Using 3D serious gaming interventions to promote climate science literacy in the 12-13-year age group
Creators: name: Harker-Schuch, Inez
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2021

description: Despite more than 30 years of communication and public awareness of climate change, there continues to be a widespread lack of understanding of climate science and a lack of engagement in climate-friendly activities. Worldview bias is considered one of the most pernicious and difficult communication and education barriers with regard to public engagement in relation to climate change. For example, socio-cultural worldview is known to be the strongest predictor of adult attitudes related to climate change in the US and Australia, even stronger than educational attainment or scientific literacy. Due to this influence, efforts aimed at encouraging climate-friendly attitudes and behaviour have prioritised engagement with identity constructs such as values, ideology, and self-identity and are considered more effective at motivating climate-friendly attitudes than efforts to improve knowledge deficit. There are, however, several important considerations that have been overlooked with regard to the value and influence of the knowledge deficit model, including: knowledge deficit as a treatment or intervention; the age when such interventions should start as a factor for worldview development; and the specific content or curriculum that forms the foundation of the specific knowledge deficit intervention in relation to climate education. This thesis revisits knowledge deficit as an intervention and explores the role of knowledge deficit in the public education arena in the early adolescent age group via the interventions of a 3D interactive serious educational climate science game. In order to revisit knowledge deficit in relation to worldview development, literature pertaining to the intellectual and physiological development of early adolescents was reviewed, finding that early adolescents are a highly suitable age group for knowledge deficit interventions. To ensure this age group are receptive to learning about Earth's climate, early adolescent climate opinion data was collected and analysed (n=463), finding that early adolescents are more concerned (Austria: 85%, Australia: 89%) about climate change than their respective or proxy adult population (Austria: 71%, Australia: 63%) and their opinions (that climate change is something to worry about, is caused by humans, and is happening now) are all correlated. To examine knowledge deficit, a prototype climate science literacy (CSL) framework was constructed which measured incidental (pre-existing) knowledge and showed shared knowledge levels and patterns across borders (culture, language, education system). For the purpose of this thesis, specifically in relation to knowledge deficit interventions, CSL is defined here as a systematic and integrated understanding of how the natural climate system works, including drivers of natural variation, and the roles of feedback systems and anthropogenic emissions in driving climate change. After playing a proof-of-concept 3D interactive climate science game (n=401), results show that shared knowledge patterns persist and suggest that CSL may be able to be improved in this age group, particularly at the unistructural and multistructural levels (SOLO Taxonomy Levels 1 and 2). These results suggest that knowledge deficit interventions, for example using a 3D interactive climate science game, can potentially improve knowledge in early adolescents. Such interventions, delivered at a crucially formative age, could help counter the worldview effects that entrench climate-unfriendly attitudes in many sections of the population and help trigger a transformation towards a sustainable future.