Video games as a tool for ecological learning: the case of Animal Crossing
First author: CorollerYear: 2023
Abstract
Amidst lockdown policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many used video games as a method to maintain a connection with others while ensuring social distancing. A new edition of the Animal Crossing series of games had been released in March 2020 and beat sales and downloads records. The game focuses on living in a natural environment, building a house and a village, as well as capturing, exhibiting, and selling species to progress. Here we examine whether players gain species identification skills andwhether it is transferred to real-lifemodels. We used the results from a survey conducted from the end of March to early April 2020 on 200 people (72 players and 128 nonplayers of Animal Crossing). Participants were first asked to rank their personal interest in nature and then to identify species from photos. The photos displayed both organisms present in the game and organisms that were not. We expected players to obtain a slightly higher score than nonplayers for questions related to the species present in the game and a similar score in both groups for questions related to species not present in the game. Multivariate analyses (multiple linear regression and principal components analysis [PCA]) showed that players were better than nonplayers at identifying real-life species that were present in the game. The role of the species in the game design impacts the ability to identify the species in real life, such as plants having mainly a role of ornamentation. Additionally, this study suggests that survey participants could correctly assess their naturalistic knowledge in general. This article shows that video games can help enhance ecological learning, improve organisms identification, and might be used as a tool for education in conservation biology.Details
Language: EnglishCountry of affiliation: Canada
Published in: Ecosphere
Publication type: Journal article
Source: https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4463
Games
No Results
Franchises
No Results
Studies
Description: Survey for species identification
Research type: Non-experimental
Data type: Quantitative
Comparator: non-game species
Control group: yes
Pilot study: no
Pre/post measures used: no
Follow-up: no
Sample type: Players
Sample size: 200
Power analysis: yes
Sample countries: United States, Lebanon, Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Israel, France, Switzerland, Belgium
Games studied: Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Franchises studied: Animal Crossing (F)
Study outcomes: Knowledge, Perception