The research design identified in the previous section for addressing the research questions necessitated a certain epistemological and ontological view. The adopted methodology is a standard approach to intervention research; however, it has a strong focus on discussing the challenges and opportunities involved in designing a Serious Game of such a novel nature. 3.4.1 Epistemology
From the data needs previously identified, it was clear that the experimental phase of this project would be conducted using a quantitative approach, with a primarily positivist research paradigm. As this chapter has shown, data collected was of an objective, numeric, quantitative form.
The positivist paradigm dictates the epistemological position that a deductive process be engaged in to infer new knowledge from verified empirically collected data, and that this must be done in an objective manner. Under this paradigm, new knowledge about the conservation effect of Serious Games was deductively produced by analysing collected energy usage data. However, a considerable portion of this work focusses on presenting a detailed discussion of the challenges involved in designing the Serious Game, and the factors surrounding this
particular implementation of the game. This discussion is based not only upon the derived data from the experiment, but from a reflective process of lessons learned, which is also supported by literature.
3.4.2 Ontology
From an ontological perspective, under the positivist paradigm the position of realism was taken, meaning a view that the universe operates in terms of the laws consisting of cause and effect was subscribed to, and that these laws can be deduced by measuring empirical data. In the case of this research, this indicates that the author—through appropriate experimental design and reasoning—deduced the effect of Serious Games on energy conservation.
3.5
Chapter Summary
This chapter has presented the research methodology for the project which is realistic positivist in nature. The research design was based off the commonly used Intervention Research model by Rothman & Thomas (1994), with a simplified version of their six stage methodology consisting of four stages: a literature review, intervention design, game design, and experiment. The literature review, already represented in the previous chapter, focussed on Serious Games and behavioural-based approaches to energy conservation interventions seen in the literature (SRQ1, SRQ2). From there an intervention design phase (SRQ3) that uses the Behaviour Change Wheel methodology (Michie et al. 2011), and a novel approach to combine this with game elements from literature was recommended. For the game design phase, a Human-Centered Design approach (Holloway & Kurniawan 2010) was suggested to develop these game elements into a working Serious Game prototype (SRQ3). The final experimental phase of the project uses a pre-test/post-test control group design to measure the impact of a Serious Game (SRQ3) in terms of conservation effect. This experimental design was shown to have high internal validity; however, the external validity of the project is restricted by the selection of participants from the RBEES project.
From these four phases, a Serious Game intervention was designed, developed, and analysed. Using this game for reference, this work contributes to the discussion on designing Serious Games by exploring the challenges involved with designing (SRQ4) and implementing (SRQ5) a game for change using the Behaviour Change Wheel.
The following chapter presents the full process of the intervention design phase, beginning with the use of the Behaviour Change Wheel methodology, before describing the game elements and their linking to the chosen BCTs. The chapters following that discuss in detail
how these elements were combined into a Serious Game, the architecture surrounding the game, and the results of the experiment phase.
4
Intervention Design Phase
As noted in the literature review, Serious Game implementations in the extant literature do not make effective use of behaviour change theory. As a result, this thesis explores the opportunity to embed behaviour change theory into the design of a Serious Game. This chapter presents the design process for integrating behaviour change theory into a Serious Game for energy conservation, which is a novel and key contribution of the thesis. Figure 30 shows how this chapter fits into the overall methodology of the project, by presenting the behaviour change wheel-guided design and the theory-informed elements.
Figure 30. The project methodology diagram, showing the components covered in in this chapter: the Behaviour Change Wheel, and the theory-informed game elements.
The previous chapter made reference to a promising new methodology for guiding the process of behaviour change intervention design and evaluation: the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW; Michie et al. (2011)). In introducing the Behaviour Change Wheel, this chapter justifies the choice of using it to inform a Serious Game design. We will see that it has been applied to a number of domains including energy conservation, and represents a well-defined
approach to understanding behaviour, by examining behaviour from multiple perspectives: capability, opportunity, and motivation.
The chapter continues by presenting the results of following the process of the BCW methodology and how this resulted in a greater understanding of the behaviours this project aims to change. Finally, the chapter describes the additional steps implemented to apply the BCW to a Serious Game. The novel process of defining an intervention strategy is presented, which consists of linking Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) from the BCW to game elements based upon video game literature. The resultant intervention strategy formalises how a Serious Game design can be used to implement behaviour change theory—in this case within the domain of energy conservation.