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Gamification of Older Adults’ Physical Activity: Thematic Analysis of an Eight-Week Experimental Study

Lennart Nacke, Pejman Mirza-Babaei, and Dennis Kappen. 2020. Gamification of Older Adults’ Physical Activity: Thematic Analysis of an Eight-Week Experimental Study. In Frontiers in Computer Science 2: 44. Frontiers.

BibTeX

@article{kappen2020gamification,
  title={Gamification of Older Adults’ Physical Activity: Thematic Analysis of an Eight-Week Experimental Study},
  author={Kappen, Dennis L and Mirza-Babaei, Pejman and Nacke, Lennart E},
  journal={Frontiers in Computer Science},
  volume={2},
  pages={44},
  year={2020},
  publisher={Frontiers}
}

Abstract

Gamification technology has served as behaviour change mechanism for increasing the engagement and motivation of consumers in many areas including health and wellness domains. While research on physical activity (PA) and motivation to participate in PA in the context of older adults exist, there are fewer studies on the usage of gamified technology by older adults over longer periods of time. We conducted a mixed-method, eight-week, synchronous, three-condition experimental study with older adults in the 50+ age group. Participants were randomized into Group 1 (gamified), Group 2 (non-gamified) and a control group. The weekly semi-structured interview questions focused on their motivation for PA, setting up goals, accomplishments, fears or barriers, rewards and tracking in PA. Thematic analysis of the interview data showed distinct variations in emergent themes for the three groups over an eight-week …

Proceedings

Gamification of Older Adults’ Physical Activity: An Eight-Week Study

Dennis Kappen, Pejman Mirza-Babaei, and Lennart Nacke. 2018. Gamification of Older Adults’ Physical Activity: An Eight-Week Study. In Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). IEEE, 1207-1216. Online: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/50036

PDF BibTeX External URL

@inproceedings{Kappen2018a,
abstract = {Designing fitness programs to combat a sedentary lifestyle and foster older adults' motivation and goalsetting is not yet well-understood beyond point-based systems. To improve older adults' (over 50 years) health and wellness, we studied a gamified physical activity intervention over eight weeks in an experiment (N=30) with three conditions (gamified, non-gamified, control). Our qualitative analysis showed the gamified group exhibited more engagement and interest in performing physical activity facilitated by technology. Results from our quantitative analysis indicated significance in the perceived competence dimension compared to the nongamified and the control group. Perceived autonomy was significant for the non-gamified group against the control group. The findings from qualitative and quantitative analysis show motivation, enjoyment, and engagement were higher in the gamified group. This provides support for successfully facilitating older adults' physical activity through gamified technology, which helped us create guidelines for older adults' adaptive engagement.},
author = {Kappen, Dennis L and Mirza-Babaei, Pejman and Nacke, Lennart E.},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 51st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)},
publisher = {IEEE},
title = {{Gamification of Older Adults ' Physical Activity : An Eight-Week Study}},
year = {2018}
}

Abstract

Designing fitness programs to combat a sedentary lifestyle and foster older adults’ motivation and goalsetting is not yet well-understood beyond point-based systems. To improve older adults’ (over 50 years) health and wellness, we studied a gamified physical activity intervention over eight weeks in an experiment (N=30) with three conditions (gamified, non-gamified, control). Our qualitative analysis showed the gamified group exhibited more engagement and interest in performing physical activity facilitated by technology. Results from our quantitative analysis indicated significance in the perceived competence dimension compared to the nongamified and the control group. Perceived autonomy was significant for the non-gamified group against the control group. The findings from qualitative and quantitative analysis show motivation, enjoyment, and engagement were higher in the gamified group. This provides support for successfully facilitating older adults’ physical activity through gamified technology, which helped us create guidelines for older adults’ adaptive engagement.