Abstract:

Today's children and young people are growing up as "digital natives". Digital media are used naturally and intuitively and play an important role in everyday life - especially digital games. Successful digital games have one thing in particular in common: they motivate. Players are motivated to play and also to acquire knowledge in and around the game environment. Serious games as a sub genre are already applied in various contexts such as health prevention. Although the field is still in its infancy, initial potentials such as psychological and behavioural changes and symptom improvements are emerging (see e.g. Khazaal et al., 2018; Tárrega et al., 2015).

With „Hygiene in the Course of Time“ we developed and evaluated a family-friendly mobile game for the target group "Generation Z" as well as for prospective students in the fields of medicine, history and biology. The game depicts important milestones in the history of (hospital) hygiene and makes it possible to experience these interactively in an adventure setting. Players can take a journey through time and get to know important characters such as Ignaz Semmelweis or Florence Nightingale and thus realise that progress is not always easy to achieve.

Our game is supported by the fact that it is characterised by low-thresholdness with regard to its usability and the design of its content, graphics and text. This is essential if we assume such a broad target group - i.e. people aged 10 and above who have to deal with hygiene in their everyday life and who sometimes only have minimal basic knowledge on the matter. Our game supports browsers (as it is being published as a web-based game) and a native export for Android and iOS devices. This means that a broad target group can be reached in their living environment.

An evaluation concept was developed, which is essentially based on the question "Which elements of the game achieve which effects with regard to the hygiene related knowledge? The game-related parameters were evaluated formatively, the cognitive and behavioural effects were evaluated summatively by an expert panel.

Keywords:

Hygiene, serious games, RPG maker.