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A SERIOUS GAME PROTOTYPE BASED ON STUDY TRAINING EMOTION REGULATION TO HELP COLLEGE STUDENTS REDUCE ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION
Take ‘Cat Clinic’ as a case
Master Degree Project in Informatics One year Level 22.5 ECTS Spring term 2021
Siyuan Wang
Supervisor: Per Backlund Examiner: Mikael Johannesson Abstract
Academic procrastination is a common phenomenon among contemporary college students. This behavior seriously affected the graduation, physical and mental of college students. Playing games is a kind of procrastination behavior, which refers to short-term happiness through games and avoiding the pain caused by academic writing. The purpose of this article is to help students pay attention to using idle games to regulate emotions to reduce the frequency of academic writing procrastination. In terms of game design, the game type chosen is idle games. The study used the method of emotion regulation skill trend chart to divide the procrastinators into two groups for the experiment. The conclusion is that serious games based on learning emotion regulation can help procrastinators to improve their emotion regulation skills and reduce the frequency of procrastination to a certain extent.
Keywords: serious game; academic procrastination；emotion regulation; idle game
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ...... 1 2 Background ...... 2 2.1 Academic procrastination ...... 2 2.2 Idle games and serious games ...... 2 2.3 Emotion regulation ...... 6 3 Problem ...... 8 3.1 Limitations ...... 9 3.2 Ethical considerations ...... 10 4 Method ...... 11 4.1 Overall research process ...... 11 4.2 Experiment procedure ...... 11 4.3 Interview guide ...... 12 4.4 Participants ...... 13 4.5 Measures ...... 13 5 Detailed description of the game ...... 15 6 Results ...... 19 6.1 LPG group ...... 20 6.1.1 Emotion regulation skill trend map ...... 20 6.1.2 Self-support skills ...... 22 6.1.3 LPG's method of planning academic writing tasks in game prototype ...... 25 6.1.4 LPG's usefulness perception in in game prototype ...... 27 6.2 MPG group ...... 28 6.2.1 Emotion regulation skill trend map ...... 28 6.2.2 Self support skills ...... 31 6.2.3 MPG's method of planning academic writing tasks in game prototype ...... 34 6.2.4 MPG's usefulness perception in game prototype ...... 36 6.3 Comparison between groups MPG/LPG ...... 38 6.3.1 ER skills...... 38 6.3.2 Self-support skill ...... 38 6.3.3 Method of planning academic writing tasks in game prototype ...... 39 6.3.4 Usefulness perception in game prototype...... 39 7 Discussion ...... 40 7.1 Research questions’ answers ...... 40 7.2 Limatations ...... 41 8 Conclusions ...... 43 8.1 Summary ...... 43 8.2 Future Work ...... 43 References ...... 44
1 Introduction
Academic procrastination and gaming, seem to be two opposite concepts. In other words, evading academic writing through games can be a way of procrastination. Since games can bring happiness, how to improve academic procrastination through games has become an interesting topic. The research and discussion in this thesis aim to study procrastinator emotion regulation with the help of a game to improve academic writing. The aim is to explore the possibility of using emotion regulation to remedy the symptoms of college students’ academic procrastination. According to Schouwenburg (1995), 70% of colleges have academic procrastination. Many people, especially those with severe procrastination, feel very powerless about this. For students, serious academic delays will greatly affect their graduation. Solomon & Rothblum (1984) found in a survey that most college students’ aversion to tasks is the main factor leading to academic procrastination, while a small number of students may also procrastinate due to depression, fear of failure, the pursuit of perfection, poor confidence, and cognitive problems. Academic delays may be caused by complicated factors. According to a meta-analysis of many studies, the main reason is procrastination caused by the failure of emotion regulation (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013). Eckert, Ebert, Lehr, et al. (2016, pp.10-18) state that “Emotion regulation plays a critical role for understanding the self-regulatory failure of procrastination. Individuals postpone or avoid aversive task in order to gain short-term positive affect at the cost of long-term goals”. Therefore, for procrastinators, emotion regulation is the primary solution to overcome academic procrastination. Among the current serious games, there is no game aimed at reducing procrastination in the strict sense. Although some games involve focused time, such as Forest, a game designed to keep people focused, this software does not target procrastination (Harrison, 2016). And these games basically revolve around idle games. According to Alharthi et al. (2018), idle games are unique in motivating long-term motivation and promoting desired behaviors. Therefore, the idle game type may be a reliable choice for developing serious game prototypes to reduce academic procrastination of college students through emotional regulation. Based on the meta-analysis by Berking & Znoj (2008) , fear of failure and aversion to the task are the main psychological factors that lead to the failure of emotion factors. In order to explore the potential of training procrastinators’ emotion regulation on academic tasks in serious games. This thesis takes its starting point in the emotion regulation ability of procrastinators, and developed a serious game based on learning emotion regulation to help researchers explore the potential of serious games in reducing students’ procrastination on academic tasks.
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2 Background
2.1 Academic procrastination
Academic procrastination has been seen as an impediment to academic success because it decreases the quality and quantity of learning while increasing the severity of stress and negative outcomes in students’ lives (Hen & Goroshit ， 2014 ， p.1). There are many predisposing factors for academic procrastination, including deficits, tendency to boredom, low self-esteem, individual values, learning routines, fear of failure, perfectionism, and locus of control (Hen & Goroshit ， 2014). These very complicated psychological factors are summarized as two independent reasons in the homogeneity analysis of Solomon & Rothblum (1984): 1. Fear of failure 2. Aversion to task.
Academic procrastination is systematic and autonomous procrastination in learning tasks, even though this behavior can bring harm. Students often engage in activities like sleeping, reading, or watching TV instead of learning (Eckert, 2016, p.1). Students obtain short-term pleasure through related entertainment activities in order to alleviate the disgust brought by academic tasks. However, studies have shown that engaging in these enjoyable activities does not increase the positive impact, but instead aggravates one's guilt by avoiding academic tasks. (Eckert, 2016). As time goes by, the guilt of this procrastination disorder will become stronger and stronger, eventually becoming flustered, and will break out before the deadline. Therefore, procrastinators will fall into particularly depressed negative emotions, and the quality of task completion is also commonly low. Ugwuanyi et al. (2020) refer that high- level procrastination makes students unable to regulate and organize to achieve their academic goals causing them depression, anxiety, and stress. It is not a gendered restricted or gender-based trait rather works across the gender and affects both the sexes. According to Hen & Goroshit (2014, p.1), “among all the variables that have been investigated in relationship to academic procrastination, self-related variables such as self-regulation, self-efficacy, and self- esteem have received the most attention.” So in order to overcome this kind of procrastination, one should consider an emotion-centric strategy（Eckert, 2016）.
2.2 Idle games and serious games In 2002, Eric Fredricksen (2002) wrote a program called ‘Progress Quest’ to imitate other massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Players labelled it as the "Zero Player" game, because when players set up their artificial characters, they can't interact with the game characters at all. The game itself will complete upgrades, kill monsters, and buy and sell equipment. And players have become observers. This is the first idle game that can be traced back. At first, idle games were also called "on-hook games" or "click games". Due to the emphasis on value growth such as resources, experience, and level, they can also be called incremental games.
According to Alharthi, Alsaedi, Toups et al. (2018), an idle game is a minimalist game that accumulates as a core mechanism by periodically repeating a simple action such as clicking to accumulate the core mechanism. The game can play itself without the player operating, and these operations are considered meaningful by players. 2
Since the emergence of Progress Quest, different idle game developers have been inspired and produced many creative idle games (See Figure.1). With the gradual maturity of the idle game development concept, a ‘cow’ pushed the idle game to the mainstream social platform. The ‘cow’ is a game named Cow Clicker (Bogost,2020). The original intention of the creator of the game, Ian Bogost, was to satirize the phenomenon that “social network games are exhausting players' time and money and neglect the artistry of the game itself”, so he created such a simple clicker game (Tyler, 2015). Although this game was very popular at the time, it was eventually removed by the author because of its lack of gameplay.
Figure1. Alharthi, Alsaedi, Toups et,al.,2018. Sample of idle games featuring different styles of gameplay, interaction, and graphical or text interfaces.
The core mechanics of idle games are repeatedly invoked and affect the underlying subsystem of the game in a pivotal way, and the most important game balance is managing resource accumulation and expenditure (Alharthi et al. 2018). Compared to other genres, the idle game has its special feature: It’s easier to connect with daily activities (Alharthi et al. 2018).
Alharthi et al. (2018) also recognize the interesting factors in idle games:
1. The player's actions are inversely proportional to the interactive content of the game, that is, the more the player's actions, the smaller the interactive content of the game.
2. The idle game makes full use of the player’s Micro-boredom Moments (such as queuing, waiting for the red light etc.) (Richmond, 2015).
The most important point is “The unique characteristics of idle games have the potential to be used to incentivize long-term motivation and promote desired behaviors.”(Alharthi et al.,2018, p.10) As a long-term daily activity, academic writing matches the operating mechanism of idle games. At the same time, academic writing involves long-term task planning. “Owing to their often extended play times, idle games can serve as probes to understand players’ planning behaviors and motivations to play games in long time scales.” (Alharthi et al.,2018, p.10) This may provide some motivation support for long-term academic writing.
