Motivating Airmen to Engage with Technical Education: Experimentation and Analysis Using Modern Gamification Techniques
Abstract
The development and integration of computer systems into today's society and the subsequent growth of cyber as a warfighting domain has led to changes in military and civilian conflict. Several traits unique to cyber, including disruption and fast pace of change, has led to issues never before seen in the military environment, especially with educating and training. A new approach that leverages crowd-sourced content has been proposed. This approach relies on motivating military members to voluntarily engage with technical (cyber) education. The application of gamification, a design practice aimed at increasing user engagement by targeting core motivators in humans, in the military context is presented in this paper. The adaptation and evaluation of unique game elements onto the platform is also discussed. A human-subject study involving a survey and engagement-tracking experiment is implemented. Results are analyzed using visualization software and a novel framework we created. We then present results explaining what core drives motivate military members on average and within subgroups. We also show that engagement data can be attributed to motivation levels. Finally, we present recommendations to military leadership and education platform designers based on our findings before discussing ideas for future work.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 21, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1076457
Entities
People
- Landon G. Tomcho
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology