Game On? Smoking Cessation Through the Gamification of mHealth: A Longitudinal Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: Finding ways to increase and sustain engagement with mHealth interventions has become a challenge during application development. While gamification shows promise and has proven effective in many fields, critical questions remain concerning how to use gamification to modify health behavior. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to investigate how the gamification of mHealth interventions leads to a change in health behavior, specifically with respect to smoking cessation. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative longitudinal study using a sample of 16 smokers divided into 2 cohorts (one used a gamified intervention and the other used a nongamified intervention). Each participant underwent 4 semistructured interviews over a period of 5 weeks. Semistructured interviews were also conducted with 4 experts in gamification, mHealth, and smoking cessation. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematic analysis undertaken. RESULTS: Results indicated perceived behavioral control and intrinsic motivation acted as positive drivers to game engagement and consequently positive health behavior. Importantly, external social influences exerted a negative effect. We identified 3 critical factors, whose presence was necessary for game engagement: purpose (explicit purpose known by the user), user alignment (congruency of game and user objectives), and functional utility (a well-designed game). We summarize these findings in a framework to guide the future development of gamified mHealth interventions. CONCLUSIONS: Gamification holds the potential for a low-cost, highly effective mHealth solution that may replace or supplement the behavioral support component found in current smoking cessation programs. The framework reported here has been built on evidence specific to smoking cessation, however it can be adapted to health interventions in other disease categories. Future research is required to evaluate the generalizability and effectiveness of the framework, directly against current behavioral support therapy interventions in smoking cessation and beyond

An Investigation on the Effects of Flow State on Team Process and Outcomes

There has been an abundance of research on flow state at the individual level and it is often applied to experiences that are typically intended to be enjoyable (e.g., video games and sports). Research has shown that flow state can also be experienced in traditional work environments and several antecedents to its achievement in such environments have been identified. Despite this, there remains some ambiguity regarding the applicability of flow state to teams. Additionally, the majority of the research regarding the experience of flow state in teams revolves around athletic teams. In this paper an argument is presented towards the view that the effect of flow state on team performance is similar to the effect of flow state on individuals but with an additional impact on team processes. The experiment conducted yielded results suggesting a linkage between team flow state and team processes and performance for a complex planning task

The Mediating Effect of Perceived Task Complexity on Perceived Team Sharedness and Performance

An empirical study was conducted to observe macro-cognition and interpersonal interactions between team members during a collaborative resource management task. Teams consisting of three members each were instructed to work together to complete scenario objectives in a simulated military task environment. The task scenarios were manipulated to vary the complexity of the scenario objectives. An exploratory analysis of the results revealed a mediating effect of perceived complexity on the relationship between perceived sharedness and performance. Additionally a partial mediating effect for perceived complexity on the relationship between perceived sharedness team knowledge building was found. Results indicate that perceived complexity of a collaborative task may play a greater role in the relationship between team level factors and performance than previously thought. Implications for these results are provided alongside suggestions for future research. Specifically we call for research to determine the mechanism through which perceptions of task complexity influence collective performance. Copyright 2011 by Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Inc. All rights reserved