Gamifying learning experiences: Practical implications and outcomes

By A. Domínguez, Joseba Saenz-de-Navarrete, Luis de-Marcos, Luis Fernández-Sanz, Carmen Pagés-Arévalo, José-Javier Martínez. Comput. Educ., 2013

1,869 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Gamification is the use of game design elements and game mechanics in non-game contexts. This idea has been used successfully in many web based businesses to increase user engagement. Some researchers suggest that it could also be used in web based education as a tool to increase student motivation and engagement. In an attempt to verify those theories, we have designed and built a gamification plugin for a well-known e-learning platform. We have made an experiment using this plugin in a university course, collecting quantitative and qualitative data in the process. Our findings suggest that some common beliefs about the benefits obtained when using games in education can be challenged. Students who completed the gamified experience got better scores in practical assignments and in overall score, but our findings also suggest that these students performed poorly on written assignments and participated less on class activities, although their initial motivation was higher.

Subfields: Computer Science Applications, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2fee316f2f9acba12bbd7d19721ec1546c4539b5

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Citations in the corpus

A systematic mapping on gamification applied to education (2014, neutral): “H.5.m [Information Interfaces and Presentation (e.g., HCI)]: Miscellaneous; K.3.0 [Computers and Education]: General; K.8.0 [Personal Computing]: Games; K.8.m [Personal Computing]: Miscellaneous”
"Working out for likes": An empirical study on social influence in exercise gamification (2015, neutral): “…in the domains of education (e.g. Bonde et al., 2014; Christy & Fox, 2014; de-Marcos, Domínguez, Saenz-de-Navarrete, & Pagés, 2014; Denny, 2013; Domínguez et al., 2013; Farzan & Brusilovsky, 2011; Filsecker & Hickey, 2014; Hakulinen, Auvinen, & Korhonen, 2013; Simões, Díaz Redondo, & Fernández…”
Gamification for Engaging Computer Science Students in Learning Activities: A Case Study (2014, background): “active participation in peer assessment [20], [21], [22], [23], [24]; the latter to engage students in learning, for instance by the use of learning materials such as tutorials or digital tools [25], [26].”
Psychological Perspectives on Motivation through Gamification (2013, background): “Although gamification has been used in different contexts and some applications seem to have positive effects regarding motivation and learning [6, 7], there is a lack of theoretical underpinnings and empirical research regarding the motivational effects of gamification.”
Gamification and student motivation (2016, background): “These ranking systems serve as motivators because participants see their efforts publicly and instantly recognized (Domínguez et al., 2013) (Table 1).”
Gamification: a systematic review of design frameworks (2017, positive): “While the gamiﬁcation of learning promises increased student motivation and engagement, the design and implementation of the learning experience requires a great deal of effort (Dominguez et al. 2013).”
Assessing the effects of gamification in the classroom: A longitudinal study on intrinsic motivation, social comparison, satisfaction, effort, and academic performance (2015, background): “Dominguez et al. (2013) gamified an e-learning platform by applying competition, trophies, rewards, and leaderboards and found that students in the gamified class scored higher overall andweremoremotivated, but tended to participate less in class activities and performed worse on writing…”
Gamification Science, Its History and Future: Definitions and a Research Agenda (2018, background): “For example, improved learning (e.g., Domínguez et al., 2013; Wilson et al., 2009) resulting from a school-wide gamification intervention would be an intermediate psychological goal in pursuit of a distal outcome, such as improved graduation rates.”
Learning dashboards: an overview and future research opportunities (2013, background): “However, some experiments reported that whilst students with a gamified approach scored better in practical assignments, they participated less and performed poorly in written examinations [52].”