Abstract:

Responsible alcohol consumption is a pressing issue in Mexico. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), harmful use of alcohol killed more than 3 million people in 2016 and causes more than 5% of the global burden of disease (WHO, 2018). In Mexico, 71% of the population have consumed alcohol once in lifetime, and 2.2% have an Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). The harmful use of alcohol has increased from 12.3% in 2011 to 19.8% in 2016. This trend has kept on the rise through 2018, particularly among young women (Reséndiz, et.al., 2018).

Such situation calls for preventive measures and education towards responsible consumption of alcohol. Therefore the University Center for Health and Wellness (UCHW) at Universidad Panamericana (UP) approached the Center for Innovation in Education (CIE) to look for creative strategies to help educate students on this topic. The UCHW is responsible for preventing substance abuse and for enhancing healthy lifestyles among the UP community. CIE is the department that seeks to enhance professors’ teaching talent by innovating learning experiences.

For a significant active and experiential learning experience, we chose augmented reality (AR) as the more adequate vehicle for the project objective. As defined by Munnerley (2014: 15), AR “describes the real-time views of a physical, real world environment where elements have been augmented, enhanced, enriched or diminished by providing additional sensory input - such as sound or images - as a layer or projection”.

This paper describes the learning experience designed by combining augmented reality, role playing and storytelling to improve university students’ knowledge on responsible alcohol consumption. Five implementations of the experience were done along the august-december 2018 semester; 122 students participated from 8 schools and faculties and 13 different undergraduate programs. Students’ knowledge on responsible alcohol consumption was evaluated at the beginning of the experience through a gamified test. Then they learned important facts about responsible alcohol consumption by solving a case, using augmented reality; and finally, they were tested again. Results show that 92.72% of students considered that this experience helped them learn in a more creative and memorable way, and sparked their motivation and curiosity; 76.53% declared the experience design helped them deepen on their knowledge about this topic; and finally, their knowledge on responsible alcohol consumption improved by 16.83% as shown by their performance on the initial and final tests.

References:
[1] World Health Organization (2018). Global status report on alcohol and health, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alcohol_report/gsr_2018/en/
[2] Reséndiz Escobar, E., et.al. (2018). Tendencias nacionales del consumo de alcohol en México: resultados de la Encuesta Nacional de Consumo de Drogas, Alcohol y Tabaco 2016-2017. Salud mental, 41(1), 7-15.

Keywords:

Augmented reality, role playing, storytelling, memorable learning, alcohol consumption, learning experience design.