Marta Rojo

Gamification is a widely utilised educational tool designed to promote specific behaviours. An effective gamification design must consider users’ experiences and perceptions to enhance engagement and participation. This research is part of a broader study that develops gamified activities to teach primary school pupils about sustainable mobility. The study investigates the relationship between player profiles, as defined by the Hexad scale, and the use of the ClassCraft platform for learning sustainable mobility concepts. The Hexad scale serves as an instrument to analyse the various motivations exhibited by each student when interacting with the gamified application. Specifically, we examine the connection between player profiles, learning levels, the components of the ClassCraft platform, and the impact of gender on this relationship.An experiment was conducted with 75 fifth-grade primary school students (aged 10–12) who used the ClassCraft platform. Several linear regression models correlated various variables with the player profiles included in the Hexad scale.The results indicate a relationship between player profiles and the variables considered: final score on the platform, number of activities completed, number of connections made, player level achieved, student satisfaction level, and learning levels. Additionally, the high percentage of socialiser profiles found among the students is perfectly in line with some of the intrinsic characteristics of the ClassCraft platform.Furthermore, the analysis revealed minimal differences between male and female players across most profiles.

The concept of sustainable mobility is related to the fulfilment of certain conditions that consider environmental, economic and social factors when making decisions on transport activity. The recognition of the role of education as a key factor for sustainable development and sustainable mobility has been growing. Therefore, the development of training schemes aimed at sustainable mobility education as a tool for a better future for the generations to come is of fundamental importance. This study analyses the factors affecting the adoption of the ClassCraft platform in activities related to sustainable mobility. The proposed experience involved children aged 10–11 years old, a total of 75 pupils. This experience was the basis for analyzing the pupils' perception of the gamification-based methodology. A mixed method has been used, combining qualitative results from a Focus Group (FG) with 6 students, and quantitative results through a questionnaire based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with all the 75 students. The results reflect that all students consider this methodology as an opportunity for a change in the school experience to make classroom activities more enjoyable. Our research contributes to the application of a mixed methods approach that addresses an educational challenge, considering the voice of the children when applying new teaching–learning strategies.

Information about the paper titled "THE USE OF THE MOBILE PHONE TO ACHIEVE A USEFUL AND FUN CONTINUOUS EVALUATION" at IATED Digital Library

Tras varias ediciones por diferentes ciudades y universidades españolas, el XIV Congreso de Ingeniería del Transporte (CIT 2021) recae en Burgos (España) en 2021. El CIT 2021 forma parte de una serie de congresos que se inició en Sevilla (1993), y tiene periodicidad bianual desde Madrid (1996), promovido por el Foro de Ingeniería de los Transportes (FIT). En el caso del año 2020, debido a la crisis del COVID-19, se pospuso la XIV edición al año 2021, que finalmente se realizó en modalidad online. La organización de XIV Congreso de Ingeniería del Transporte ha estado a cargo del Grupo de Investigación en Logística e Ingeniería del Transporte de la Universidad de Burgos. El presente documento recoge las ponencias presentadas en el mismo, agrupadas por áreas temáticas, que abarcan la totalidad de aspectos relativos a la Ingeniería del Transporte.

Teaching students awareness about sustainable mobility has been lacking to date. There is a need to expand the themes being addressed in order to achieve a change in attitude. Society needs to design a curriculum that teaches about sustainable mobility to guarantee a better environment for future generations. This article presents the most important results of an experiment based on gamification to promote the education of sustainable mobility in primary school classrooms. This new teaching method, aimed at children aged 10–12 years old, applies non-gambling play metaphors to real-life tasks to motivate a change in attitude. The didactic approach was developed using the ClassCraft platform to create specific activities that consider the environmental, economic, and social aspects of sustainable mobility. The initial analysis revealed a perception about sustainable mobility that focused on environmental problems with very little input on the economic and social aspects. The experience has shown that by using the gamified ClassCraft tool applying structured activities about all aspects of sustainable mobility, the pupils acquired new concepts that clarified the social and economic components and began to develop a conscience about how to become an active part in behavioural change.

Assignment methodologies attempt to determine the traffic flow over each network arc based on its characteristics and the total flow over the entire area. There are several methodologies—some fast and others that are more complex and require more time to complete the calculation. In this study, we evaluated different assignment methodologies using a computer simulation and tested the results in a specific case study. The results showed that the “all-or-nothing” methods and the incremental assignment methods generally yield results with an unacceptable level of error unless the traffic is divided into four or more equal parts. The method of successive averages (MSA) was valid starting from a relatively low number of iterations, while the user equilibrium methodologies (approximated using the Frank and Wolfe algorithm) were valid starting from an even lower number of iterations. These results may be useful to researchers in the field of computer simulation and planners who apply these methodologies in similar cases.

Nowadays, educational activities need to be oriented towards sustainable mobility as a tool to guarantee a better future for younger generations. Two focus groups (FGs) of children aged 10–12 years were formed, for the design, development, and evaluation of educational tools for gamification techniques on the subject of sustainable mobility. The study involved a group of children from three classes in the fifth-year of primary education at a school in the City of Burgos (Spain). The first focus group revealed the cognitive perceptions of the children toward sustainable mobility and their cognitive understanding of its need. The information was used in the design of learning activities of gamification techniques. The children in the second focus group, after the educational experience, were evaluated with regard to the knowledge they had acquired on the topic and changes in their attitudes. The basic knowledge of children before their participation in the research was limited to the environmental aspects of sustainable mobility, as we observed in the first focus group. Through the use of the gamification tools, the children acquired new concepts that clarified the importance of social and economic components linked to sustainable mobility, and they started to develop an awareness of how to play an active role in changing their behavior.

Soil–cement is an environmentally friendly road construction technique for base and subbase materials, which allows employing soils placed in the right-of-way of the road or in the surroundings, by improving its engineering properties. With this technique, it is possible to reduce the over-exploitation of quarries, the necessity of landfills and the pollutant gas emission due to the reduction of aggregate fabrication and transport. The manufacturing of soil–cement is generally controlled by means of the Uniaxial Compressive Strength (UCS) test at seven days, according to the regulations of each country. Nonetheless, one of the properties that best defines the performance of soil–cement is the Flexural Strength (FS) at long term, usually at 90 days. The aim of this paper is to develop new equations to correlate the UCS and the FS at long term and the UCS at seven days and at 90 days. Obtained results validate the proposed models and, hence, the flexural strength can be predicted from the Uniaxial Compressive Strength at seven days, allowing, if necessary, correcting measures (recalculation or rejection) in early stages of the curing time to be taken.

Over the past few years, several countries, including Spain, have been experiencing a period of economic recession. As a result, these governments have reduced their budgets for transport infrastructures (both construction and maintenance operations). The main objective of this study is to analyze whether these budget reductions have an effect on increased accident rates and to perform an assessment of their real economic benefit. Thus, we analyze whether significant changes over recent years are perceptible in the road safety indexes in Spain, in terms of risk, accident fatality, and accident severity. The relation between lower budgets and higher road safety indices is analyzed through linear regression techniques. The results show a strong relation between the Risk Index and the maintenance budget, measured as an average of the last years. In addition, a final economic assessment demonstrates that this reduction in investment had no real economic benefits, especially as the costs of the accidents exceeded the savings in the conservation plans.