vMOBilize: Gamifying Civic Learning and Political Engagement in a Classroom Context

Abstract

This study presents the results of a quasi-experiment (N = 254) conducted over the course of ten weeks in Spring 2016 to assess the effectiveness of a game platform designed to facilitate political engagement, attention, efficacy, knowledge, and participation among college students. Results indicate positive effects of game play on several key dimensions of political engagement, including voter registration, virtual political participation (following a candidate on Twitter, liking a candidate on Facebook, and watching debates), and consumption of public affairs information (including National Public Radio (NPR), non-NPR political talk radio, and online news aggregator sites). In addition, game play provided significantly greater benefits to students with the lowest rates of political knowledge and engagement at baseline. Overall, participants reported high rates of game satisfaction, with 79% of participants reporting being very to somewhat pleased if they were asked to play the game again. These results are discussed in terms of the implications for civics education, pedagogy, and political engagement among young people.

Keywords:

• Civic engagement
• gamification
• political socialization
• technology

Notes

1 This project was approved by the institutional review boards at the University of Delaware and Harvard University.

2 One to three observations are dropped from most of the reported models due to listwise deletion, attributable to missing values on at least one variable included in the model. Testing indicated that variations in missing data across models do not materially influence the reported results. Participants in the experimental group were asked to report the extent of their participation in the game. To assess how the “extent of game play” affected our outcome measures, we included this measure as a covariate in our models, but it did not change any of the relationships observed. Finally, the implications of the modest attrition over the course of the project in terms of treatment effects is ambiguous, since we do not know whether these students would or would not have demonstrated effects of game play.

3 The GLM is a statistical analysis that allows for the simultaneous testing of the effects of a set of independent variables on one or more dependent variables. It is more flexible than standard linear regression in that it allows specification of multiple error distributions and estimators (e.g., ordinary least squares, logistic regression, Poisson regression). It can thus be useful for estimating groups of models that mix continuous, binary, or scaled dependent variables.

4 Note that because this outcome variable consists of three discrete categories (became registered, became unregistered, or did not change registration status), we employ unordered multinomial logit (which is not supported by GLM and which, unlike ordered logit, makes no assumptions regarding ordinal or cardinal distances between categories).

5 It is not surprising that there are very few cases (9 in total) of respondents reporting that they moved from registered to unregistered status from pre- to posttreatment. Consequently, the change in the likelihood of having done so is statistically insignificant.

Additional information

Funding

The creation and maintenance of the vMOBilize game platform was made possible by funding from The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the Center for Political Communication at the University of Delaware, and Mr. Bob Suh.

Notes on contributors

Dannagal G. Young

Dannagal G. Young (PhD University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, 2007) is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Delaware, where she studies the content, audience, and effects of political humor. Her research on the psychology and influence of political entertainment has been widely published, including articles in Media Psychology, Political Communication, International Journal of Press/Politics, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Mass Media and Society, and The Columbia Journalism Review. Her book, Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States (Oxford, 2019) examines the genres of satire and outrage as the logical extensions of the respective psychological profiles of liberals and conservatives. Young is a Research Fellow with the University of Delaware's Center for Political Communication and was awarded the University of Delaware's Excellence in Teaching Award in 2014. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center and an Affiliated Researcher with the University of Arizona's National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD). Along with NICD researchers Rob Boatright, Tim Shaffer, and Sarah Sobieraj, Young edited A Crisis of Civility: Political Discourse and Its Discontents (Routledge, 2018). Her writing has appeared in the popular press, including articles in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Philadelphia Inquirer; contributions on National Public Radio; and coverage of her research in national and international publications including Variety, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, and The Christian Science Monitor.

Matthew A. Baum

Matthew A. Baum (PhD, UC San Diego, 2000) is the Marvin Kalb Professor of Global Communications and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and Department of Government. His research focuses on the domestic political influences on international conflict and cooperation in general and American foreign policy in particular, as well as on the role of the mass media and public opinion in contemporary American politics. His research has appeared in over a dozen leading scholarly journals, such as Science, the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics. His books include Soft News Goes to War: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy in the New Media Age (2003, Princeton University Press), War Stories: The Causes and Consequences of Public Views of War (2009, Princeton University Press, coauthored with Tim Groeling), and War and Democratic Constraint: How the Public Influences Foreign Policy (2015, Princeton University Press, coauthored with Phil Potter). He has also contributed op-ed articles to a variety of newspapers, magazines, and blog sites in the United States and abroad. Before coming to Harvard, Baum was an Associate Professor of Political Science and Communication Studies at UCLA.

Duncan Prettyman

Duncan Prettyman (MA, University of Delaware) is a doctoral student in Texas Tech University's College of Media and Communication. Duncan's research looks at how different structural features of video games affect the way they are processed by their players. In particular, his research looks at how different avatar characteristics, such as avatar race and sex, can affect the way games are processed.