Alharthi et al. (2018) concluded that idle games may inspire new ways of thinking, making people think about which activities are valuable in the game process, how to organize the game, and which resources will suit their needs.
In the field of serious games, there is indeed related software to help people focus on doing something. The most typical representative is Forest (Harrison, 2016) (See Figure 2). . This is a commercial game. The game genre is an idle game. It is a mobile game that focuses on concentration. When a player starts a concentration task, a tree will be planted in the software. This tree will grow within the focus time you set, but when you interrupt the software in the 3 middle, such as by using other apps, your tree will die off. Although this game does not have a strategy for reducing procrastination, it has the nature of a serious game in terms of improving concentration.
Figure2. Forest official product introduction. Available at: < https://www.forestapp.cc/ >
Another serious game based on the idle game type is ‘Sleep Town (ShouYiShe, 2019)’. This is also a commercial game. The purpose of this game is to help players develop regular sleeping habits. What the player needs to do is to set the target time to fall asleep and wake up. If the player concentrates on sleeping and does not use the phone within the specified time, the player’s building will be completed and the corresponding reward will be obtained. However, if the player leaves the application within the set time, The building will be destroyed (ShouYiShe，2019). The game mechanism is very similar to Forest (Harrison, 2016) , but the difference is that the buildings obtained by the player in 'Sleep Town (ShouYiShe, 2019) can be arranged, and the buildings obtained by the player through sleep will bring continuous benefits to the player, which is equivalent to idle. On the basis of the game, the game mechanism of simulated operation is added (See Figure3).
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Figure3. Sleep Town interface(Sleeptown.seekrtech.com, 2021)
In You (2020)’s case study of the ‘Sleep Town (ShouYiShe, 2019), it is mentioned that this game provides players with a double sleep space, that is, the sleep situation in the real world is synchronized with the construction in the virtual world, and these gamification elements are imperceptibly changing the behavior of players, making players gradually realize the importance of sleep. In fact, it is not only Sleep Town (ShouYiShe, 2019) that provides players with double space. Because idle games have very few interactive elements, players are completely free to play the game. Compared with idle games that focus on entertainment, idle games that focus on serious gaming seem to be able to make better use of the ability to create a double space. The double space is defined as the core feature of idle games in the research of Spiel et al (2019). The player’s own reality space and idle game space are parallel for most of the time and run independently under the same time sharing. Idle games will provide the player with incremental content and different choices the next time the two spaces intersect, that is, when the player is playing the idle game.
Comparing these two representative serious games with idle games as the game type, Forest (Harrison, 2016) and Sleep Town (ShouYiShe, 2019) have almost the same positive and negative feedback timer game mechanism. If the game is interrupted within the specified time, it will give the corresponding negative feedback. On the contrary, if not interrupted, it gives the player the corresponding positive feedback. The items obtained by the player through the positive and negative feedback mechanisms will be accumulated in the game and can be intuitively seen by the player. The difference is that in Sleep Town (ShouYiShe, 2019), players can freely operate and place game assets. Its gameplay is higher than Forest (Harrison, 2016). However,based on the different serious goals of the two games, Forest (Harrsion, 2016) is more inclined to improve concentration (seriousness). The gameplay of randomly placing assets may have unexpected side effects on the serious goals, so it cannot be generalized.
In the research of this article, the positive and negative feedback mechanisms of the timers of two serious games can be used as a good reference in the design of the prototype serious game, creating a double focus space for procrastinators. However, you need to pay attention to the balance between entertainment and seriousness. You can learn from the asset placement mechanism of Sleep Town (ShouYiShe, 2019), but the space provided to players for asset placement should be appropriately reduced, and limited operations are used to prevent
5 players from failing to timely. Satisfaction is over-relied on in the module of asset placement, so focus on the module of time.
2.3 Emotion regulation Emotion regulation is a series of conceptual doctrines of developmental processes (Thompson, 1994). In the initial research on emotion regulation, psychoanalysis and stress and coping traditions were focus (Gross, 1999). However, with the widespread rise of academic interest in emotion regulation, the concept of emotion regulation has now entered people’s daily lives. What is interesting is that most procrastinators who fail to regulate their emotions prefer to watch cat videos on the Internet to avoid existing jobs and tasks, and these cat-related media will not bring any substantial benefits to procrastinators (Myric, 2015). It is not accidental that watching cute media brings positive emotions to viewers. Cute media (including cats and dogs) not only induce positive emotions but also change people's behavior, especially helping people narrow their attention span (Nittono et al, 2012).
This kind of media is an indispensable part of people's lives today. In addition to watching Internet videos, people also play video games to relieve pressure in their lives. In the field of serious games, video games have proven to provide many opportunities for emotional regulation, but also bring many challenges for education and psychological intervention (Villani et al, 2018 pp.85-99). According to Villani et al (2018)’s systematic review of serious emotion regulation games ， video games can temporarily help to recover from negative emotions and increase concentration. This provides a lot of conjectures for the training of players’ emotion regulation in video games. Serious games developed for experiments may enhance emotion regulation.
Procrastination is a form of failure in self-emotion regulation and is closely related to short- term emotional repair (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013). Accompanied by procrastination, there is also a lack of concentration and other phenomena (Ferrari, 2000). So for procrastination patients, training emotion regulation (ER) skill is a skill they need to train.
According to Eckert et al (2016, pp.10-18), “ER skills include subcomponents such as the ability:
(a) to be aware of one's emotions, (b) to identify and label emotions, (c) to correctly interpret emotions related to bodily sensations, (d) to understand the prompts of emotions, (e) to support one's own self in emotionally distressing situations, (f) to actively modify negative emotions in order to feel better, (g) to accept emotions, (h) to be resilient (in order to tolerate aversive emotions), (i) to confront emotionally distressing situations in order to attain important goals, (j) to support oneself (self-support), and (k) to modify aversive emotions .”
In these ER skills, (h) to be resilient (in order to tolerate aversive emotions) and (k) to modify aversive emotions played a vital role. That is, the self-support skill which is one of the sub skills 6 in ER skills. They have the ability to mediate the relationship between all other sub-skills and mental health (Eckert et al., 2016). In the study of Wohl, Pychyl & Bennett (2010), it is pointed out that the increase of self-forgiveness can reduce the negative psychological impact and effectively reduce procrastination. They mentioned that the process of achieving self- forgiveness is divided into three basic steps (Wohl, Pychyl & Bennett,2010):
1. Be aware of your emotions and accept them. 2. Experience the feeling of regret with the body. 3. Switch from self-punishment to self-forgiveness.
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3 Problem
Although there are many proposals and measures on how to solve academic procrastination, there are still many procrastinators who have stopped on the way to overcome procrastination. Based on the conclusion of Eckert’s (2016) emotion-centric strategy, this paper aims to help procrastinators reduce the frequency of academic procrastination by training emotion regulation skills. According to the conclusion of Alharthi et al. (2018), idle games may inspire new ways of thinking, making people think about which activities are valuable during the game, how to organize the game, and which resources will meet their needs. At the same time, procrastinators tend to pin their emotions on the feeling of short-term satisfaction (Eckert, 2016), so the positive feedback mechanism of idle games may allow the procrastinators to meet short-term needs and give short-term satisfaction. According to Eckert et al., (2016) there are two main emotion regulation skills that affect procrastination behavior: (1) to be resilient (2) to modify aversive emotions. Addressing these may play a vital role to solve the main problem.
Therefore, this thesis has the following research questions:
Research QuestioL1: What is the effect on emotion regulation from playing a game aimed at reducing aversion to an academic task?
Myrick (2015) pointed out that Internet media using cats as a medium can increase people's positive emotions and decrease negative emotions. So the serious game prototype will be made with cats as a medium. But considering that not all participants like cats, interviews will be used in the experiment to conduct a more comprehensive analysis.
Ideally, effective emotion regulation training through cute cat squinting media could help procrastinators tolerate academic tasks in idle games, thereby reducing the frequency of procrastination.
Research QuestioL2: How can procrastinators use serious games to plan academic writing tasks?
Based on the common feature that procrastinators generally find it difficult to start a task, this serious game will specifically provide procrastinators with an intuitive and concise time planning table and task planning table for them to fill out. In order to facilitate the procrastinators to better manage multiple tasks at the same time, the game supports multiple task planning, and these tasks are displayed separately: only one task appears on an interface. The purpose of the design is to prevent procrastinators from feeling more pressure when faced with the many tasks that are concentrated in front of them, which can trigger unnecessary negative emotions.
Research QuestioL3: What is the perceived usefulness of a game aiming to improve time utilization for academic tasks?
