Social-Cultural and Technological Impact of Gamifying Sexual Health Instruction for Digital-Savvy Adolescent Generation in a Low-Tech Setting: Quasi-Experimental Design (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Over the past few decades, unhealthy sexual behaviour presents to be a severe problem that disproportionately affects adolescents, and there is an increasing need for more effective ways of teaching them about sexual health. Majority of adolescents are exposed in the use of digital technologies; hence these digital tools can be useful and employed for educating them regarding sexual health promotion and prevention. OBJECTIVE To this effect, this paper looks at how the use of digital gamified instructions can help to improve and be of effect in educating adolescent about sexual health and address sexual and reproductive health challenges facing adolescent students in low-tech setting. METHODS In our study, the creation of the digital gamified methodology was developed using a participatory design research approach. Practically, the series of experimentations were conducted on a sample of 120 secondary school students, aged 11-15. Thus, using a quasi-experiment design, the students were not randomly assigned to either serious gaming or gamification, or traditional learning methods. Rather existing classes were either assigned to experimental groups and or control group. Consequently, we compare the effectiveness of the three methods for communicating sexual health knowledge. RESULTS The results show that gamified instructions (i.e. use of actual serious gaming in teaching) and gamification (making non-games, such as learning, game-like) proved more effective than the traditional methods for teaching sexual health education. Specifically, the average scores across groups demonstrated an increase of mean scores in the pre-test Mean 25.10 (SD 5.50) to post-test Mean 75.86 (SD 13.16), t119 = 41.252, P <.001 (2-tailed). ANOVA test indicated no significant differences across group for pre-test scores F2, 117 = 1. 048, P = .354. However, significant differences across groups were reported on post-test scores which indicated serious gaming and gamification students performed higher average scores than traditional learning group F2, 117 = 83.98, P <.001. Moreover, students benefited from serious gaming and gamification instructions they reported increased learning motivation, attitude, knowhow, and participation in the learning process (P <.001). CONCLUSIONS In theory, this study notes that digital health technologies, including e-learning (particularly teaching and learning through gamified instructions and other novel approaches), have the potential of improving sexual health education. Ultimately the method can be useful towards achieving a knowledgeable generation of adolescent students on the subject matter.