Understanding the exergame user experience : users' motivation, attitude and behaviour in a location-aware pervasive exergame for adolescent children

The benefits of physical activity for adolescent children are well understood. Despite this, within much of the Western World, children fail to achieve the recommended guidelines for physical activity participation, spending too much time on sedentary activities. Thanks to recent progressions in ubiquitous technologies, exergames - exercise video games - have emerged as a potential solution to the problem. By facilitating physical activity, and encouraging behavioural change within an enjoyable and motivating context, exergames have the potential to remove some of the barriers preventing many adolescents from sufficient physical activity participation. There are, however, few studies of exergame systems that have looked at the impact of the system over time. Additionally, many systems are not evaluated within ecologically valid contexts. The result of this is a lack of real understanding on the efficacy of exergame systems and their feasibility as a valid solution. This thesis investigates the design, development, and evaluation of a locationaware exergame for adolescent children: iFitQuest. Through analysis of two prolonged use school-based evaluations, this research provides evidence on the ability of exergames to facilitate physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviour, when targeted at adolescent children within a school context. The results of two evaluations suggest that iFitQuest was enjoyable, motivating, and physically demanding, with the ability to promote physical activity of all intensities in players with a range of attitudes towards physical activity, their own physical activity abilities, and physical activity participation backgrounds. The primary contribution of this thesis is the indepth evaluation of the exergame user experience. Looking beyond the general success of the system, the experience of individual players was analysed through the lens of Bandura's theory of self-efficacy. Through a mixed-methods case study analysis, self-efficacy was established as an accurate method to explain and understand in-game behaviour, in particular with respect to goal setting and game selection habits. By influencing and moderating the players' motivation, attitude and in-game behaviour, self-efficacy was established as a useful tool for future exergame practitioners. Guidelines on the application of self-efficacy are provided, with respect to both analysis and design. Additionally, through a naturalistic and prolonged evaluation, a number of logistical and contextual lessons for the evaluation of exergames were established. In particular, the use of a user-centred design approach for the development of similar systems is validated through a series of design guidelines, which account for the importance and influence of the evaluation context

Savouring our mistakes:Learning from the FitQuest project

Dajoz Roger. Un nouveau Coléoptère Aphodiidae : Termitodius boliviensis. In: Bulletin de la Société entomologique de France, volume 76 (5-6), Mai-juin 1971. pp. 138-140

Understanding the Importance of Context:A Qualitative Study of a Location-Based Exergame to Enhance School Childrens Physical Activity

Many public health interventions are less effective than expected in 'real life settings', yet little work is undertaken to understand the reasons why. The effectiveness of complex public health interventions can often be traced back to a robust programme theory (how and why an intervention brings about a change in outcome(s)) and assumptions that are made about the context in which it is implemented. Understanding whether effectiveness (or lack thereof) is due to the intervention or the context is hugely helpful in decisions about whether to a) modify the intervention; b) modify the context; c) stop providing the intervention. Exergames-also known as Active Video Games or AVGS-are video games which use the player's bodily movements as input and have potential to increase physical activity in children. However, the results of a recent pilot randomised controlled trial (RCT) of a location-based exergame (FitQuest) in a school setting were inconclusive; no significant effect was detected for any of the outcome measures. The aim of this study was to explore whether the programme theory for FitQuest was correct with respect to how and why it would change children's perceptions of physical activity (PA) and exercise self-efficacy in the school setting. A further aim was to investigate the features of the school setting (context) that may impact on FitQuest's implementation and effectiveness. Qualitative data (gathered during the RCT) were gathered from interviews with teachers and children, and observation of sessions using FitQuest. Thematic analysis indicated that whilst children enjoyed playing the game, engaged with goal setting within the game context and undertook low to vigorous physical activity, there were significant contextual factors that prevented it from being played as often as intended. These included environmental factors (e.g. size of the playground), school factors (cancellations due to other activities), school technology policy (rules relating to mobile phone usage) and teacher factors (engagement with the intervention). A revised logic model for the FitQuest intervention indicates how both the design of exergame technology (intervention) and features of the school environment (context) could be improved to increase chances of effectiveness in the future

Embedding technology in the classroom: the train the teacher model

This paper focuses on the importance of evaluating educational technology for young people aged 10-18 in naturalistic classroom contexts. We present the Train the Teacher Model (TTM) which formalizes a model for IDC researchers to use when deploying and validating an educational system. Our key findings indicate the need to work in partnership with classroom teachers, providing both initial training and continued support. This will both result in more valuable research data, and address a gap in teachers' continued professional development. The TTM aims to ensure that teachers, students and researchers can benefit from innovative educational systems deployed m real classroom contexts

Issues and methods for involving young people in design

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