | Yiannis Georgiou |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | As the global environmental crisis intensifies, there has been a significant interest in behavior change games (BCGs), as a viable venue to empower players’ pro-environmentalism. This pro-environmental empowerment is well-aligned with the notion of environmental citizenship (EC), which aims at transforming citizens into “environmental agents of change”, seeking to achieve more sustainable lifestyles. Despite these arguments, studies in this area are thinly spread and fragmented across various research domains. This article is grounded on a systematic review of empirical articles on BCGs for EC covering a time span of fifteen years and published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, in order to provide an understanding of the scope of empirical research in the field. In total, 44 articles were reviewed to shed light on their methodological underpinnings, the gaming elements and the persuasive strategies of the deployed BCGs, the EC actions facilitated by the BCGs, and the impact of BCGs on players’ EC competences. Our findings indicate that while BCGs seem to promote pro-environmental knowledge and attitudes, such an assertion is not fully warranted for pro-environmental behaviors. We reflect on our findings and provide future research directions to push forward the field of BCGs for EC. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T23:41:27Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-66f5e3d8587a4dada716af20632cbdb3 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2414-4088 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T23:41:27Z |
| publishDate | 2023-08-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Multimodal Technologies and Interaction |
| spelling | doaj.art-66f5e3d8587a4dada716af20632cbdb32023-11-19T02:26:27ZengMDPI AGMultimodal Technologies and Interaction2414-40882023-08-01788010.3390/mti7080080“From Gamers into Environmental Citizens”: A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research on Behavior Change Games for Environmental CitizenshipYiannis Georgiou0Andreas Ch. Hadjichambis1Demetra Paraskeva-Hadjichambi2Anastasia Adamou3Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol 3036, CyprusCyprus Centre for Environmental Research and Education (CYCERE), Limassol 3304, CyprusCyprus Centre for Environmental Research and Education (CYCERE), Limassol 3304, CyprusCyprus Centre for Environmental Research and Education (CYCERE), Limassol 3304, CyprusAs the global environmental crisis intensifies, there has been a significant interest in behavior change games (BCGs), as a viable venue to empower players’ pro-environmentalism. This pro-environmental empowerment is well-aligned with the notion of environmental citizenship (EC), which aims at transforming citizens into “environmental agents of change”, seeking to achieve more sustainable lifestyles. Despite these arguments, studies in this area are thinly spread and fragmented across various research domains. This article is grounded on a systematic review of empirical articles on BCGs for EC covering a time span of fifteen years and published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, in order to provide an understanding of the scope of empirical research in the field. In total, 44 articles were reviewed to shed light on their methodological underpinnings, the gaming elements and the persuasive strategies of the deployed BCGs, the EC actions facilitated by the BCGs, and the impact of BCGs on players’ EC competences. Our findings indicate that while BCGs seem to promote pro-environmental knowledge and attitudes, such an assertion is not fully warranted for pro-environmental behaviors. We reflect on our findings and provide future research directions to push forward the field of BCGs for EC.https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/7/8/80serious gamesbehavior changepro-environmentalismenvironmental citizenshipsystematic review |
| spellingShingle | Yiannis Georgiou Andreas Ch. Hadjichambis Demetra Paraskeva-Hadjichambi Anastasia Adamou “From Gamers into Environmental Citizens”: A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research on Behavior Change Games for Environmental Citizenship Multimodal Technologies and Interaction serious games behavior change pro-environmentalism environmental citizenship systematic review |
| title | “From Gamers into Environmental Citizens”: A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research on Behavior Change Games for Environmental Citizenship |
| title_full | “From Gamers into Environmental Citizens”: A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research on Behavior Change Games for Environmental Citizenship |
| title_fullStr | “From Gamers into Environmental Citizens”: A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research on Behavior Change Games for Environmental Citizenship |
| title_full_unstemmed | “From Gamers into Environmental Citizens”: A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research on Behavior Change Games for Environmental Citizenship |
| title_short | “From Gamers into Environmental Citizens”: A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research on Behavior Change Games for Environmental Citizenship |
| title_sort | from gamers into environmental citizens a systematic literature review of empirical research on behavior change games for environmental citizenship |
| topic | serious games behavior change pro-environmentalism environmental citizenship systematic review |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/7/8/80 |
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