Insufficient attention span is one of the characteristics of procrastinators (Ferrari, 2000). Therefore, for procrastinators, the utilization rate of time is often much worse than for those who can reasonably plan time. The average attention span of a person generally does not exceed 2 hours, usually ranging from 10 minutes to 90 minutes (David Cornish& Dukette, 2009). Therefore, in terms of helping procrastinators to improve their attention, I choose
8 minutes as the time unit to give a suitable time span, which limits the procrastinators to set a long time span to distract the attention and perform ineffective work.
3.1 Limitations The reality is that the project will be limited to college students who are doing academic writing and are interested in improving academic procrastination. Subjects will use the Procrastination Assessment Scale-Students (PASS) questionnaire (See Appendix-A) to screen out procrastinators.
Due to technical limitations, the developed game will be provided to participants in the form of a PC version. Even though the experiment will us a PC version of the game I envision an updated version on a mobile platform due to technical limitations and resources. To this end, in order to get closer to the effect of a mobile app, I decided to let the participants set the shortcut of the game on the computer desktop after they got the game. The reason is that participants need to use a computer for academic tasks. The shortcut to set the game to the desktop can be more intuitively observed by the player. In another aspect, it serves as a reminder to the player and reduces the player’s academic tasks. The risk of forgetting to use the game before.
Due to Covid-19, the experiment uses a real-world experimental environment, that is, the subject will conduct the experiment at any location. This introduces a risk that there will be many accidents, and it is difficult for the researcher to track the behavior of participants. So in order to better communicate with participants, I used Discord to create a channel dedicated to the experiments. This channel gathers all participants and provides a space for researchers and participants to communicate and track experimental conditions.
The channels are divided into text channels and voice channels.
Text channel structure:
#welcome-and-rules: In this channel, there is basic information about the entire experiment, including experiment purpose, experiment procedure, experiment rules, and social and ethical considerations
#questionnaire: In this channel, provide all the questionnaires that participants need to fill out
#game-instructions: In this channel, provide introductions and instructions for specific gameplay
#chat: In this channel, participants can freely communicate in text, such as questions about gameplay, and researchers will answer questions from players in this channel.
Voice channel structure:
#Interview room: In this channel, one-to-one interviews between researchers and experimenters are provided.
#chat: In this channel, participants can freely communicate via voice, such as asking questions about gameplay. Researchers will answer questions from players in this channel.
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3.2 Ethical considerations The experiment complies with Swedish laws and complies with social ethics (Codex, 2021), and will not harm the personal and mental safety of participants. The results of this study are only used for the author’s graduation thesis.
Regarding the participants, all those who participated in the experiment were informed of the purpose of the experiment, the content of the experiment, and the purpose of the data. All of the participants agreed with the Integrity Declaration (See Appendix-C). Participants are voluntarily participating in the experiment and have the right to terminate the experiment at any time.
Regarding the experimental data, the data does not involve sensitive personal data, and the data is only used for data analysis of the report. The information presented in the report will not be possible to trace back to an individual participant.
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4 Method
4.1 Overall research process The overall research process of this paper is composed of literature survey-game design- evaluation (experiment and interview) (See Figure.4).
Figure4. Overall research process
In the beginning, I analyzed the problem areas of the case study through the literature survey and put forward three research questions for research purposes. With the support of a theoretical foundation, I conducted serious game design for the research questions, and the designed game was first tested in a pilot study. The pilot study lasted for one week. It simulated the steps of the formal experiment and initially evaluated the feasibility and operability of the formal experiment. The evaluation of the participant's procrastination frequency and the evaluation of the emotion regulation skills questionnaire meet the experimental standards, so these two evaluation methods were retained and unchanged. However, some appropriate adjustments were made to the interview questions, and most of the true and false questions were converted into open questions. According to the feedback from players on the game test, the game design has been adjusted appropriately, and game description content has been added.
After a pilot study on the improvement of experimental methods and game design, the final product would be put into experimental evaluation. The experiment lasted for two weeks. I eventually received the participants’ two-week emotion regulation skills questionnaire data and interview data, and analyzed the experimental data to verify the research questions of the article and draw conclusions.
4.2 Experiment procedure The entire experiment process is shown in Figure5 (See Figure.5). After completing the screening of procrastinators, the participants were pre-evaluated by the emotion regulation questionnaire. After that a two-week experiment period was conducted. Participants need to play the game at least once a week and need to re-evaluate their emotion regulation skills on the last day of the week and accept in-depth interviews with researchers. The Emotion Regulation (ER) skills Score assessed by the participants over a two-week period will be used to compare trends in the procrastinator’s emotion regulation skills. This measurement method mainly conducts comparisons of the changes of Emotion-Regulation Skills questionnaire (ERSQ) scores before and after the experiment. The specific form is reflected by the trend graph. ERSQ was used to evaluate the participants’ ER skills.
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Figure5. Experiment procedure
For RQ1, in order to study the emotion regulation effects of serious games aimed at reducing aversion to an academic task for procrastinators, an emotion regulation skill questionnaire is needed to help obtain data on the emotion regulation skill scores of procrastinators. The total score of the procrastinator’s emotion regulation skills can reflect the overall effect of the serious game prototype on the procrastinator’s emotion regulation ability, and the sub-skill data of the emotion regulation skills can be used to deeply analyze various indicators of the procrastinator, including the ability to endure aversion. Self-emotional awareness ability, the body's ability to perceive emotions, etc.
4.3 Interview guide For RQ2&RQ3, in order to further know whether the procrastinator can use the serious game prototype to plan the mission and obtain the relevant significant usefulness, interviews will be used as the main method to answer the research questions.
The main purpose of the interview is to understand the participants reactions and thoughts after playing the game. The interviews pay attention to the participant's game experience, and the perception of self-ability after playing the game. Among them, the focus is on the design of interview questions for the perception of changes in their task management capabilities and the perception of time utilization.
The interview is composed of 12 questions (See Appendix-D), which involves participants' views on cats and idle games, the frequency of playing games, and the experience and feelings after playing games.
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4.4 Participants The experiment required the procrastinator as the main subject to conduct the experiment. The purpose was to collect and analyze the procrastinator’s emotion regulation skills data and in-depth interview data to answer the research questions.
11 college students participated in the experiment. All 11 participants voluntarily participated in the experiment and agreed to the author's Integrity Declaration and Authorization Application (Appendix C).
In all samples, the procrastination frequency scores of 5 participants are in the range from “sometimes procrastinating” to “near always”, and the procrastination frequency scores of the other 5 participants are in the range from “near never” to “sometimes procrastinate”, and the procrastination frequency score of 1 participant is in the range interval from “never procrastinate” to “near never”.
Therefore, I classified participants whose procrastination frequency score was in the range from #sometimes procrastinating to “near always” as the Moderate Procrastinators Group (MPG), and those whose procrastination frequency scores are in the range from “sometimes procrastinating to “near always” are classified as the Low Procrastinators Group (LPG). Participants whose procrastination frequency score is in the range of “never procrastinate” to “near never” were excluded.
4.5 Measures All measurement tools needed in this experiment are Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (PASS) (See Appendix-A), Emotion Regulations Skills Questionnaire (See Appendix- B) and Interview questions (See Appendix D).
The Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (PASS), is used to screen the procrastinators with different degrees of procrastination and exclude non-procrastinators. Eleven college students are all measured by the Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (PASS). The purpose of the Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (PASS) was designed to assess how individuals approach decision situations, specifically the tendency of individuals to postpone decisions. In this experiment, PASS was used to evaluate the frequency of procrastination with each college student in various academic tasks.
Assessment of the tendency to procrastinate in six academic areas:
1. Writing a term paper
2. Studying for an exam
3. Keeping up with weekly reading assignments
4. Performing administrative tasks
5. Attending meetings
6.Performing academic tasks in general
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The way in which Berking & Znoj(2008) scored the questionnaire was by first assigning a numerical value to the 5-point Likert Scale for each question such that a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4, and e=5. In this experiment, the need to determine the procrastination frequency by scoring summed the first two questions of each of the 6 procrastination areas (1+2+4+5+7+8+10+11+13+14+16+17) to get a total score. A higher score indicates more self- reported procrastination. Therefore, I averaged the scores into five standards (See Figure6).
Figure6 . Five standard intervals for determining the procrastination frequency score
The Emotion Regulations Skills Questionnaire, compares the trends of the participants’ emotion regulation skill scores during the experiment to assess the participant’s emotion regulation ability. The trend of data will be used to answer RQ1 has been solved. It was assessed with the Fragebogen zur Selbsteinschätzung Emotionaler Kompetenzen (SEK; Emotion Regulations Skills Questionnaire, ERSQ; Berking & Znoj, 2008). The ERSQ is a 27- item self-report measure that assesses the application of emotion-regulation skills during the previous week on a five-point Likert-type scale (“not at all” to “almost always”).
The data focus on the measurement content on the total score and self-support content which is related to the ability to tolerate aversion to the academic task. Also, I compared the difference between the final Emotion Regulation Skills score of the procrastinator and the original Emotion Regulation Skills score to determine the difference between the final score of the Self-support skill and the original score. Finally, I analyzed in-depth the reasons that may affect the procrastinator's ER skills and Self-support skills from four reasons that may affect the procrastinator's ER skills.
