Umbrella: Web-based Health Education Quiz Game for School Kids

The purpose of this thesis was to create a web-based quiz game prototype called Umbrella. Umbrella was an innovation project aimed to develop a gamified e-learning tool which helps to improve school pupils’ motivation towards learning about their health and wellbeing. It was conducted in collaboration with students from the fields of public nursing, oral hygiene and information technology of Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and in international co-operation with the Tokushima University, School of Oral Health and Welfare, Faculty of Dentistry. Thus, the name of the prototype, Umbrella was taken from a Japanese traditional umbrella which is a type of paper umbrella as to strengthen the academic relationship between the two universities.

The study was conducted by a qualitative method. The data was collected with theme interview methods several times at the Helsinki yhteislyseo in 2014 and 2015. The themes of the interview were based on the school Health Promotion Study events arranged by the National Institute for Health and Welfare. Thirty-three young people were interviewed in 2014. All interviews were recorded. The collected data was transcribed and anonymized and then the data was analysed with inductive content analysis method.

The prototype was first introduced as a learning tool in November 2015 and is fully functional at the time of writing the thesis. The quiz questions were prepared both in Finnish and English, however the Finnish questions were used in this particular thesis.

The thesis concludes that a preventive educational intervention program supported with Information technology (IT) provides excellent means to improve the awareness levels, the life-style and overall health practice of school pupils. A few ways to further develop Umbrella in future would be considering using complex game engines to support multi-player mode, including an image quiz option and internationalization.