Preventing Pollution: A Scoring Review of Immersive Learning Environments and Gamified Systems for Children and Young People

To effectively address pollution and its negative effects, educational interventions that incorporate immersive learning environments (ILEs) or gamification have been developed by scholars, educators, and healthcare professionals for use with children and young people. The aim was to scope this body of knowledge to provide evidence on (i) the efficacy of such applications and (ii) the theoretical and design elements of these applications. In total, 33 applications were identified across 31 papers. Overall, the quality of the existing empirical work was poor, the scope of the evaluations was limited, and there was limited evidence of theory-informed design. The authors call on scholars, editors, reviewers, and funding bodies to help raise the standard of work in the field.