Given that this experiment was carried out in a real environment, an interview was arranged once a week in order to better understand the deficiencies and feedback of the game and whether participants have made additional behaviors in the game. This interview is the same as the interview guide mentioned in Chapter 4.3. Finally, the answers of all participants are merged and presented in the form of a table in the form of the group previously selected and assigned through PASS. Finally, qualitative analysis is used to summarize and summarize the experimental results to evaluate RQ2 and RQ3.
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5 Detailed description of the game
The game genre is idle game. Players will take the role of a pet doctor. Making a special treatment plan for the cat is actually the player's own academic task plan. The original intention of the design is to stimulate the player's own sense of responsibility and mission and to rationalize the behavior of academic writing tasks through games. The game will provide players with a double space (You , 2020): while the player is doing academic writing in the real world, the game is also running independently (even if the game is closed). The game supports the arrangement of multiple academic tasks and uses a continuous positive feedback mechanism to motivate players to complete the writing of academic tasks. The game also has a negative feedback mechanism. There is great tolerance for the player, the player can easily prevent the output of negative feedback, and only in extreme cases will the negative feedback mechanism be triggered. This is the stage where new tasks are added throughout the game loop flow (See Figure7).
Figure7. Game loop flow
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Figure 8 – Figure 10 show the entire game description, which is also shown to the participants (as mentioned in the Discord channel). After entering the game, the player can create a new academic task. The game will automatically generate a treatment plan frame based on the task name and deadline entered by the player, that is, the task plan (See Figure8). There are two parts of the automatically generated task plan that need to be completed by the player: time planning and milestone planning. The time range of the time planning is from Monday to Sunday of each week. The player clicks on the specific day that needs to be set, and the specific time planning time range of the day will be displayed. The player can enter the specific time range, for example, 12:00- 15:00. After the input is completed, it will be automatically displayed in the gray bar area after the specific date. Only when the player meets the two conditions of Case's time planning and milestone planning, that is, in time planning and process planning, the player can click Start treatment. The purpose of this is to prevent participants from skipping the use of the game’s task planning system to use the treatment system. Players support multi-task management in the task planning interface. You only need to click the plus button in to add new tasks (See Figure 8). Players can freely switch between different tasks in the same interface, making it easier to visually manage multiple tasks.
Figure8. Interface for task plan 16
Although the game has been tested and it is guaranteed that there are no fatal bugs (causing the game to not run normally), due to technical limitations and time constraints, we cannot guarantee that there will not be small bugs, so the note function is set up. The design purpose is not only to give players space to record information about the task, they can also fill in error reports and solutions. For example, the player accidentally creates a case, but the player cannot change the name of the case. So they can use the note module to fill out related task’s information. After the player completes the plan, he can enter the treatment interface (the interface for carrying out the task). In the treatment interface (See Figure 9), the player chooses the focus time (refer to the Forest (Harrison, 2016) focus system). If the focus is completed within the specified time, the player can choose to continue to focus and modify the plan. If you give up halfway, the player still has the right to modify the plan, but if the player chooses to continue to give up, the player will collect a sick cat. There will be milestones in the game for the player to confirm the progress of the task. If the player confirms that all the milestones are completed, the player can get a healthy cat, and the cat will bring continuous positive feedback to the player.
Figure9.Interface for focusing time
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The establishment of room space is based on the concept of double space (You, 2020) as a reference. When the player successfully obtains the first healthy cat, space starts to operate independently and automatically. The fixed increment of the game is the cat's feces. Players can click on the cat's feces to obtain gold coins. All the players need to do is clean the cat's feces and collect the gifts that the cat brings to the player. The gift mechanism is random, which means that the cat will bring gifts to the player at random moments, and the value of these gifts is much higher than that of feces. Therefore, the random reward mechanism is designed to motivate players to return to the game and increase the frequency of contact between players and the game. In this double space (You, 2020), the researcher also considered how players should effectively process these incremental information (gold coins): players can purchase decorations with the gold coins. This action can increase entertainment from getting purchased items to decorate the game.
Figure10. Interface for idle part
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6 Results
In this chapter, I mainly analyze the emotion regulation skill trend map of Low Procrastinators Group (LPG) and Moderate Procrastinators Group (MPG); self-support skill trend map; method of planning academic writing tasks in game prototypes; and the usefulness perception of serious game prototypes.
For the Emotion regulation skill trend map and the Self-support skill trend map, they are based on the changes in the scores of both groups of participants through the emotion regulation skills questionnaire in two weeks (see Appendix-F). The specific score can be found in Appendix-F.
I presented the data trends of the four factors: 1. View on cats 2. Game experience on idle games 3. Gameplay frequency 4. Game cheating. Compare the four aspects of LPG and MPG in a centralized manner, and summarize the common points and differences of the data.
Four factor evaluation criteria
These four factors are all summarized based on the interview question’s answers (See Appendix-E).
1. View on cats: According to Appendix-E, I divided the participants’ comments on cats into 3 levels: very like, like, a bit like. The criterion for judging as 'Very like' is that the participants mentioned exaggerated words such as super like and love. The criterion for judging as 'like' is that the participants only expressed their preference for cats. The criteria for judging 'A bit like' are the participants' unsure answers such as not dislike and kinda like. 2. Game experience on idle games: According to Appendix-E, I divided the participants’ idle gameplay experience into three groups: 1. played a lot 2. played a bit 3. never played. Among them, the participants clearly stated that they had a lot of idle gameplay experience, such as many, a lot of, etc. is “played a lot”. Participants who clearly stated that they have never played an idle game are “never played”. Participants who indicated that they have played idle games and expressed gameplay experience Not many are as 'played a bit'. 3. Gameplay frequency: According to Appendix-E, I made a trend chart of the gameplay frequency of the participants for two weeks. It is used to observe and compare the similarities and differences between the gameplay frequency trend map and the ER skills map of the participants. 4. Game cheating: According to Appendix-E, I divide participants’ cheating behavior into three criteria: 1. cheating 2. non-cheating 3. non-intentional cheating. Participants clearly acknowledged cheating in the gameplay as 'cheating'. LPG clearly denied cheating in the gameplay as 'non-cheating'. Participants admitted cheating in the gameplay but gave clear and reasonable reasons as 'non- intentional cheating'.
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6.1 LPG group 6.1.1 Emotion regulation skill trend map
The overall trend of total emotion regulation scores in the LPG is increasing, and the final scores of all samples are higher than the original scores (see Figure11). The skills of 3 cases showed a downward trend in Week 1, 1 case reached the lowest value in Week 1, 1 case started from Week0 and improved significantly after Week1.
Figure11. LPG's ER skills’ total score trend map for each sample (L1，L2, L3, L4& L5 are participants)
6.1.1.1 Four factors that may potentially affect LPG’s ER skills score
6.1.1.1.1 View on cats
From the perspectives of the participants view on cats, L1, who likes cats very much, showed a downward trend in emotion regulation after Week1 (See Figure 12). L2&L3, who like cats, and L5, who likes cats a little, have almost the same trend of emotion regulation (See Figure 12). As a participant who likes cats, L4's emotion regulation ability trend is completely different from other participants. It can be seen that the average procrastinator’s preference for cats does not have a great impact on their emotion regulation ability.
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Figure12. LPG's ER skills’ scores trend map in ‘Cats’ Perspective for samples (From left to right: very like cats, like cats, a bit like cats)
6.1.1.1.2 Game experience on idle games
Judging from the participants’ experience of idle games, all the samples of LPG have only played a few idle games, so they are not well represented in this chapter (See Figure 13). Judging by the current trend process, a small amount of idle game experience is not the main factor that causes the trend change of the emotion regulation ability of LPG.
Figure13. LPG's ER skills’ score trend map in ‘Idle’ Perspective for each sample
6.1.1.1.3 Gameplay frequency
Judging from the frequency of the participants playing games, by comparing the participants’ game frequency trend graphs and emotion regulation skill score trend graphs of Week1 and Week2, it is not difficult to find that the game frequency of L1&L2 is positively correlated with changes in emotional skills. Although the game frequency of L3, L4 & L5 has not increased, their emotion regulation ability has been improved (See Figure 14). It can be seen that the frequency of most participants in LPG playing games is related to their ER skilsl.
Figure14. Comparison of LPG's game frequency and ER skills scores trend map.(Left: LPG's gameplay frequency trend map(week1-week2) for each samples(L4 and L5 overlap), Right: LPG's ER skills’ score trend map(week1-week2) for each samples)
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6.1.1.1.4 Game cheating
Judging from the cheating behaviors of the participants in the game, the change trend of the emotion regulation ability of the cheating L2 and the non-cheating L4&L5 is almost the same: it decreases in the first half and rises in the second half (Figure15). Due to unexpected reasons, L1&L3's emotion regulation ability increased in the second half of the period when cheating was not as obvious as the first half of the period (See Figure15). After comparison, the emotional adjustment ability of low procrastinators who cheat for unexpected reasons has less room for growth than the LPG who cheat directly and without cheating. This shows that cheating may be one of the reasons that affect the ability of LPG to regulate emotions.
