Research on the Prevention and Control of Telecom Network Fraud among College Students Based on Serious Games “Information Vaccines" (Preprint)
Shuo Xiong, T. L. Xia, Yinping Zheng, Qibo Zhang · 2025
BACKGROUND Telecommunication network fraud has posed severe threats to society for over two decades in China, characterized by its strong concealment, rapid evolution, and constantly emerging fraudulent techniques. This persistent issue has remained a focal concern for both governmental authorities and the general public. OBJECTIVE This study aims to empirically investigate the effectiveness of serious game-based learning in preventing and combating telecommunication network fraud, thereby providing novel insights for existing prevention and governance research. METHODS This method involves three major parts: conducting in-depth interviews based on grounded theory with university students who have experienced actual fraud cases; designing and developing a serious game platform centered on telecommunication fraud scenarios derived from interview findings, along with a 5-point Likert scale cognitive assessment questionnaire; defining experimental variables and formulating research hypotheses. Two hundred experimental subjects are selected to participate in the experiments. Systematic data collection enabled statistical observation and comparative analysis to validate the proposed hypotheses. RESULTS This study developed a serious game design framework based on in-depth interviews and experimentally validated its effectiveness. Ten hypotheses were proposed and empirically tested.The experimental recruits 200 college students, divided into two groups, one control group and one experimental group.The results indicate that the serious game-based learning approach significantly enhanced participants' understanding and identification of anti-fraud knowledge compared to traditional learning methods, while demonstrating superior performance in engagement, helpfulness, and memorability. However, neither gender nor academic major significantly influenced participants' fraud identification and judgment capabilities. CONCLUSIONS The serious games effectively improve learners' fraud detection accuracy. Additionally, the experimental data indicate that college students' judgment and identification of telecommunication network fraud are significantly influenced by individual majors and grades. The serious game learning model aids experimental subjects in learning and understanding anti-fraud knowledge, and it is more engaging and beneficial than traditional learning methods.