![\"\"](\"https:\/\/images.unsplash.com\/photo-1525799894461-3cfe39b72d69?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&s=7ac0e37c581be529a649bba611b3817f&auto=format&fit=crop&w=1350&q=80\")
<\/p>\n
Briefing Note Discussing the Idea of Gamification in Education<\/p>\n
Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n How do we encourage engagement and participation among learners who are using new technologies and digital learning environments? This concept is introduced in Introduction to Gamification: Foundation and Underlying Theories by Matallaoui et. al with the suggestion that \u2018play\u2019 could be added within a non-gaming context to encourage learners to get involved or be more willing to try new things. Looking at this through an educational perspective will help with an exploration of gamification and its effect on education. While gamification has existed for centuries, the current state of gamification often involves online communities and digital (video) games.<\/p>\n Background Information<\/strong><\/p>\n Gamification is the application of game features, mainly video game elements, into non-game context for the purpose of promoting motivation and engagement in learning. The application of gamification in a pedagogical context provides some remedy for many students who find themselves alienated by traditional methods of instruction<\/p>\n (Alsawaier, 2018 p. 56)<\/p>\n This idea that current learners are feeling alienated and left out can be alleviated by using newer technology to increase the participatory draw into education. Game based learning has been used for centuries, but it was the proliferation of the computer into everyday lives that facilitated the introduction of learning software. The term \u2018edutainment\u2019 was coined by newspaper writer Peter W. Mitchell in his article \u201cA Summer CES Report\u201d where he discussed the direction that computers were heading in 1983.<\/p>\n Gamification can be introduced in different ways and typically can go in two different (still potentially convergent) ways in that the focus can be either education or entertainment first.<\/p>\n The method of Game Based Learning (GBL) ensures that the focus looks at education first and that is the primary focus of the gamification. This means that during the design process these elements will both need to be looked at while ensuring that each prototype uses the different pedagogical methods to ensure that all learning activities within games achieve the learning outcomes previously created for the educational goals.<\/p>\n True gamification creates an entertaining experience for the user and, while the learning is still intentional and thought out, it is more of an organic learning rather than a primary concern.<\/p>\n It is important to understand that in all these gamified environments the results given to the learners are rarely grades coming from success but are more likely badges or achievements given for the effort. This is where a learner is encouraged to continue to practice and engage with the learning to earn these rewards. Alsawaier (2018) cites a study done in which \u201cBrewer et al.\u2019s (2013) study on children (five to seven) has shown that the use of gamification increased the percentage of task completion from 73 to 97 percent\u201d (p. 58).<\/p>\n Current Situation and Key Concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n The concept of gamification within learning has been used successfully in numerous situation and has been looked at from different angles on how it could potentially be introduced in all learning environments. This has led to better engagement and adoption of different software or tools.<\/p>\n The potential issues with this engagement in the gamified environment comes when it is opened to a larger audience. The current concerns with this come from issues in the online participatory communities involving \u201ctrolling\u201d and \u201clurking\u201d. This is looked at by Bishop (2012) in his work \u201cThe Psychology of Trolling and Lurking: The Role of Defriending and Gamification for Increasing Participation in Online Communities Using Seductive Narratives\u201d in which he discovers that for all of these \u201ctroll\u201d archetypes there is a counter personality that if controlled correctly can encourage better and more meaningful discussion among online communities. There is also an investigation into the types of issues these \u201ctrolls\u201d may cause with the ability to neutralize their potential negative effects. This means that the educator takes on both a facilitator and a mediator role to encourage meaningful engagements.<\/p>\n Impact on Learning, Teaching and Education<\/strong><\/p>\n Research on this topic was slow to be introduced due to the idea that gamification was simply \u2018playing games\u2019 but further studies into gamification have shown that it actually encourages learners to become more dedicated to the learning and to pursue better results to ensure they will earn their high achievements or badges.<\/p>\n This can be seen in the study cited by Susan Sandusky in which learners were given tasks to complete with accompanying achievements. These were some of the results of surveys from those studies:<\/p>\n Out of those students who responded (29 students), 93% said they kept track of their level and achievements, 89% said they actively tried to earn achievements, more students earned a 90% or above on homework than any other percentage, and students were allowed unlimited number of attempts<\/p>\n (Sandusky, 2015 p. 4)<\/p>\n With results like this, it is relatively easy to see the potential for increased engagement and positive outcomes from using gamification within education.<\/p>\n Recommendations<\/strong><\/p>\n Based on the results seen from studies done on gamification it would be beneficial to look at adding elements of this to courses to increase engagement and encourage meaningful learning.<\/p>\n Going forward looking at some best practices would be beneficial. These can be found within numerous Massively Open Online Courses (MOOC) and in the micro-credentialing done by self-directed learning sites like Codecademy (https:\/\/www.codecademy.com\/<\/a><\/u>) and the Adobe Education Exchange (https:\/\/edex.adobe.com\/<\/a><\/u>). Other sites such as Credly (https:\/\/credly.com\/<\/a><\/u>) can be explored to reward students for their work in the gamified courses.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Appendix 1: The Case for Gamification<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Gamification is taking the elements that are used to create a game (achievements, scoreboards, etc.) and using them in non-game situations, such as a classroom. In an education setting, this means that in place of just simply giving grades there are interactive elements that can be earned.<\/p>\n When looking at introducing gamification elements to a class there is a need to evaluate the purpose of introducing these game elements into a course and to ensure that they are not introduced simply because they can be. To do this there needs to be an evaluation of the elements of both the course and the gamification that can be considered \u201cfun\u201d by the students.<\/p>\n Online learning environments particularly can benefit from the introduction of gamification through the potential of increased engagement through game elements such as leaderboards or achievements which allow students to compete against one another. They also potentially gain further engagement with the material by allowing the students the opportunity to be rewarded for a deeper interaction with the content.<\/p>\n History and Current Trends<\/strong><\/p>\n The link between gaming and education has existed for quite a long time and can be seen in early games such as Oregon Trail which gave the player the chance to virtually understand what the settlers went through to settle along the Oregon Trail. This doesn\u2019t fit with the traditional style of education which is discussed in this quote:<\/p>\n As a medium, however, games do not support institutionalized learning, which Papert regards as passive, abstracted, and unnaturally fragmented into separate disciplines. Games do not teach specific subjects. Rather, they teach students to teach themselves in more active, applied, and integrated ways.<\/p>\n (Brown, 2014 p. 144)<\/p>\n This idea that gamification doesn\u2019t fit with traditional learning also fits with the current trends in education. This fits with the flipped classroom \u201cwhere students attend a lecture, tutorial or seminar, and the learning comes during and after the teaching, the flipped classroom turns this round so that most learning comes first, allowing the teaching session to reflect on the material and build on prior learning\u201d (Eaton, 2017). This also has a deep connection to the online learning environment and the creation of online education communities.<\/p>\n Gamification has used the recent popularity of video games to give rise in the inclusion of game thinking in education. With educational games (Edutainment) evolving from a focus on education in Game Based Learning (GBL) to a truer gamification which puts the experience first and allows the education to follow along organically. This move towards the experience has also allowed a move towards a focus that allows for more online learning environments. The move to online has not always been positive and has created a group known as trolls. While this is immediately looked at as a negative, if it is examined and utilized positively it can potentially be used for positive effects on the engagement of an online environment. This move towards gamification has also seen positive effects in learners who have felt left behind by the current state of education.<\/p>\n GBL or Experience Based Gamification<\/strong><\/p>\n Game based learning was a trend in early video games in which the focus was on adding gaming elements to places that it didn\u2019t typically fit. This meant that the focus was more on the education. With the move towards Experience Based Gamification we now have games where learners often get the opportunity to take charge of their own learning without having the learning being forced.<\/p>\n The learner takes the leading role in his or her own intellectual development, while the instructor becomes a facilitator who structures gameplay and guides inquiry, but does not exercise strict authority over what students learn or how they learn it. (Brown, 2014 p. 145)<\/p>\n This flip of the roles in education gives the learners more power but also gives the opportunity for the facilitator to give more freedom to learners and allows them to empower themselves. The opportunity to give achievements for effort, rather than strictly knowledge, gives a reward to those who are willing to put in extra work.<\/p>\n This also fits well within the online learning context in that it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate online life from offline life. This is stated by Brown in the following,<\/p>\n we can no longer speak of online life and offline life as separate spheres. Rather, virtual worlds sustain a \u201cweb of networks and relationships,\u201d particularly when friends, husbands and wives, and parents and children, play cooperatively\u201d<\/p>\n (2014 p. 162)<\/p>\n These attitudes lend themselves well to the creation of online educational environments in that users are already invested into the online world and have a connection to online gamification through numerous gaming platforms. It is that comfort that is present in both digital natives and digital immigrants that lends itself to an easy integration into the online learning environment and with the addition of gamification increases the level of engagement among learners.<\/p>\n Engagement in Online Coursework<\/strong><\/p>\n The potential to increase the online engagement is substantial when looking at gamification. Much like popular online videos games, elements such as leaderboards allow learners the opportunity to compete against one another in earning points or achievements. This has been seen to have positive effects on engagement in courses when implemented in ways that allow the students the opportunity to score perfect, or substantially higher, based on effort. Goehle (2013) implemented an online system where \u201csimply completing 90% of your homework and only earning those achievements which require no extra effort will get you approximately 1200 points, or partway through Level 9\u201d (Goehle, G. 2013 p. 242). This means that simply by putting in the minimum amount of effort it was possible for students to achieve almost a perfect 10. It was found though that with the gamification elements, the students that engaged further with the online environment were able to achieve a perfect 10. It was found that \u201capproximately half the number of students who scored above 90% earned Level 10. Since this would have required extra effort on the part of the student, we can infer that at least half of the students who earned above 90% on their homework were also actively trying to earn achievements. This is further evidence that students engaged with the Mathchievement system.\u201d (Goehle, G. 2013 p. 242). This is evidence that when implemented correctly the gamification can be a successful way to increase engagement and potentially student success in an online course.<\/p>\n Potential Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n It has been also looked at that the inclusion of game elements into a course where learners are already invested can have a negative effect on the overall learning:<\/p>\n Individuals who receive a reward for a boring task have something to distract them from the boring task, which makes the situation more interesting. In this case, if a student finds the class boring, then rewards and incentives might make the material more engaging. This suggests that gamification in the classroom may be a double-edged sword. For students who are bored and do not wish to be there, rewards and incentives might increase intrinsic motivation. But for students who are innately interested in the material and already motivated to attend, efforts to gamify the classroom might harm their intrinsic motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n (Hanus & Fox, 2015 p. 160)<\/p>\n This is the reason that when looking at adding gamification to a class it needs to be looked at carefully before adding it to tasks that may already be considered \u201cfun\u201d or \u201cinteresting\u201d. Therefore, gamification fits well into online learning for increasing the level of engagement needed for the class to be successful. For engagement, the ability to have learners work towards achievements it gives the educator the opportunity to reward dedication to a course. It also allows the educator to put a more quantitative assessment towards soft skills and allows the marking of these skills to be easier and more precise. This is also a good fit in courses where the assessments are more qualitative so the ability to reward effort and persistence is potentially more beneficial than graded activities based on skill.<\/p>\n Continuing the thread of online learning and engagement, the idea of gamification also has the potential to open the learning environment to the sub-section of the internet known as trolls. These are users that typically post to elicit a reaction in others. In an educational setting, this has the potential to deter conversation for fear of confrontational outcomes within that engagement. If the course is controlled correctly these trolls also have the potential to encourage and elicit those responses in a positive way. This is due to the idea that \u201cin online communities a stimulus is presented that provokes an actor into realizing that an opportunity exists to post\u2026[t]he next stage is the realisation of its relevance to them and where they gain the intention to respond to it\u201d (Bishop, J. 2012 p. 174). In his work Bishop discusses the different types of trolling and how it can be countered by a different and equally effective user personality to encourage further discussion or debate. It is for this reason that the troll persona, if kept in check and controlled, can be a benefit to an online community. It is assumed that in an online learning activity these trolls will also likely be less potentially offensive and that with control by the educator they can be used for good.<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n The use of games in teaching is something that will likely always be used. The introduction of digital gaming has given the opportunity for a new avenue in this learning and through this same thought the internet has also encouraged further growth into this area of gamification. With the popularity of video games and online multiplayer gaming, it simply makes sense for the education field to use this to their advantage to help engage some users. This should not be done without caution though as it has the potential to push some learners away if they are already engaged. Pushing games into something that would have already been done potentially feels forced and is likely to reduce engagement and potentially \u201cfun\u201d. With that in mind, it is most effective to look at how gamification elements can be organically introduced into a class rather than fitting it in where it might not be beneficial.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n References:<\/p>\n Adobe. (n.d.). Retrieved from https:\/\/edex.adobe.com\/<\/p>\n Alsawaier, R. S. (2018). The effect of gamification on motivation and engagement.\u00a0International Journal of Information and Learning Technology,35<\/em>(1), 56-79. doi:10.1108\/ijilt-02-2017-0009<\/p>\n Bishop, J. (n.d.). The Psychology of Trolling and Lurking.\u00a0Examining the Concepts, Issues, and Implications of Internet Trolling,<\/em>106-123. doi:10.4018\/978-1-4666-2803-8.ch009<\/p>\n Codecademy. (n.d.). Retrieved from https:\/\/www.codecademy.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n Credly. (n.d.). Digital Credentials | Credly. Retrieved from https:\/\/credly.com\/<\/p>\n Matallaoui, A., Hanner, N., & Zarnekow, R. (2016). Introduction to Gamification: Foundation and Underlying Theories.\u00a0Progress in IS Gamification,<\/em>3-18. doi:10.1007\/978-3-319-45557-0_1<\/p>\n Mitchell, P. W. (1983, September 06). A summer-CES report.\u00a0Boston Phoenix<\/em>, p. 4. Retrieved May 31, 2018.<\/p>\n Sandusky, S. (2015, September). Gamification in Education. Retrieved from https:\/\/arizona.openrepository.com\/handle\/10150\/556222<\/p>\n Tang, S., & Hanneghan, M. (n.d.). Designing Educational Games.\u00a0Design and Implementation of Educational Games,<\/em>108-125. doi:10.4018\/978-1-61520-781-7.ch008<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Briefing Note Discussing the Idea of Gamification in Education Overview How do we encourage engagement and participation among learners who are using new technologies and digital learning environments? This concept is introduced in Introduction to Gamification: Foundation and Underlying Theories… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[35,25,19,18,39,37,20,33,26,27,38],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lrnt521","tag-communities","tag-data","tag-digital","tag-education","tag-games","tag-gamification","tag-instructional-design","tag-malat","tag-online-learning","tag-technology","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0051\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}