Figure15. LPG's ER skills’ score trend map in ‘Cheating’ Perspective for sample in cheating(From left to right: cheating sample, non-cheating samples,non-intentional cheating samples)
6.1.2 Self-support skills
The overall trend of LPG's Self-support skill score is rather vague (see Figure16). Among them, the Self-support skill scores of two samples have improved. The Self-support skill scores of two samples declined. The Self-support skill score of a sample remains unchanged. In the sample with improved final scores, the score of 1 case was significantly improved in Week2 after Week1 reached the lowest value, and the score of 1 case remained unchanged to Week2 after Week1 reached the highest value. Among the samples where the final score decreased, 1 case improved in Week2 after Week1 dropped to the lowest value, and 1 case decreased significantly after Week1. The sample with the same final score reached the maximum value at Week1 but returned to the original score at Week2.
Figure16. LPG's Self-support skills’ score trend map for each sample（L1，L2, L3, L4& L5 are participants） 22
6.1.2.1 Four factors that may potentially affect LPG’s self-support skills score
6.1.2.1.1 View on cats
From the perspectives of the participants on cats, the self-support ability of L1 who likes cats shows a downward trend after Week1 (See Figure17), and returns to the initial ability in Week2, while the self-support ability of L2, L3 & L4 who like cats The trend of change is also different (See Figure 17). From this, it can be seen that the preference of LPG for cats does not have a great impact on their self-support ability.
Figure17. LPG's Self-support skills’ score trend map in ‘Cats’ Perspective for samples(From left to right: very like cats, like cats, a bit like cats)
6.1.2.1.2 Game experience on idle games
Judging from the participants’ experience in idle games, since all samples of LPG have played only a few idle games, they are not well represented in this chapter (See Figure 18). Judging by the current trend process, a small amount of idle game experience is not the main factor that causes the trend change of the emotion regulation ability of LPG.
Figure18. LPG's Self-support skills’ score trend map in ‘Idle’ Perspective for each sample(all LPG have played a bit idle games)
6.1.2.1.3 Gameplay frequency
Judging from the frequency of the participants playing games, by comparing the participants’ game frequency trend maps and self-support skill score trend maps of Week1 and Week2, it is 23 not difficult to find that the frequency of games and self-support skills of L1, L2&L4. Changes are positively correlated. Although L5's game frequency has not increased, its self-support ability has been improved. The frequency of L3 games has not increased, but the ability of self- support has declined. (See Figure19). We can therefore know that the number of games played by most LPG has affected the trend of their self-support ability, but there are also cases of reduction. Therefore, in doubt, it is temporarily defined as one of the reasons that may affect the self-support ability of LPG.
Figure19. Comparison of LPG's game frequency and Self-support skills scores trend map.(Left: LPG's gameplay frequency trend map(week1-week2) for each samples(L4 and L5 overlap), Right: LPG's ER skills’ score trend map(week1-week2) for each samples)
6.1.2.1.4 Game cheating
Judging from the cheating behavior of the participants in the game, the self-support ability change trend of the cheating L2 and the non-cheating L4&L5 are different(See Figure20). However, the trend of L1&L3 cheating due to unexpected reasons is similar, and the self- support ability in the second half of the period has declined (See Figure 20). After comparison, LPG who cheat for unexpected reasons have a stronger self-support trend trend than LPG who do not cheat at all. Therefore, it is not ruled out that cheating is the reason for the change in the self-support ability of LPG.
Figure20. LPG's Self-support skills’ score trend map in ‘Cheating’ Perspective for samples in cheating(From left to right: cheating sample, non-cheating samples,non- intentional cheating samples)
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6.1.3 LPG's method of planning academic writing tasks in game prototype
6.1.3.1 The motivational parts of LPG in the game prototype
From the perspective of the game mechanism designed in the serious game prototype, the cat's treatment system and the cat collection system are the most popular with LPG. Only a few LPG like the game's task planning system (See Figure 21).
Figure 21. Numbers of LPG participants for the gameplay part that most motivates them to plan academic tasks
6.1.3.2 The motivational elements of LPG in the game prototype
From the point of view of the game elements designed in the serious game prototype, cats are the favorite element of most LPG (See Figure 22).
Figure 22. Numbers of LPG participants for the gameplay element that most motivates them to plan academic tasks
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6.1.3.3 Changes in LPG's ability to plan task
From the perspective of LPG' improvement in their own task planning ability, the proportion of people who have improved is the same as the proportion of people who have not improved, and they account for the majority. A small number of participants have no idea about the improvement of their own ability (See Figure 23). This shows that the serious game has not played a very effective role in helping LPG to improve their task planning ability.
Figure 23. Numbers of improvement in the academic task planning ability of LPG participants
6.1.3.4 The gaming platform expected by LPG
Judging from the players' play platforms for the desired game, the proportions of mobile platforms and web platforms are the same (See Figure 24).
Figure 24. Numbers of the gaming platform that LPG participants expected to play
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6.1.4 LPG's usefulness perception in in game prototype
6.1.4.1 Self-perception of LPG's boring degree
Comparing the degree of boredom of academic writing based on the prototype of playing serious games with the degree of boredom of academic writing under normal circumstances, the participants still find that most LPG find it interesting to play serious games (See Figure25). Although half of these LPG thought it was just a little bit interesting, it also shows that the use of serious game prototypes helped LPG ease the boring degree of academic task writing to some extent.
Figure 25. Numbers of LPG participants' change in the degree of boredom of writing for academic tasks
6.1.4.2 Self-perception of LPG's time utilization
In terms of time utilization, most LPG affirmed the increase in their time utilization. Although half of these LPG thought it only helped them improve a little, it also shows that, The use of serious game prototypes has helped LPG to improve the time utilization of academic task writing to some extent (See Figure 26).
Figure 26. Numbers of LPG participants on their own time utilization changes
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6.1.4.3 LPG’s gameplay experience
From the final game experience reviews of LPG, more than half of LPG expressed a positive and positive attitude towards the game, and some participants also said that they would continue to use the software during the procrastination of ordinary evaluation, basically It means that the game is good, but some technical problems need to be polished and solved, but it does not affect the game experience (See Figure27).
Figure 27. Numbers of LPG participants' evaluation of game experience
6.2 MPG group
6.2.1 Emotion regulation skill trend map
The overall emotion regulation score of the MPG showed an overall trend of improvement(see Figure13). Most of the ER skills scores in the last week were higher than the original ER skills scores, and only two samples did not change the ER skills scores. Among the samples with improved final scores, 2 cases showed a significant improvement in ER skills scores after Week1, and 1 case showed an even upward trend. Among the samples with unchanged final scores, 1 case reached the highest value in Week1, and 1 case reached the lowest value in Week1.
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Figure28. MPG's ER skills’ total score trend map for each sample（M1，M2, M3, M4& M5 are participants）
6.2.1.1 Four factors that may potentially affect MPG’s ER skills score
6.2.1.1.1 View on cats
From the perspectives of the participants on cats, only one point of M2, who likes cats, showed a downward trend in their emotion regulation ability after Week1, and returned to their initial ability at Week2(See Figure29.1), while the emotion regulation ability of M3, M4&M5, who liked cats, changed trend. It is also different (See Figure29.2). It can be seen that the average procrastinator’s preference for cats does not have a great impact on their ability to regulate emotions.
Figure29 MPG's ER skills’ trend map in ‘Cats’ Perspective for each samples(From left to right: very like cats, like cats, a bit like cats)
6.2.1.1.2 Game experience on idle games
Judging from the participants’ experience in idle games, whether it is a procrastinator who has played many idle games or a procrastinator who has only a small amount of idle game
29 experience, the trend of their emotion regulation ability looks different, and there is almost no correlation(See Figure 30.1& Figure 30.2). Based on the current trend process, the idle game experience is not the main factor that causes the trend change of the mood regulation ability of MPG.
Figure30 MPG's ER skills’ score trend map in ‘idle’ Perspective for each samples(From left to right: played a lot, played a bit)
6.2.1.1.3 Gameplay frequency
Since M2 does not clearly indicate the number of games played, it is excluded from the chart. Judging from the frequency of participants playing games, by comparing the participants’ game frequency trend graphs and emotion regulation skill score trend graphs in Week1 and Week2, it is not difficult to find that the game frequency of M3, M4&M5 is positively correlated with changes in emotional skills , While M1's game frequency has not increased, but his emotion regulation ability has been improved (See Figure 31). This shows that the accumulation of play times is one of the reasons that may cause the improvement of the emotion regulation ability of MPG.
Figure31. Comparison of MPG's game frequency and ER skills scores trend map.(Left: LPG's gameplay frequency trend map(week1-week2) for each samples(M3 and M5 overlap), Right: LPG's ER skills’ score trend map(week1-week2) for each samples)
6.2.1.1.4 Game cheating
Judging from the cheating behaviors of participants in the game, the changing trend of emotion regulation ability of cheating M3 and non-cheating M1. M2, M4&M5 are basically different (See Figure32). In M1, M2, M4&M5 without cheating, it is impossible to advance the
30 consistency of the trend. This shows that cheating is basically not one of the reasons that affect the emotion regulation ability of MPG.
