The effect of learning tourist attractions through gamification (case study: Tabriz city primary school children)

The common educational methods are no longer considered to be an effective and attractive education for the audience due to the scientific and technological developments of the current era and the increase in general awareness and IQ of children and adolescents; therefore, using new technologies that exert new strategies seems very necessary.

In this research, one of the modern educational methods of the present era in the training of attractions and brands of tourist destinations by using techniques of gamification and designing attractive educational games with visual attractions and other game benefits such as motivation, satisfaction, conflict, and interaction, etc. for children and adolescents have been discussed. The statistical calculations of the present study were done through the exploratory factor analysis method, and its hypotheses were examined based on the path analysis method and related software. Its statistical population was selected among 384 teachers, trainers, and educational experts in Tabriz city using interviews and questionnaires, and to determine the content validity and validity of the questionnaires and the results of the interviews, the school trainers themselves were employed to understand and record the responses of the subjects. The opinions of tourism experts and researchers of educational systems have also been used. The data were analyzed using SPSS 26 software.

 The results of this study indicated that there was a positive and significant effect between education through gamification and factors affecting it such as performance expectancy, hope for effort, social influence, and facilitating conditions in line with the education of tourism concepts and attractions, resulting in brand awareness and ultimately brand resonance. Also, computer games significantly increased children's learning level and as a vital element, they were more effective in advancing the educational goals and learning and cognitive and social development of children, especially teaching the concepts, attractions, and brand of the tourist city destination than the information obtained from reading and their homework assignments.