RADVENTURES: A Mobile Game in Raising Students' Awareness on the Applications of Nuclear Technology

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Introduction

For the past decades, nuclear technology has been used to improve the quality of products, livestock production, medicine, and pest control in crops. However, most Filipinos still view the use of nuclear science as negative and precarious. According to a study conducted in the US, a direct correlation exists between the person's level of knowledge regarding nuclear technology and their perspective (Bisconti, 2016). With the growing popularity of mobile games, the researchers conducted this study to raise the awareness and knowledge of students on the applications of nuclear technology through a mobile game called Radventures.

Materials and Methods

The participants were 75 grade 7 students from Caloocan City Science High School. Three groups composed of 25 students each were randomly selected- sections of Galileo and Kepler were assigned to be the experimental groups who used the mobile game as the treatment, and section of Copernicus as the control group who utilized the brochures. Pre-tests, post-tests and survey questionnaires were given to all groups. Test results were statistically analyzed using ANOVA and ttest in order to determine the efficiency of Radventures in raising the students' awareness and knowledge towards the applications of nuclear technology.

Results and Discussion

At α = 0.05, a significant difference was observed on the results of pre and post-surveys within the experimental groups, who took the gameplay, while no significant change was shown within the control group. Students from Galileo and Kepler had significantly increased their level of awareness, unlike the students from Copernicus, which had a minimal increase in their level of awareness. However, in terms of the assessment of the level of knowledge between groups, all groups showed a significant difference on the results of the pre and post-tests.

Conclusions

The results from the analysis indicate that the capability of Radventures to increase the students' awareness is the same as that of brochure. Nevertheless, Radventures was proven to be more effective in increasing the students' knowledge than traditional brochures