Gamification in Local Intangible Cultural Heritage Museums for Children: A Case Design

Abstract

Nowadays, local intangible cultural heritage is in danger of disappearing. The museum is a good way to protect it but the current problem is that visitors are less willing to visit boring museums. Gamification in museums is a great solution, that includes the theory of museum information dissemination and the theory of gamification. The theory of museum information dissemination points out the change of design concept of interaction and the update of equipment and technology today. And the theory of gamification shifts the problem of intangible cultural heritage of museums to a motivation, including external rewards of BPL and internal motivation of parents’ participation. Based on the theory and analysis above, this paper designed a museum exhibit for Fotiaoqiang (a kind of traditional Chinese dish), and an experimental test. This design aims to improve the effectiveness of information dissemination of Fotiaoqiang and children’s absorption when visiting the museums, in order to reserve local intangible cultural heritage from generation to generation. The result of the experimental test indicated that the gamification in this design was positive, but the motivation was still controversial.

1 Introduction

With the growth of industrialization in developed countries and the global cultural expansion [1], many intangible cultural heritages are in danger of dying out, because the environment in which they exist has changed significantly. Due to the popularity of various kinds of modern entertainments today, intangible cultural heritage is facing a grim situation that there will be no successors. Fewer and fewer generations are willing to pass on their own local tradition or even have an interest in it, which causes the fading of it, especially those with no entity. However, intangible cultural heritage that contains profound traditional culture is so significant that it’s the basic identification mark of a nation. It’s also a driving force in preventing the soul of a nation from being obliterated by foreign culture [1]. The importance of intangible cultural heritage has been valued by many governments, and several official organizations were established to prevent it from disappearing. According to the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, a committee composed of the delegates of 24 contracting governments held a meeting annually to monitor the implementation of the 175 countries that have ratified this legal instrument and have incorporated the protection of intangible heritage into their national legislation. In spite of this, many intangible cultural heritages approved by UNESCO are still on the verge of extinction, which shows that the world still faces the problem of how to protect the intangible cultural heritage.

Building museums is a good way to remind residents of local intangible cultural heritage (ICH) [2]. Different from tangible cultural heritage, intangible cultural heritage is a kind of treasure that is passed down from generation to generation, which is very dependent on the individual. However, fewer and fewer people are willing to pass on these “outdated” cultures. For the protection and preservation of intangible cultural heritage, museums have their own special advantages. Firstly, museums have a scientific system for the protection and preservation of their heritage. Secondly, a great number of professionals work for museums to protect the heritage. Thirdly, it is the only permanent institution in the field of heritage protection, so it can be said that museums are irreplaceable institutions for scientific protection of intangible heritage and permanent collection. In fact, the museum world is extending its protection to the vast field of intangible heritage. According to International Council of Museums (ICOM), it’s their central mission and responsibility to protect the relatively fragile intangible heritage. The theme of the 2004 Seoul International Exposition and Association Conference was “Museum and Intangible Heritage”, which the further expresses the importance that ICOM attaches to the issue.

Although governments have highly valued the protection of their own intangible cultural heritages and the construction of museums, the current state of such local museum is that visitors are scarce. Contrary to the science museums with lots of interactive devices, local culture museums that are packed with excessive text boards tend to be too traditional, or in other words too boring for children to learn. As children are the next generation of museum-goers, they should be given priority in museum education. What’s more, though most children visit with the company of their parents, the museum still lack of parental interaction to guide them. A survey entitled “Why You Don’t Want to Go to a Museum”, published by Oliver Smith in the Daily Mail Online, lists 21 reasons, most of which were related to boredom, such as: “You’d be happier doing something else”, “Because this is considered museum-worthy”, “The artefacts are boring”, “The atmosphere is funereal”, “You’ve no idea what you’re looking at” [3]. Some scholars have pointed out the central problems: firstly, less attention is paid to museum-centric educational activities in museums; secondly, most museums are lack of interaction, not only between exhibits and visitors, but also between visitors themselves.

