By Anaïs Conchez et Léa Baroux
Nowadays, the development of new learning techniques has become a major area of interest. It is really important to find learning processes that are effective but also more appealing and motivating for students. The goal of creating a more enjoyable space for learning is to enhance the school performances of students. One of the ways to do this is through “gamification”.
Gamification refers to the application of game design elements to non-game activities and has been applied to a variety of contexts including education. (Nah et al., 2014). It’s an effective approach to bring a positive change in students’ behavior towards learning and to improve their motivation and engagement (Kiryakova et al., 2014).
Various elements have been used in gamification to increase the student engagement. Examples of these elements include:
- Points: the point system operates as a measure of success or accomplishment. These points can be used as rewards, as a form of investment for further progress, or to indicate a person’s status.
- Levels/Stages: levels are used to give players a sense of progression. They are used to reward completion of a task or assignment.
- Badges: they are recognized as a mark of appreciation or task accomplishment during the process of goal achievement.
- Leaderboards: they are used to create a competitive environment among students.
- Feedback: the more frequent and immediate the feedback is, the greater the learning effectiveness and learner engagement.
This list is not exhaustive (for a review see, Nah et al., 2014).
How is improving student motivation beneficial ?
Game elements improve the quality of learning. They often improve learners’ behavior and attitude, and thus their motivation, so that learning outcomes benefit. This effect was confirmed in a 2020 experiment conducted by Michael and Maximillian Sailer. In this study, 205 education students, whose average age was 23, first participated in a half-hour virtual pedagogy course. They then solved the same multiple-choice quiz in a classroom setting for practice. One group answered on paper while the other answered in the form of a gamified quiz with immediate feedback on correct and incorrect answers, a progress indicator and a ranking of the two teams formed. Afterwards, everyone took the final exam. The gamification helped improve the results obtained during the exercises and the performance during the final exam. In addition, the participants in the gamification condition found the study of the subject more interesting and noted a better team spirit.
But, how can gamification increase motivation ?
The theory of self-determination, which is a theory of intrinsic motivation, states that the will to accomplish a task on one’s own initiative, for itself appears when different psychological needs are met : skill, self sufficiency and social integration. As human beings, we also want to successfully confront our environment. But we also want to devote ourselves independently and without external pressure to things that are meaningful to us. We also aspire to relationships of trust and support with others. Therefore, gamification helps to exploit these three resources of intrinsic motivation.
This is what a study by Stansbury and Earnest (2017) shows. They recruited 93 students who were taking a course on organizational psychology. Half took the standard version of the course and the other took the content in the form of a role-playing game to earn experience points. Both groups had the same performance test results. However, players found their role plays more attractive, involving and fun. They were also convinced that they had made more progress in their learning than students in the standard course.
Beyond the simple increase in motivation, researchers seem to show that the game environment allows for learning by trial and error, which is a powerful mechanism in the acquisition of knowledge. In addition, researchers are beginning to take an interest in the general effect of games and video games on children and have been able to show that some games produce improvements in working memory, flexibility or inhibition that are transferred to school learning.
To conclude, gamification as a pedagogical practice seems interesting for teachers. Many studies have shown its effectiveness. It can be an interesting way to make studying more fun. This improves learning and consequently performance. Indeed, we think it is important that children have the best conditions to learn in a joyful and good mood.
Bibliography:
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). The general causality orientations scale: Self-determination in personality. Journal of research in personality, 19(2), 109-134.
Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011, September). From game design elements to gamefulness: defining” gamification”. In Proceedings of the 15th international academic MindTrek conference: Envisioning future media environments (pp. 9-15).
Kiryakova, G., Angelova, N., & Yordanova, L. (2014). Gamification in education. Proceedings of 9th International Balkan Education and Science Conference.
Nah, F. F. H., Zeng, Q., Telaprolu, V. R., Ayyappa, A. P., & Eschenbrenner, B. (2014, June). Gamification of education: a review of literature. In International conference on hci in business (pp. 401-409). Springer, Cham.
Sailer, M., & Sailer, M. (2021). Gamification of in‐class activities in flipped classroom lectures. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(1), 75-90.
Stansbury, J. A., & Earnest, D. R. (2017). Meaningful gamification in an industrial/organizational psychology course. Teaching of Psychology, 44(1), 38-45.