PhD student Hoang Nam Le improves knowledge & skills of Vietnamese adolescent motorcyclists

The existing traffic safety interventions in Vietnam have been largely ineffective, and they focus on raising awareness rather than improving traffic knowledge and skills.

This doctoral research, entitled ‘Development, implementation and testing of a gamified e-learning platform for the improvement of (motor)cycling knowledge & skills of Vietnamese adolescents’ aims to develop, implement and evaluate a gamified e-learning platform named Route2school Education (developed by the Transportation Research Institute of Hasselt University) to promote (motor)cycling-related traffic knowledge, situation awareness, risk detection, and risk management among adolescents in Vietnam.

The research involves three main stages:

(1) identifying the needs assessment of improvement in traffic knowledge and skills of Vietnamese adolescents,

(2) developing the gamified e-learning platform adapted to Vietnam's traffic context, and

(3) testing the use of this platform among adolescents.

The research results indicate that targeting behavioural, normative, and control beliefs together would be the most effective strategy for traffic safety interventions aimed at reducing risky behaviours among adolescent two-wheeled riders in Vietnam. Moreover, the use of gamification elements significantly influences learner engagement, while a range of factors such as satisfaction, interface design, learning content, and gamification impact learner’s continuance intention. The results also highlight the positive effects of Route2school Education on learners' immediate and mid-term improvement in riding skills, traffic rules, signs, and situations.

In general, this research provides a reliable basis for developing a gamified e-learning platform to effectively improve Vietnamese adolescents' current issues related to risky behaviours and promote and maintain active learner participation in traffic safety education. The Route2school Education platform, with its outstanding features such as the visualisation of local traffic situations, feedback on answers, and gamification elements, can help widely disseminate traffic safety education to Vietnamese adolescents, especially the 15-18 age group, in the short term. As a long-term goal, this platform is hoped to extend its reach to students of all age groups across schools in Vietnam.

Mr. Hoang Nam Le is 36 years old, lives in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam). He is passionate about traveling and sports. He is married and is the proud father of one child.

Hoang Nam Le was born in 1988 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He holds a degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Architecture in Ho Chi Minh City and a Master of Science in Urban Management and Planning from the University of Western Sydney, Australia, which he obtained in 2014. In early 2016, he joined Ton Duc Thang University as a research and teaching assistant.

In early 2019, he was awarded a PhD scholarship from the Special Research Fund (BOF) of Hasselt University to conduct research on the development, implementation, and testing of a gamified e-learning platform for the improvement of (motor)cycling knowledge and skills of Vietnamese adolescents. Currently, he is also a member of an international research group that is conducting a research project aimed at enhancing traffic safety for Asian children using an innovative education platform.