Faced with the difficulties in intangible cultural heritage protection and current problems of museums mentioned above, it is of great value to apply gamification to the design of intangible cultural heritage museums from the perspective of visitors’ experience and focus on cultivating the interest of the next generation in intangible cultural heritage and a sense of responsibility for its protection. The specific research significance and value of this paper are as follows:

• With the arrival of the information age and the rise of various intelligent devices, museum display and information dissemination are also going digital, which provides more feasibility for gamified interactive modes.

• Nowadays, driven by the information age, museums have changed their ways of displaying and information dissemination. Compared to traditional way of display boards, gamification is more focused on the interaction between exhibits and visitors, or even between visitors themselves, which is more conducive to the efficient dissemination of museum information.

• The demands of museum experience, such as curiosity, confidence, challenge, control, play and communication [4], are perfectly matched with the “game elements” of gamification. Therefore, making gamification a suitable solution to the central problems around museums.

• Education, the most important purpose of museum for children, can play a better role and improve learning efficiency under the catalysis of gamification. Moreover, the fun brought by gamification is in line with the preferences of children, who are the target population of this study, therefore the concept should more easily accepted by children.

This paper designed a museum exhibit for Fotiaoqiang, a famous Chinese dish with a long history, through the theory of museum information dissemination and the theory of gamification, and an experimental test to prove the gamification to be positive. This design aims to improve the effectiveness of information dissemination of Fotiaoqiang and children’s absorption when visiting the museums, in order to preserve local intangible cultural heritage from generation to generation. The gamification design is based on both extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation. For extrinsic rewards, the design uses badges, points and leaderboard (BPL) to attract children’s attention and make them keep playing. For intrinsic motivation, the design tries to make parents to participate in children’s learning by kinship and parents’ emotional response and affection to their local tradition, which can help children immerse themselves in the experience. The experimental test was to confirm the effectiveness of extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation in this gamification design.

2 Museum Information Dissemination and Gamification

2.1 Museum Information Dissemination

The arrival of the information age had a great impact on museum display and information dissemination, including the change of design concept and the update of equipment and technology.

Change of Design Concept.

Museums have begun to focus on interactive experience design guided by a user-centered concept. Since Norman put forward the user-centered design concept [4], more and more design-related studies have been focusing on the needs of users. Museum design has also begun to focus on user experience and the corresponding interactions according to its needs. At present, the design concept of museums has been undergone a huge transformation. The service object turns from objects to visitors, and the flow of information transforms from unidirection to interactional [5]. This people-oriented design concept points out that the interaction is not only between visitors and exhibits, but also between visitors themselves. The museum is no longer simply a warehouse for storing cultural relics, but should be based on the needs of visitors. It is education, entertainment and social needs that constitute the main demands of museum visitors. Among these needs, the educational needs of children visitors are paramount for the intangible cultural heritage museum, which is in urgent need of successors. And entertainment need and social need, which are instinctive for children, can be a boost to education needs. This is because that pleasure in entertainment needs, as well as friendship and kinship in social needs, are all in a child’s nature.

Update of Equipment and Technology.

Nowadays, the rise of various intelligent devices is making museum information dissemination to become digital, which provides more possibilities for interactive museum exhibits, such as interactive electronic display board, virtual museum on mobile devices, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and etc. For the hyperactive children who are curious about the world, they would be more interested in interactive museum exhibits that they can be involved in.

2.2 Gamification

The definition of gamification is the use of game design elements in non-game contexts [6]. Studies have shown that memory is enhanced when learning is done in an interesting way [7]. The main function of the museum is to efficiently make visitors receive information in the shortest possible time. Therefore, gamification can help staid and boring intangible cultural heritage museums to effectively educate children. Moreover, gamified museum exhibits should be easily accepted by children, because the fun brought by gamification is in line with the preferences of children. The needs of museum experience match the game design element of gamification. According to the theoretical model of museum experience proposed by Perry in 1993, needs of a visit to museum include curiosity, confidence, challenge, control, play and communication [8], which are similar to what is needed in a game. So, gamification could be a good solution to this issue.