Figure32 MPG's ER skills’ score trend map in ‘cheating’ Perspective for samples in cheating(From left to right: cheating sample, non-cheating samples)
6.2.2 Self support skills
The overall trend of MPG's Self-support skills’ score remains unchanged(see Figure33). Most of the Self-support skill scores last week were equal to the original Self-support skill score, and only two samples had improved Self-support skill scores. Among the samples with improved final scores, 1 case showed no change after Week1 reached its peak, and 1 case did not change. Week1 did not change, but showed an upward trend after Week1 and reached its peak in Week2. In the sample with the same final score, all 3 cases showed completely different changes. One case reached the maximum value in Week1 but dropped to the initial value in Week 2. One case reached the lowest value in Week1 but rose to the initial value in Week2. In 1 case, there was no change at all.
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Figure33. MPG's Self-support skills’ score trend map for each sample（M1，M2, M3, M4& M5 are participants）
6.2.2.1 Four factors that may potentially affect MPG’s self-support skills score
6.2.2.1.1 View on cats
From the perspectives of the participants on cats, the self-support ability of M1, which loves cats, has shown a significant increase after Week1(See Figure34). The self-support ability of M3, M4&M5, which like cats, has different trends (See Figure34). From this, it can be seen that the preference of mod procrastinators for cats does not have a great impact on their self- support ability.
Figure34 MPG's self-support skill’s score trend map in ‘cats’ Perspective for each samples(From left to right: very like cats, like cats, a bit like cats)
6.2.2.1.2 Game experience on idle games
Judging from the idle game experience of the participants, whether it is a procrastinator who has played many idle games or a procrastinator who has only a small amount of idle game 32 experience, their self-support ability trends look different, and there is almost nothing that can be correlated(See Figure 35). Judging roughly by the current trend process, the idle game experience is not the main factor causing the trend change of the self-support ability of moderately procrastinated people.
Figure35 MPG's self-support skill’s score trend map in ‘idle’ Perspective for samples in played a lot of idle games
6.2.2.1.3 Gameplay frequency
Judging from the frequency of participants playing games, by comparing participants’ game frequency trend graphs and self-support skill score trend graphs of Week1 and Week2, we found that the game frequency of M3 is positively correlated with changes in self-support skills. Although M1's game frequency has not increased, his self-support ability has been improved. The frequency of M4&M5 games has increased, but the ability of self-support has remained the same. (See Figure 36). Therefore, we cannot define that game frequency is one of the main factors affecting the change of self-support ability of moderately procrastinated people, which needs to be further studied.
Figure36. Comparison of MPG's game frequency and Self-support skills scores trend map.(Left: LPG's gameplay frequency trend map(week1-week2) for each samples(M3 and M5 overlap), Right: LPG's ER skills’ score trend map(week1-week2) for each samples(M4 and M5 overlap) )
6.2.2.1.4 Game cheating
Judging from the cheating behavior of the participants in the game, the self-support ability value of the cheating M3 and the non-cheating M1, M2, M4 & M5 are different in that the self- support ability value of the cheating M3 at Week1 drops to The lowest (See Figure 37). But as
33 far as M1, M2, M4 & M5 are not cheating, their self-support trends lack consistency, so cheating is still one of the reasons that may affect MPG, and it needs to be investigated.
Figure37 MPG's Self-support skills’ score trend map in ‘Cheating’ Perspective for each samples(From left to right: cheating samples, non-cheating samples)
6.2.3 MPG's method of planning academic writing tasks in game prototype
6.2.3.1 The motivational parts of MPG in the game prototype
Judging from the game mechanics designed in the serious game prototype, the two parts of the cat's treatment system and the cat collection system are the most popular with MPG, and some MPG like the task planning system and transaction of the game. System (See Figure38).
Figure38. Numbers of MPG participants for the gameplay part that most motivates them to plan academic tasks
6.2.3.2 The motivational elements of MPG in the game prototype
From the perspective of the game elements designed in the serious game prototype, cats and art styles are the favorite elements of most MPG (See Figure 39).
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Figure 39. Numbers of MPG participants for the gameplay element that most motivates them to plan academic tasks
6.2.3.3 Changes in MPG's ability to plan time
From the perspective of the improvement of their own task planning ability by the moderately procrastinated people, the improvement accounted for the majority, and a small number of participants expressed no improvement in the improvement of their own ability (See Figure 40). This shows that the serious game has played a relatively effective role in helping moderately procrastinated people to improve their task planning ability.
Figure 40. Numbers of improvement in the academic task planning ability of MPG participants
6.2.3.4 The gaming platform expected by MPG
Judging from the participants' play platform for the desired game, those with moderate procrastination prefer to play the serious game prototype on the mobile platform (See Figure 24).
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Figure 41. Numbers of the gaming platform that MPG participants expected to play
6.2.4 MPG's usefulness perception in game prototype
6.2.4.1 Self-perception of MPG's boring degree
Comparing the degree of boredom of academic writing based on the prototype of playing serious games with the degree of boredom of academic writing under normal circumstances, the majority of MPG are still interested in the way of playing serious games. (See Figure42). Although among these moderate procrastinators, more people think that it is just a little bit interesting, but this also shows that the use of serious game prototypes to some extent helped MPG alleviate the boring degree of academic task writing.
Figure 42. Numbers of MPG participants' change in the degree of boredom of writing for academic tasks
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6.2.4.2 Self-perception of MPG's time utilization
In terms of time utilization, most of the MPG affirmed the increase in their time utilization. Although half of these MPG thought it only helped them improve a little, it also shows that, To some extent, the use of serious game prototypes helped MPG improve the time utilization of academic task writing (See Figure 43).
Figure 43. Numbers of MPG participants on their own time utilization changes
6.2.4.3 MPG’s gameplay experience
From the final game experience reviews of MPG, 80% of MPG expressed a positive and positive attitude towards the game, and some participants also said that they would continue to use the software during the procrastination of ordinary evaluations(See Figure44).
Figure 44. Numbers of MPG participants' evaluation of game experience
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6.3 Comparison between groups MPG/LPG
6.3.1 ER skills
The final emotion regulation skill scores of low procrastinators represented by LPG are higher than the original initial emotion regulation function scores, while the final emotion regulation function scores of moderate procrastinators represented by MPG are mostly higher than the original emotion regulation skill scores. Improved, only a small number of participants remain unchanged. Judging from the overall final score, basically all the LPG&MPG have improved their final emotion regulation skills without any decline.
Among the 4 reasons that may potentially affect the trend of emotion regulation skill scores, both LPG and MPG like cats, but the degree of fondness for cats does not directly affect the trend of the procrastinator's emotion regulation ability. Moreover, the procrastinator’s experience of idle games is not the main factor that affects the tendency of the procrastinator’s emotion regulation ability.
Potential factors that may affect the trend of the procrastinator’s emotion regulation ability are the frequency of playing the serious game prototype which developed my author and cheating. The gameplay frequency is one of the main reasons that affect the emotion regulation ability of LPG and MPG. However, in terms of cheating behavior, LPG's self-support of cheaters and non-cheaters are almost the same in their ability to regulate emotions, while MPG is on the contrary, there is almost no pattern. The following is an independent summary of LPG&MPG:
Regarding LPG: For low procrastinators, the increase in the gameplay frequency has improved their emotion regulation ability; the changes in the emotion regulation ability of low procrastinators who admit to cheating and those who do not admit to cheating tend to be the same, and there is a relatively high rise trends, while the low procrastinators who indicate the reasons for cheating have little upward trends in their emotional regulation.
About MPG: For moderate procrastinators, the increase in gameplay frequency has improved their emotion regulation ability; the moderate procrastinators who admit to cheating and those who do not admit to cheating have inconsistent changes in their emotion regulation ability, so the cheating behavior is relatively moderate. The frequency of games does not have a direct impact on moderate procrastinators.
6.3.2 Self-support skill
The final self-support skill score of the ordinary procrastinator represented by LPG differs greatly from the initial self-support skill score, 40% increased, 40% decreased, and 20% remained unchanged. The final self-support skill score of the moderately procrastinated person represented by MPG did not change much from the initial self-support skill score, 60% remained the same, and 40% increased, so the overall remained roughly the same.
Among the four reasons that may potentially affect the trend of self-support skill scores, both LPG and MPG like cats, but the degree of fondness for cats does not directly affect the trend
38 of the procrastinator’s emotion regulation ability. Moreover, the procrastinator’s experience of idle games is not the main factor that affects the tendency of the procrastinator’s emotion regulation ability.
The potential reasons for the changing trend of the self-support ability of low procrastinators are the frequency of playing serious games and cheating. But for those with moderate procrastination, it may have an impact, but the impact is not significant in the experiment, so it needs to be studied. The following is an independent summary of LPG and MPG:
Regarding LPG: For low procrastinators, the increase in the gameplay frequency has improved most of their self-support capabilities, but there are still a few declines; low procrastinators who admit cheating and those who do not admit cheating. The change trend of self-support ability is inconsistent, but the change trend of self-support ability of low procrastinators who indicate the cause of cheating is close to the same.
