Gamifying Community Education for Enhanced Disaster Resilience: An Effectiveness Testing Study from Australia

Abstract

Providing convenient and effective online education is important for the public to be better prepared for disaster events. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of such education is questionable due to the limited use of online tools and platforms, which also results in narrow community outreach. Correspondingly, understanding public perceptions of disaster education methods and experiences for the adoption of novel methods is critical, but this is an understudied area of research. The aim of this study is to understand public perceptions towards online disaster education practices for disaster preparedness and evaluate the effectiveness of the gamification method in increasing public awareness. This study utilizes social media analytics and conducts a gamification exercise. The analysis involved Twitter posts (n = 13,683) related to the 2019–2020 Australian bushfires, and surveyed participants (n = 52) before and after experiencing a gamified application—i.e., STOP Disasters! The results revealed that: (a) The public satisfaction level is relatively low for traditional bushfire disaster education methods; (b) The study participants’ satisfaction level is relatively high for an online gamified application used for disaster education; and (c) The use of virtual and augmented reality was found to be promising for increasing the appeal of gamified applications, along with using a blended traditional and gamified approach.