Enhancing Motivation in Disaster Prevention Learning with Perceptual and Semantic Gaming

Abstract

Hazard maps provide knowledge about evacuation behavior, in addition to graphical indications of areas influenced by a disaster. However, without prerequisite knowledge or map reading literacy, it is not easy for citizens to fully understand hazard maps. Learning support systems for disaster education must thus to be effective in lightening the learning load and enhancing motivation for learning. If the content is not held in memory, learners would need to repeat the learning session, which would lessen their motivation for learning. Moreover, natural disasters do not happen often, and cannot always be predicted. Therefore, it is not easy to enhance citizens’ motivation for disaster prevention learning. This can result in a vicious circle between degraded motivation and insufficient prerequisite knowledge. In this paper, we propose a learning support framework that helps gain learners’ attention by gaming at two different processing levels and facilitates retention of disaster prevention knowledge on the basis of priming effect on implicit memory. The key idea behind this framework is to utilize two components: implicit learning by means of implicit memory and memory retention based on levels-of-processing effect, so that the vicious circle between degraded motivation and insufficient prerequisite knowledge can be disrupted.