About MPG: For moderate procrastinators, the gameplay frequency and their self-support ability trends lack consistency; moderate procrastinators who admit to cheating and those who do not admit to cheating do not agree with the change trend of their emotion regulation ability. Among the moderately procrastinated cheating, the trend of their self-support ability trend graph also lacks consistency.
6.3.3 Method of planning academic writing tasks in game prototype
Most of the low procrastinators represented by LPG and the moderate procrastinators represented by MPG are motivated by the game's healing system and collection system and cat elements to perform academic writing tasks. However, in terms of improving the ability to plan academic tasks, the improvement of MPG is better than that of LPG. In terms of game platforms, MPG prefers mobile platforms, and LPG has the same support rate for web platforms and mobile platforms.
6.3.4 Usefulness perception in game prototype
The average procrastinator represented by LPG and the moderate procrastinator represented by MPG compares the way of using serious games for academic tasks with the way of ordinary academic tasks. Most people think it is interesting, but some procrastinators in MPG thinks just a little bit interesting. In terms of self-perceived time utilization, basically most of the procrastinators of LPG and MPG feel that it has improved. In terms of the final evaluation of the game, most of them are positive responses, and MPG The positive rate of moderate procrastinators is higher than that of low procrastinators in LPG.
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7 Discussion
7.1 Research questions’ answers 7.1.1 An overview of all research questions answered
Research QuestioL1: What is the effect on emotion regulation from playing a game aimed at reducing aversion to an academic task?
Ansewer1: The emotion regulation skills of almost all LPG&MPG have been improved, but their ability to endure aversion to academic tasks has not been improved.
Research QuestioL2: How can procrastinators use serious games to plan academic writing tasks?
Ansewer2: Procrastinators tend to plan academic tasks with entertainment as their main purpose.
Research QuestioL3: What is the perceived usefulness of a game aiming to improve time utilization for academic tasks?
Ansewer3: The time utilization and interest of the procrastinators have been improved to a certain extent.
7.1.2 Discussion of RQ1
Basically, the final emotion regulation skill scores of all procrastinators are higher than the original emotion regulation function scores, while the emotion regulation skill scores of some procrastinators remain unchanged. This seems to mean that the emotion regulation of most procrastinators will be improved to a certain extent through this serious game prototype designed to reduce the disgust of academic tasks. According to the self-support proposed by Eckert et al(2016), which can directly impact the procrastinator’s procrastinating behaviors, it has not been improved. In other words, the procrastinators did not overcome the two psychological factors of fear of the task and aversion to the task. But judging from the frequency of gameplay by the procrastinators, the improvement of self-support of LPG group is much better than the improvement of self-support of MPG group. Therefore, for people with low procrastination, on the basis of ensuring the frequency of gameplay, serious game prototypes designed to reduce academic task aversion can be improved to a certain extent. For those with moderate procrastination, it does not seem to have an effective effect
7.1.3 Discussion of RQ2
Basically, all procrastinators tend to motivate themselves to plan academic task writing through the entertainment mode in the game (cat treatment system and collection system), and not many procrastinators choose to motivate themselves through the part of the task planning system to plan for academic task writing. This also coincides with Eckert's (2016) procrastinator theory of timely gratification. This serious game prototype also successfully used the students' short-term satisfaction mentality and used the idle game genre to allow the procrastinator as a student to plan academic tasks while providing short-term satisfaction. The cat's treatment system gives players a sense of participation. They are also playing while doing academic writing. This sense of participation in the positive feedback brought by the 40 double space created by the idle game itself (You, 2020). And most of the procrastinators show that their ability to plan tasks has been improved at different levels, which also shows that the procrastinators' ability to plan tasks has been trained in timely satisfaction.
7.1.4 Discussion of RQ3
As far as the procrastinators feel about writing academic tasks through this serious game prototype, most procrastinators believe that their time utilization rate has been slightly improved. Because this game has a sense of participation for players, and through the dual space (You, 2020), players will naturally associate the long academic writing process with playing games. Why do most procrastinators find the academic writing process long? It's because most procrastinators just think that this serious game prototype just makes their academic writing process a little more interesting, or it can be said to be less boring. Boring things can give people the illusion of a long time. Of course, this may also be one of the reasons why players' time utilization has increased. But in any case, the procrastinator perceives the increase in time utilization at the psychological level, and the weak sense of accomplishment is accompanied by the positive feedback effect of the game.
7.2 Limatations Since this is a short cycle experiment, the measured data has certain limitations. Participants will inevitably have potential psychological factors when they are informed of the experiment within a limited time. And in this experiment, there are 7 friends of the experimenter and 3 volunteers who have nothing to do with the experimenter. Therefore, there are relative psychological factors that will affect the experimental data. Among the seven friends related to the researcher, they may have the hidden purpose of helping to make the game well, or the psychological reason for supporting the researcher. This is one of the hidden reasons for the experimental error.
The time of the experiment is limited. Since the training of emotion regulation itself is a long training process, the longer the experiment, the more accurate the trend measurement of the score changes of emotion regulation skills. In this experiment, the two-week emotion regulation trend data can only illustrate the general trend of the procrastinators’ emotion regulation ability.
The number of participants is small. Unfortunately, among all the participants, none of the procrastination frequency indexes reached the level of severe procrastinators. Therefore, the experiment lacks samples of severe procrastinators, so that it is impossible to comprehensively analyze the procrastinators of different degrees after experiencing serious games. Changes in the ability to regulate emotions. Moreover, for the ordinary procrastinator group and the moderate procrastinator group, the number of people in each group is 5 but the number is still small so that the four possible reasons that may affect the procrastinator’s emotion regulation ability have not been systematically demonstrated, especially for the ordinary procrastination In the idle game experience part of the player group, the idle game experience of all LPG is the same. It is difficult to analyze how the emotion regulation ability of LPG is affected by different levels of idle game experience from the perspective of idle game experience to influence.
Technical limitations. Due to the limited capabilities of the researchers, the serious game prototype developed is only applicable to the PC platform. According to participants’ feedback, there will be a small number of game bugs, which will cause the participants’ game experience 41 to deteriorate. The game experience will affect the emotions of the experimenter. Therefore, these small bugs are also one of the reasons for the error in the final result.
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8 Conclusions
8.1 Summary The serious game prototype based on the training of emotion regulation ability does enable procrastinators to improve their emotion regulation ability, and reduces the feeling of boredom when doing academic tasks, and to a certain extent increases the time utilization of procrastinators. But in essence, the self-support skills that really affect the procrastinator's procrastination behavior are the ability to endure aversion to academic tasks and psychological factors that are afraid of failure. The procrastinators still tend to be satisfied in time and prefer more entertaining game content, but this is not a bad thing in terms of pragmatism. The game provides the delayed gratification that the procrastinators want, and on this basis, helps the procrastinators reduce Procrastination frequency, therefore, serious games designed to train the procrastinator’s ability to regulate emotions have great potential.
8.2 Future Work
In the future, this serious game prototype should be polished based on player feedback and developed towards the mobile platform. And regarding the experimental part, at least 50 procrastinators are required to participate in the long-term experimental intervention. Among the at least 50 procrastinators, it is necessary to include procrastinators of all levels, and conduct an experiment for at least one month, so that the results obtained will be universal, so as to further analyze the effect of such serious games based on learning emotion regulation. How often the procrastinators procrastinate on academic tasks. Of course, this serious game prototype should not stop at academic procrastination, it can be malleable, involving work or various activities related to procrastination.
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Appendix A - Procrastination Assessment Scale- Students
(Solomon & Rothblum, 1984).
Self-Report Measure: 1. Areas’ of procrastination
Specifically, participants are asked to rate the degree to which: they procrastinate in that area (1 = never procrastinate to 5 = always procrastinate) procrastination in that area is a problem for them (1 = not at all a problem to 5 = always a problem) they want to decrease their procrastination in that area (1 = do not want to decrease to 5 = definitely want to decrease).
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Appendix B - Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire(ERSQ)
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ERSQ Evaluation instructions:
As can be seen on the questionnaire, the answers are coded as follows: not at all = 0 points; rarely = 1 point; sometimes = 2 points; often = 3 points; (almost) always = 4 points.
The following item corresponds to the question number above. The subscale values are determined by adding up the = 3 raw item values per scale:
The subscale values are determined by adding up the = 3 raw item values per scale:
（1）Attention(consciously perceiving one's own emotions): Items 1, 12, 19
（2）Clarity(recognizing and naming them clearly): Items 6, 13, 25
（3）Body awareness(perceiving emotion-related body sensations and recognizing them): Items 7, 14, 24
（4）Understanding(understanding the causes of the currently experienced emotion): Items 3, 11, 20
（5）Acceptance(emotional experience to be able to influence in a targeted manner): Items 5, 17, 23
（6）Resilience(to accept one's own emotions): Items 4, 18, 26
（7）Self-support(to tolerate and endure): Items 9, 15, 27
（8）Willingness to confront(to be able to support oneself effectively in stressful situations): Items 8, 16, 22
（9）Regulation(to expose oneself to emotionally stressful situations in order to achieve important goals.): Items 2, 10, 21
By adding the raw values over all k = 27 items, a total value is also determined.
