ConsciousMobile

Mobility behaviour is made habitual in socialisation processes as early as childhood and adolescence and as a mostly unconscious disposition can hardly be changed in adulthood. The aim of ConsciousMobile was therefore to use social media and serious games to promote age-appropriate sustainable mobility behaviour.

Client: bmvit, ways2go, 4th call for tenders

Duration: August 2012 to July 2014 (24 months)

Project partners: University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences – Institute for Transport; University of Applied Sciences St.Pölten GesmbH; University of Vienna – Institute for Educational Sciences; IT-eXperience; word games; ÖBB Personenverkehr AG

LOI partners: BRG Vienna XIX; HTL Vienna 3; HTL Mödling

Project description: Adult behaviour is largely determined by dispositions acquired in socialisation processes in childhood and adolescence; this also applies to mobility behaviour. The fact that attitudes that determine the environmental behaviour of adults are acquired in socialisation processes in childhood and adolescence was taken into account and realised in ConsciousMobile, in which children and young people were defined as the target group. Age-specific differences had to be taken into account. In terms of mobility behaviour, from an environmental perspective it is primarily a question of actual changes in behaviour. Therefore, the first goal of ConsciousMobile was to achieve actual changes in the mobility behaviour of children and young people. However, these alone are not adequate to establish sufficiently stable behavioural dispositions. Therefore, this goal was combined in ConsciousMobile with the transfer of knowledge and the reflection of one’s own mobility behaviour.

In order to achieve behavioural changes, it is most effective to intervene in the situations in which the behaviour takes place. Since mobility behaviour among children and young people almost always takes place outside of institutional educational processes, it is necessary to use informal learning strategies. These require addressing the target group in a way that is close to everyday life. Since both social media and video games are very common in the everyday lives of children and young people, a combination of social media and video games were used in ConsciousMobile as a media-didactic mediation method. In order to achieve actual behavioural changes, the video game had to be realised as a “real life game”.

The goal of promoting sustainable mobility behaviour should be achieved through the development of a serious game associated with social media. This can also ensure that sustainable mobility has a positive emotional impact and thus supports its sustainable effect. The project thus also promoted sustainable behaviour through the sustainable design of the project itself. In order to meet the age-specific requirements, appropriate playful measures were developed for children with the latest pedagogical and didactic findings. A special game was designed for young people, which also recorded and evaluated the mobility behaviour actually set. The game aimed to connect and compete with other young people via social networks. The more sustainable you are, the more knowledge you acquire and the more you reflect on your own mobility behaviour thereby collecting more points. In doing so, ConsciousMobile does not only rely on the playful competition realised with points but also combines this competition with a reward system (e.g. exchange of collected bonus points for material assets (see Airline Miles)). This creates the incentive to live sustainable mobility.

The measures were developed by a team of experts consisting of technicians, educators, health scientists and sociologists. The demanding development of the game for young people was accompanied by several schools that were involved both in the design and testing of the various components. This ensured that the needs and trends of the young people were taken into account in the best possible way, so that the intended closeness to everyday life and thus the greatest possible “learning effect” was achieved.

Contact: DI Dr. Bernhard Rüger