Mobile sensor-based community gaming for improving vocational students’ sleep and academic outcomes

Abstract Quality sleep is critical for teenagers' physical and mental health and, consequently, learning achievement. Technology, particularly the use of mobile sensors and digital game-based learning, has the potential to enhance students' sleep hygiene, reducing insomnia and daytime sleepiness and improving students’ academic performance. Therefore, this study implemented and evaluated a sleep hygiene instruction intervention in terms of three elements: a) mobile sleep sensor data feedback for sleep self-evaluation; b) a collaborative-competitive mobile community game (MCG) for sleep promotion based on social-interdependence; and c) an instructional intervention adopting a social cognitive approach. To validate the efficacy of the instructional design, a pretest-posttest quasi-experiment was conducted with 114 10th grade students from three classes of an urban vocational high school in Taiwan. The three intact classes were randomly assigned to one of three sleep hygiene courses: a comparison group (37 students receiving sleep sensor feedback), experimental group one (E1; 38 students receiving sleep sensor feedback and adopting MCG), and experimental group two (E2; 39 students receiving sleep sensor feedback, adopting MCG, and taking a social cognitive-based course). The empirical results suggest that the use of sleep sensor feedback and the MCG (E1 and E2) effectively improved the sleep behaviors of vocational students. In fact, inclusion of the mobile sensor with feedback on sleep quality was sufficient to provide improvement in both sleep and academic outcomes for all students. These results demonstrate the promising potential of mobile community-based technological interventions for improving sleep hygiene, relieving insomnia daytime sleepiness, when integrated with either traditional or social cognitive-based sleep courses. Specific implications and recommendations for the development of technology-enhanced sleep-related or health promotion courses are provided.