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Appendix C - Integrity Declaration and Authorization Application
My name is Siyuan Wang. The researcher of the pilot study. I'm currently doing my report in Serious Game. I'm researching procrastination and Serious Games. I am therefore looking for participants. If you know anyone who has please share this email. I appreciate all the help we can get and we hope you would like to participate in our study.
The study will consist of the playing of a prototype and will be followed up by a survey. The survey will not contain sensitive private topics. The experiment lasted for 5 days. Participants were required to play the game once a day, and each time the game was at least 15 minutes. Since the experimental environment is the reality, participants need to send the daily game log to the researcher to ensure that the experiment can proceed smoothly. All data will remain anonymous and there are no requirements for completing the study.
For those of you who are interested please fill out this survey so we can contact you regarding the study. The data will only be processed by me, Siyuan Wang, for the purpose of my course’s report.During the experiment, you have the right to ask the researcher for your personal data. The collected contact information will be deleted immediately after the study's completion or at the time you choose to drop out.
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Appendix D - Interview Qusetions
Interview QuestioL1: Do you like cats?
Interview QuestioL2: Have you gameplay experience on idle games?If have, how do you think about idle games?
Interview QuestioL3: How often do you play the game in this week?
Interview QuestioL4: Have you ever done deceptive actions during the game, for example, you did not complete the task but clicked to finish?
Interview QuestioL5: Through this game, compared with ordinary academic tasks, do you feel that doing academic tasks is less boring?
Interview Question6: Through this game, do you feel that your ability to arrange planned time has improved, or that you have a clearer goal and direction?
Interview Question7: Has your time utilization improved through this game?
Interview Question8: What’s your experience after you played this game?
Interview Question9: Which part of this game do you think you are most motivated to play?
Interview QuestioL10: Which elements do you think will make you more motivated to play this game?
Interview QuestioL11: Which platform do you most want this game to be available for you to play?
Interview QuestioL12: Do you have any other comments on this game that not be included in the interview questions?
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Appendix E - Interview Answers
4 factors that may potentially affect LPG’s self-support skills score
Idle games' Cheating Do you like Frequency of playing gameplay situation in the cats? games experience case game
Played many idle Once a week. One day at a M1 Super like games, and like idle × time. games.
Just a bit like Just couple of times, I real cats, but Played a bit, kinda like don't have the studying M2 × more like the genre. habit on PC . Because i digital cats usually study on the ipad.
First week I just played for M3 Like cats Just kinda like. once. Second week I played √ for three times
Played a lot, but kinda First week played twice to like,because this kind M4 Like three times. Second week × of game has no played four to five times. presure.
First week played once. M5 Like cats Not played a lot Second week played three × to four times.
I love cats also I don't know I haven't virtual cats, Did once, but just L1 played many idle Once a day but allergic to test. games real cats
First week played once to L2 Like I've played it, I like it twice. Second week played √ 3-4 times
Both like real Sometimes, because L3 cats and Never played before Almost every day I made a wrong case digital cats but i can't cancel it.
I think I played one Once a week. Always forget L4 Like × before. the game
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Not dislike L5 real cats, but Has played before Once a week × like digital cats
Method of planning academic writing tasks in game prototype
Which Through this game, do you Which part Which elements platform do feel that your ability to of this game do you think will you most arrange planned time has do you think make you more want this improved, or that you have you are most motivated to play game to be a clearer goal and motivated to this game? available for direction? play? you to play?
The theme is I will subconsciously turn big good, the cat's The art style and the M1 tasks into many small tasks, this treatment, the gifts brought back Web is where I feel improved. collection by the cat. system. I think all of them benefits. Only thing that I would say, maybe Trading system you can just put one time slot, Benefit of the M2 for buying Mobile maybe for everyday you can put notifications ,UI items more, which will make it more defined. Yes, you can set milestones, know your own tasks, you can Cat collection M3 break down tasks, and you can Cats and milestones Mobile system be more clear about what you want to do. Basically there is no change, because I will arrange and plan Task planning M4 Cats and artstyle Mobile tasks when I haven’t played this system game before. It used to be Yes, because of that data the treatment structures, the things I want to of cats, now it M5 Breeds of cats Web do the test sets out like the is more things I want to achieve. inclined to collect cats I felt like it was great for structuring up all the tasks, I had for the entire week. And Help the then like, oh I could just do process of cat Cats is a big big part L1 them and when I was done I treatment and of it, and Mobile could just go on to the next step the process of notifications straight, instead of like having to collecting cats figure out what I needed to do it felt a bit more, a bit more like I
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had a lot less work to do, and structure. Cat treatment It’s hard to say, but the ability to system and L2 Cats and cat’s items Mobile concentrate has improved. collection system I think it has. Because now I think before I started the task I already think about how long it More treatment has, it's going to take before I part and L3 Cats Web didn't think about that. So now I decorating really have to think about how part. long I did attach for I will do the task. Time pressure can be used to Time manage and Web and L4 It didn’t influence a lot. practice a the sounds Mobile certain task Collection L5 Not improved, same Web system
Usefulness perception in game prototype
Through this game, compared Has your time What’s your Do you have any other with ordinary utilization experience comments on this academic tasks, do improved after you game that not be you feel that doing through this played this included in the academic tasks is game? game? interview questions? less boring?
The time segmentation The game is more suitable Improved, function is very for long-term tasks of basically try to good, but the It’s okay, it’s really a more than one day, and I M1 complete within background bit more interesting. hope to add modules for the specified music of the short-term tasks of less time. treatment than one day. interface is a bit annoying.
I didn't play it too It's a good task This game has good much,but I feel it’s I don't think so. I game, if it’s a potential, then polish it. M2 reliable and more am always bad at application it will Making a video tutorial is enjoyable than doing time untili be helpful the best. normal tasks.
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It's pretty good as Fix bugs, review the a serious game. It progress of the finished There was no is currently in the tasks, the cat in the room A little bit, but there improvement in preliminary stage, can view the execution M3 will be a sense of the first week, but although there are steps of the task. I hope accomplishment. I felt better in the some minor bugs, there is a breeding system, second week but I feel that it and everything else is has a good future. pretty good.
It will increase a The cat is very certain degree of fun, Improved a bit, M4 cute, this form is / it’s really not that plan ahead very good boring.
I wouldn't say it's less bored but a bit more motivational because when set up a timer It's helped me I guess I could M5 for this. Start during focus on Make the video tutorial say so. the past week, you particular tasks. have like a reminder a motivational like less boring.
Good mix I think it works as between like game intended, maybe so like planning app. I user features like like that because sometimes it's a bit hard to games are more I don’t know, know how to undo cases. It’s hard to say, help a fun doing actual L1 perhaps, maybe a That is a user interface that little. work so yeah I little. needs to be fixed because I think it was really think it is a game. The fun. I really game runs normally and I enjoyed it. And I like everything set up. It would continue to needs to be more humane. use it again.
It’s very It is recommended to add It will be more interesting, it’s the option of minimizing L2 interesting if you Yes, this one has. better to develop the game, as well as video develop a habit. the habit of taking tutorials. a look every day.
I think it's more fun I think yes. It's It's very fun. I I think that maybe it would because you can go to easier to manage think I'm still be nice if you can delete L3 the game, and then my time. Before gonna play it if some cases that you don't just do a little bit of in sometimes I did that's okay. want. For the treatment the room, like a break, like a lot of things time, I could finish in six
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and then you go back at once, but that minutes but I finished in and then you can just was a little bit too 15 minutes, but then I do your homework so stressful. So now cannot go back. So it's not I think it's more fun I put, like, it's better if I can adjust the than normal. different time, maybe like, if I can milestones solve earlier and then I can go back to do another case. But I think overall it was a very nice game.
Maybe the fixed time break L4 No. Maybe improved. I think it's helpful. and video tutorial
I like graphics and More items ,animations, L5 Yes, it's less boring No. colors interactions.
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Appendix F - ER skills scores and Self-support skills scores
MPG ER Skills scores
ER skills Score M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 Week0 66 77 60 70 75 Week1 70 89 61 67 76 Week2 82 77 84 70 77
MPG Self-support Skills scores
Self-Support skills scores M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 Week0 9 9 11 8 9 Week1 9 10 7 9 9 Week2 11 9 11 9 9
LPG ER Skills scores
ER skills Score L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 Week0 59 87 66 68 81 Week1 72 86 71 63 74 Week2 64 96 72 71 84
LPG Self-support Skills scores
Self-Support skills scores L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 Week0 7 8 11 8 11 Week1 8 6 11 9 8 Week2 7 10 9 9 10
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