the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 16 Apr 2024
How to communicate and educate more effectively on natural risk issues to improve disaster risk management through serious games
Abstract. This study focuses on exploring the potential of serious games for improving disaster risk management. The research involves methodological triangulation, analysing and comparing data from content analysis of serious games (6 digital games: 3 mobile apps and 3 online games), focus groups with experts and literature review. The results show that only online games fulfil the fundamental narrative indicated by the experts, with mobile apps focusing their gameplay more on interaction. Such interaction could enhance the playful aspect of the game and thus increase the desire to play; thus, the educational aspect of online games is much higher. Few online games work on issues of multiculturalism, diversity and gender. This paper provides a list of recommended features of disaster risk management games that we have categorised into three dimensions: a) character, b) information and message tone and c) narrative dynamics, reward systems and feedback. The results can be of great help to teachers and game designers in improving citizens' knowledge of disaster risk management.
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Status: open (until 28 May 2024)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-994', Miguel Angel Trejo Rangel, 22 Apr 2024
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Dear authors,
Thank you for putting together this piece of paper. I found the topic very interesting and has large potential to be investigated to contribute to the DRM field. It is definitely an interesting topic to research considering that more and more serious games are emerging to enhance DRM.
I have some comments you can consider to improve the manuscript since I believe it can be publishable if adjustments are considered. I will go by section to make my suggestions clear enough.
The abstract and introduction sections are clear and well-presented, but I would suggest that in the introduction you expand on any other participatory approaches that have been reported in the literature to better frame why the research team decided to focus on serious gaming. As it is framed so far you exclude other approaches which are also important such as participatory mapping, workshops, hackathons or any other in-person and online methods to engage different stakeholders.
I liked how you explained serious gamin and their importance in the DRR in the theoretical framework, I think that is important considering that they have been used for some time already, however, you put together good references about them.
In the material and methods section, the section starts mentioning that it is qualitative research, however, when the results are presented, there are quantitative findings based on the questionnaires that were applied. I rather find this research as a mixed-method approach that complements findings from different methods.
For the content analysis, it is mentioned that the authors designed an instrument of analysis and evaluation. However, the results mostly focus on analysis and it is not very clear to me how it complements the focus group approach which for me should be a “focus group questionnaire”.
For the focus group (questionnaire), it is also not very clear how the MAXQDA software was used for analysing this method. I would expect the platform to be used in the content analysis section and not here. I know it is mentioned in the results, but I missed the implementation of a different method in the focus group section to gather participants' inputs. For instance, interviews or even an online workshop or so. I am concerned about conducting a questionnaire with that number of participants (8 video game experts and 14 natural hazard experts), which was not clear until I went through the results and figured it out.
I recognised that was very interesting to see how you selected the participants, but would be interesting to better understand how you approached them to answer the questionnaire.
In the results section, it is not a very friendly reader to keep mentioning tables that are pages ahead of the point you are reading. It is time-consuming and you get lost while you keep going to the table and coming back to the point where you stop reading. I strongly suggest that you try to condense the results of tables B1 to B6 into one figure. I am imagining a general description of these sections, followed by a figure, design, scheme, or something creative to picture what was found, and if the reader wants to get more details, can go to the detailed tables. Please allow yourself to think about how you would like to see that in a figure that represents the important information you have gathered already. I find this section very disconnected, and it does not give an overall picture of what was found. Also, I suggest to bring the discussions to the results section. Then, results can be compared to what has been reported in the literature. Then, you can discuss the type of related hazard, and lack of inclusivity due to the predominant languages (especially English) even when the public which could benefit from using these games does not use them, and other aspects.
Regarding the focus group results, I would try to merge both groups that participated and bring only key elements that contribute to answering your question “What are the educational and communicative elements or characteristics that serious games should have to improve DRM?”. You may notice that not all the answers from the questionnaire provide key information and you may need to prioritise what helps to respond to the question. If you decide to present the previous section (content analysis) on how serious games are in a more condensed way, you could take advantage of that and highlight how they “should improve” with these findings. I can see that the data collected in the content analysis could help to build a current picture and the information collected in questionnaires would be the transformed version of that.
Some charts and tables look a bit unnecessary since they do not say so much and take up a large space in the document. Please reconsider which of them are useful and how would be a better way to present more connected results where discussion can be included. I do see that you have collected valuable information, I just do not get how the results are organised, I believe this section should be better presented.
I suggest leaving the conclusions as a separate section without merging it with the discussions since I see a lot more potential to include discussions in the results section.
Please let me know if something is unclear, I am happy to clarify as much as possible.
Best regards,
The reviewer.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-994-RC1
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