Motivation affordance [9] transfers the research method of gamification from observing behavior to the problem of motivation. The motivation of gamification can be divided into extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Some scholars believe that intrinsic motivation is the source of efforts and should be the core of the incentive mechanism, which is complementary to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation [10].

Extrinsic Rewards.

A common but controversial implementation of gamification in education is BPL (referring to badges, leaderboards and points). On the one hand, BPL has been proven to be efficient through many usability tests [11]. On the other hand, BPL has also been proved by research that most extrinsic rewards could reduce internal motivation in education [12]. Once the extrinsic rewards are removed, the gamification won’t work any longer [13]. However, the educational needs of gamification in museums do not need long-term motivation, as the average visit to museums is only a few hours and will not be repeated frequently. What is needed is to improve learning efficiency and interest in a limited time, so BPL is more suitable as the external reward for gamification in museums.

Intrinsic Motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is a kind of activity or work motivation caused by the characteristics of the activity process itself or the individual’s endogenous spiritual needs. The relevant influencing factors mainly involve individual needs and emotions, characteristics of work tasks, individual achievement goal setting, self-efficacy, organizational authorization and exchange, and extrinsic motivation, etc. The related theories of intrinsic motivation include self-determination theory (SDT) [14] and flow theory.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT).

SDT points out that when a person actively chooses to take an activity rather than complete an external purpose, the same activity is more likely to make the person more stimulated and happier. Gamification driven by intrinsic motivation is considered meaningful gamification. Therefore, it will be more efficient to use gamified fun to attract children to learn relevant knowledge of intangible cultural heritage. Therefore, if museums can successfully use gamification design to attract children actively through the fun engaging activities, this will ensure an effective and efficient means of education. Moreover, if parents who are locals can participate together, their sense of belonging to the local intangible cultural heritage and affection for their children will also become part of the intrinsic motivation.

Mental Flow.

The theory of mental flow was first proposed by Csikszentmihalyi, which referring to the mental state of a person who is absorbed in a certain behavior in psychology. According to this theory, players of high ability who engage in less challenging things are more easily bored, while players of low ability who do high-challenging things tend to become more anxious. It has been widely used in video game design to keep players hooked to a game by tying to balance users’ ability with the difficulty of the game, or in other words keeping the players in a state of flow. In fact, the purpose of gamification design in museums is to engage children as if they are playing a video game. There have been several validated scales of mental flow such as E-flow Scale, FSS and DFS, which can be used as the feedback to measure the effectiveness of gamification in museums.

3 Design Process

In order to verify the effectiveness of gamification in the intangible cultural heritage museum and the influence of internal motivation and external rewards, this paper applied these theories to the museum exhibit design of Fotiaoqiang, a local intangible cultural heritage in China.

3.1 Background of Fotiaoqiang

Fotiaoqiang, a traditional Chinese dish, is a soup that contains many expensive ingredients such as abalone and sea cucumber. The typical recipe and cooking process of Fotiaoqiang is very complicated, and its history can be traced back hundreds of years in ancient China. It was approved by the State Council to be included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008. However, most Chinese people’s impression of Fotiaoqiang is limited to its high price, but they know nothing about the history and practice of this famous dish.

3.2 Design Goal

This design aims to improve the effectiveness of information dissemination of Fotiaoqiang for children in museums, in order to reserve this local intangible cultural heritage from generation to generation.

