A digital games design for children health promotion and education in Hong Kong

Abstract

Children health promotion and education relies currently on school promotion and mass media. With the increasing popularity of youngsters' digital game playing phenomenon, a growing possibility of utilizing educational games (Serious Games) for health promotion and education has become promising. Prior research have anticipated that serious games can be a powerful channel that can benefit the young generation, not only for entertainment, but also for communicating health values to change their behaviors in reality. This project investigated the communication design and effects of serious games for promoting and educating health concept with children. Two studies were conducted in this research. In Study 1, the research team investigated how public health message was assimilated into serious games, which affect the health behaviors of children. In Study 2, the team investigated the effects of the serious games on children through a between-group experiment. A 'pre-test/post-test control group' experiment with 180 primary school children in Hong Kong (aged 9 to 12) was conducted. The findings has showed the use of serious games is promising in deliver health promotion and education to children. The result also contribute to academic, professional and educational values for serious game design, health promotion and education.