The Best Paper Award of the 8th International Conference on HCI in Games
has been conferred to
Talayeh Dehghani Ghotbabadi, Tobias Hodel (University of Bern, Switzerland) and Magy Seif El-Nasr (University of California, USA)
for the paper entitled
"Gamifying Learning for Sustainability: Designing Emotionally Sustainable Engagement through Human–Computer Interaction"
Talayeh Dehghani Ghotbabadi
(presenter)
Best Paper Award for the 8th International Conference on HCI in Games, in the context of HCI International 2026, Montreal, Canada, 26 - 31 July 2026
Certificate for Best Paper Award of the 8th International Conference on HCI in Games presented in the context of HCI International 2026, Montreal, Canada, 26 - 31 July 2026
Paper Abstract
Sustainability education seeks to foster sustained engagement with environmental challenges, yet learners often disengage due to emotional burdens such as guilt, anxiety, and moral pressure. Although gamification is frequently proposed to increase engagement, dominant implementations rely on extrinsic rewards, performance comparison, and evaluative feedback, which can intensify pressure and undermine intrinsic motivation in emotionally sensitive learning contexts.
This paper introduces Emotionally Sustainable Gamified Learning (ESGL), a design framework grounded in Self-Determination Theory (SDT) that reframes gamification as an emotionally supportive approach to sustainability learning. ESGL was developed through a three-phase formative research process comprising (1) a diagnostic survey informed by SDT-aligned motivational dimensions commonly operationalized in IMI-style instruments and adapted to sustainability learning contexts (N = 117), (2) participatory co-design workshops with learners (N = 22), and (3) a two-round expert review examining theoretical coherence and motivational plausibility.
Exploratory factor analysis was used descriptively to derive design-relevant motivational domains rather than to validate psychological constructs. Synthesizing findings across phases, the framework identifies four clusters of emotionally supportive, game-inspired design patterns, namely reflective play, collaborative challenges, avatar-guided feedback, and resilience-oriented acknowledgment, aligned with the psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. ESGL proposes a transferable framework and an actionable mapping procedure that links learner-identified emotional barriers to theory-aligned design choices and explicit avoidance rules, intended to guide future learner-based empirical evaluation.
The full paper is available through SpringerLink, provided that you have proper access rights.