3.3 Technical Path

After collecting the relevant information of Fotiaoqiang the information was carefully arranged and summarized to three interesting key points: the place it comes from (as a basic knowledge of Chinese food), the origin of its strange name and its special way of cooking. In accordance with the museum information dissemination theory and gamification theory, the information was processed to a mock-up kitchen and an introduction was shown to children in a gamified manner on a touch screen and with the help of parents through hints from related application on a smart phone. The mock-up kitchen consists of plastic cooking utensils and ingredients with NFC, which can identify if the right ingredients are in the right utensils and show the corresponding cooking progress on the touch screen. The technical path is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

A figure of the technical path

3.4 Motivation Analysis

According to the gamification theory mentioned in the previous chapter, this museum exhibit design combined intrinsic motivation with extrinsic rewards. The extrinsic rewards mainly used BPL mechanism. Intrinsic motivation includes parents’ sense of belonging to the local intangible cultural heritage and affection for their children through their participation. The following is a detailed description of the design based on the motivation classification:

Design of Extrinsic Rewards: BPL.

Internal motivation in this design was triggered through BPL mechanism. Players go through three levels: birthplace, origin and traditional recipe (see Fig. 2). In each level, players can get 0 to 3 stars, depending on their response. If the wrong answer is selected, the system will provide the correct answer and explain it in detail. Players must complete one level to unlock the next level, and the difficulty is gradual. In the first and second level, players will be asked to answer illustrated multiple-choice questions on the touchpad, but will require more patience to hear the whole story of the origin of the name in the second level. Table 1 shows how the details of each level.

Fig. 2.

User interface of three levels

Table 1. Details of each level in the design.

Design for Internal Motivation: Participation of Parents.

Internal motivation in this design was triggered through participation of parents, including hints, mock-up kitchen and digital photo souvenir.

Hints.

Hints are some implied text about the answer, which can be found by scanning the QR code in the corner of every page of questions or missions. To get higher scores, children will have to rely on their parents’ smart phones to get the hint. For example, the corresponding hint of the birthplace of Fotiaoqiang in the first level is south of China, which can narrow down a certain range of choices.

Mock-up Kitchen.

Mock-up kitchen is a real space consist of plastic cooking utensils and ingredients with NFC. Compared with virtual kitchen on screen, it gives parents more space to help their children finish the cooking task together.

Digital Photo Souvenir.

Digital photo souvenir is a photo that children will take with their parents when stage clear, and will be automatically sent to the APP of the parents. The photo is decorated with the badge they have got and illustration about Fotiaoqiang and this museum, which can be a unique souvenir to remind parents and children about this experience. The kinship may push parents and children to finish the task.

4 Experimentation and Results

4.1 Experimental Test

The experiment is to verify the effectiveness of gamification of different motivation in prototype of the design above. Limited by technology and equipment, parents’ QR code hints were replaced by paper version, and the digital photo souvenir was processed afterwards. And the mockup-kitchen were replaced by similar toys with no NFC, which was controlled by the guide of the experimenter. 30 pairs of volunteers were divided into three group, aged 10 to 12, all from local Chinese families. The average age of the children in each group was basically the same to ensure the fairness of the results in each group. There are two reasons to choose the age group of 10–12 years old as follows. Firstly, G1 requires a large amount of text reading ability, while Chinese children learn to read characters from the age of 6 and can 10 can read a lot at a rapid pace at about the age of 10. Secondly, the subjective assessment scale children need to fill is more suitable for older ones, because they can better understand the scale.

In the experiment, the children all learned the same content about Fotiaoqiang, but displayed in totally different ways:

• G1(Group one): Children were given traditional text-based display board.

• G2(Group two): Children were asked to experience the museum exhibitions described in the previous chapter on their own, which means no hint of QR code or any other participation of their parents. The parents were asked to wait in another room.

• G3(Group three): Children were asked to experience the museum exhibitions described in the previous chapter.

G1 stood for no gamification. G2 represented gamification with only extrinsic rewards. G3 stood for both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic rewards. Because internal motivation is beneficial in theory but difficult to implement with design, G2 was to verify the effectiveness of parents’ participation as internal motivation. According to the theory and analysis above, the hypothesis was as follows:

• Assumption 1: If the G2 was better than the G1, the design for external rewards was proved to be effective.

• Assumption 2: If the G3 was better than the G2, the design for internal motivation was proved to be effective.

4.2 Measure

After the game, all the children were asked to do fulfill the Short Flow State Scale-2 (short FSS-2) immediately to measure their concentration and a knowledge test to exam their mastery of Fotiaoqiang a day later.

Knowledge Test.

The knowledge test was designed to analyze the educational efficiency by measuring how much knowledge the subjects had remembered. The test consisted of seven multiple-choice questions about Fotiaoqiang, which were all mentioned in the design or the text-based display board. Each question has an option “I don’t know” to prevent the subject from guessing the answer and disturb the results.

Short FSS-2.

Flow state has been regarded as a positive outcome of gamification. The State Flow scale-2 (FSS-2) is one of the most commonly used methods of heart flow measurement, which is used to measure the flow state under specific conditions. Short FSS-2 is the abbreviated version of it. FFS-2 consists of 36 items, but too many items increase the burden on the subjects. Studies have shown that the average time to complete the Chinese version of FSS-2 is 20.4 min, while the average time to complete the Chinese version of short FSS-2 is only 4.7 min, saving more than 4 times [15]. The reduction of test time not only contributes to the recruitment of the test subjects, but also improves the reliability of their answers. Moreover, the subjects in this experiment were children, so it was difficult for them to complete the complex scale carefully. Moreover, the difficulty of understanding increases after it is translated into Chinese, which may cause greater reading burden on children. So, the abbreviated version was selected.

Short FSS-2 consists of 9items, with one item to represent each of the nine flow dimensions. It is rated on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from “1” (strongly disagree) to “5” (strongly agree). The score is to sum the 9 items together and then divide by 9.

4.3 Result and Conclusion

The conclusion was that the gamification in this design was positive. The effectiveness of external rewards was obviously positive, while the effectiveness of internal motivation was positive but not very significant. The following is two conclusions corresponding to the two assumptions.

Conclusion 1.

G2 was significantly better than G1 in both knowledge test and short FSS-2, which proved that the previous design for gamification of external rewards is positive.

Knowledge Test of G1 and G2.

In knowledge test, G1 and G2 was significantly different after the t-test (P = 0.002 < 0.05). The children remembered more through the design for gamification of external rewards than no gamification (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3.

A box plot of the Knowledge Test.

Short FSS-2 of G1 and G2.

In short FSS-2, G1 and G2 was significantly different after the t-test (P = 0.008 < 0.05). The children were more absorbed through the design for gamification of external rewards than no gamification (see Fig. 4).

Fig. 4.

A box plot of short FSS-2.

Conclusion 2.

There was no significant difference between G3 and G2, But the average score of G3 is slightly higher than G2, which proves that the previous design for gamification of internal motivation is positive to some extent, but the difference was not particularly large and still need further research.

Knowledge Test of G2 and G3.

In knowledge test, G1 and G2 was significantly different after the t-test (P = 0.03 < 0.05). The children remembered more through the design for gamification of both internal motivation and external rewards than no gamification (see Fig. 3).

Short FSS-2 of G2 and G3.

In short FSS-2, G2 and G3 was not significantly different after the t-test (P = 0.8 > 0.05). The children’s state of flow didn’t change a lot between these two groups (see Fig. 4).

5 Discussion

As for the subjects, due to the reading ability limitation of G1 and difficulty of understanding the following test, the younger children were not involved. But in fact, the gamification of G3 is very suitable for younger children who are very dependent on their parents, as they are more interested in such games and their dependency will make them more willing to cooperate with parents.

From the results, the effectiveness of gamification in this experiment was obviously positive, but the motivation still needs further research. From the perspective of flow state, the design for internal motivation didn’t matters. But in the measurements of knowledge mastery, the result is positive. Maybe it could be partly affected by children being afraid of parents’ supervision instead of children’s internal motivation.