Gamification in education: How gamification can encourage learning. Ryan Montville. The Ohio state University

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1 Running head: GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION 1 Gamification in education: How gamification can encourage learning Ryan Montville The Ohio state University

2 Running head: GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION 2 Gamification is still a fairly new term, there is no currently agreed upon definite definition. Deterding et al. (2011) define gamification as the use of video game elements in non-gaming systems to improve user experience and user engagement.. Since the use of this type of intelligence is new, even the term Gamification is not completely agreed upon. Bogost (2011) thinks we should use the term exploitationware, while McGonigal (2011) refers to it as a game you play in real life. Deterding et al. (2011) list other possible terms that have been used including productivity games, applied gaming, funware, playful design, behavioral games, surveillance entertainment, and game layer. Whatever you call it, the use of gaming systems for educational learning opportunities is one I believe could work well. Gamification can make learning fun and engaging as demonstrated through Deci & Ryan s (2000) self-determination theory. Their theory says that for students to be intrinsically motivated to learn, the gamification system would need to satisfy three basic needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. McGonigal (2011) continues the idea of intrinsically motivating through gamification, saying that a gamification system in the classroom would provide four gratifications: more satisfying work, a better hope of success, a stronger social connectivity, and have more meaning. Leveraging computer games for design of user interfaces dates back to the early 1980s with the first boom of computer games. Research was done then to design more enjoyable user interfaces from video games to redress routine work activities to make them more intrinsically interesting.(deterding et al. (2011) ) According to Simões et al (2013), the framework for gamification should include some of the most commonly found game elements and consider the following set of guidelines in the platform. To improve students learning outcomes and motivation to learn, the system should allow the user with repeated experimentation in order to reach a goal. This experimentation will help students deal with

3 Running head: GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION 3 failure as part of the learning process. This type of positive failure feedback would lead students to keep trying different outcomes and would raise their level of engagement with the task. Another guideline is the quick feedback response time. By giving immediate results, students can improve their strategy and get a better chance of success in the next try. The system should adapt tasks to the students skill levels. In a good gaming system, a player realistically believes in their chances of success. The gamification system should use different levels of goals that are adapted to students skills. Increasing the tasks difficulty as the students skills improve will increase their expectations of completing the task successfully and will improve their motivation. The system should also allow the students to break complex tasks into smaller and possibly simpler sub-tasks. Allowing this type of break down and allowing students to complete the smaller tasks to build to a completion of the larger task helps them to deal with complexity in a kind of divide and conquer approach. The system should also allow the student to take different approaches to the sequence of completing these small tasks. Each student should be able to complete the smaller sub-tasks in a different order and follow their own route to completing the larger task. As in gaming, this will allow the task to be performed in a flow while learning and will lead the user to completing the task for enjoyment and pleasure rather than an outside motivator. In gaming systems, players can take on different identities to perform different roles. With a gamification system, the social learning environment would allow students to safely experience a different side of themselves and lead to developing a school-based identity. This school based identity could lead to a students interests with learning over a longer period. Rewards and incentives obtained by peers, teachers and parents for behaviors within the system will help to reinforce the development of this identity, a students social status and motivation. The gamification system should allow for this recognition of academic achievements with social

4 Running head: GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION 4 rewards and other incentives to help with student motivation. Social recognition and rewards help to motivate the students to improve their skills. This recognition should be obtainable from students peers, teachers and also parents. All of this recognition of the academic improvements will in turn help to lead to the school-based identity and improve motivation to continue advancing their skill level. The gamification system should also consider motivating the teachers and parents to in turn reward the students progress. Therefore the system should have the proper tools and allow easy access to the students progress. On the whole, Gamification is a process intended to induce motivation with non-motivational activities confronted in everyday life. One downside of gamification is the overjustification effect. The overjustification effect says that when given a reward for doing an activity, over time you will start to believe you are doing to activity for the reward instead of doing it because you want to do it. If gamification is applied to education, students might continue because of a reward rather than a desire to learn, thus leading to less retention of the knowledge. Bogost (2011) focuses on this feature of gamification, arguing that the badges, levels, achievements, and leaderboards make gamification a terrible system saying key game mechanics are the operational parts of games that produce an experience of interest, enlightenment, terror, fascination, hope, or any number of other sensations. Points and levels and the like are mere gestures that provide structure and measure progress within such a system. Bogost says that gamification replaces real incentives with fictional ones. Bogost believes that gamification therefore, is an inaccurate term and prefers the term Explotationware. This would disassociate the system from games to not persuade the user of false incentives.

5 Running head: GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION 5 Jensen (2012) debates that while gamification does encourage user-interaction, it uses badges and achievements as objects of desire without meaning. Jensen states that he is not against gamification, but says that gamification needs to evolve beyond its current state to gain meaning. According to McGonigal (2011), three billion hours are collectively spent per week around the world playing video games. Of those three billion hours, McGonigal states that 99% of boys under 18 and 94% of girls under 18 report playing video games regularly... The average young person racks up 10,000 hours of gaming by the age of or 24 hours less than they spend in a classroom for all of middle and high school if they have perfect attendance. That is just comparing the amount of time spent in class versus playing video games. She does not mention how much time is spent outside of the classroom on homework, reading and studying. Given her research, it is most likely still less than the time spent playing video games. With this research, we could conclude that if schools were to add the four elements of the gamification model: narratives, incremental difficulty, social functions, and a reward system into the classroom and homework, kids would more likely be interested in learning. One example of the implementation of gamification in education is the Mathchievement system, published by Goehle (2013). They used WeBWorK, an open source program that allows students to complete their homework online, as the framework for their system. They tested their system in two different 16-week long Calculus 1 classes. They used a level system that gives 5 XP (experience points) for every homework problem the student answers. Once they get enough XPs, they level up, with each level requiring more XPs to move onto the next level. Every level gives extra credit on the homework score. Once a student levels up, they receive a reward in the

6 Running head: GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION 6 form of a badge-like notification informing them that they have done so. Their system also includes over 40 achievements, which they creatively call Mathchievements. A few examples of these math achievement awards are Perfect10 when the student has earned 100% on 10 homework problems, Take Me to the L Hôpital when the student properly used L Hôpital s rule, and On One Hand when the student finished a homework set with less than five incorrect submissions. There are also notifications for when the student gets an achievement. Each achievement also allows the user to receive more XPs that in turn helps the student get to the next level. They have a social feature which, if turned on by the student, will post their achievements and leveling up to their Facebook page for family and fellow classmates to see. Their results showed that 90% of the students tracked their achievements and the overall feedback was positive. More students did receive a grade of 90% or higher on all homework assignments, but WeBWorKs allows for unlimited tries. This allowing for unlimited tries could be accountable for the higher scores seen on WeBWorKs, but at the same time, it could be said that it shows determination and the repeating practice of the problem would help to solidify the knowledge gained in the exercise. This could help students learn to deal with failure as part of the learning process and allow for students to experience anxiety when facing the chance to fail, while at the same time allow students to keep trying. WeBWorK did not create a control group and found the same grade is true for both those using the Mathchievement system or not using the system. They did not provide statistics or conclusions on their study, instead they showed their changes to WeBWorK and reported they will leave these larger concerns to future studies. The Mathchievement system incorporates all four aspects of gamification into the calculus class and seems to have nothing but positive feedback. A few modifications were found

7 Running head: GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION 7 to be needed, the largest one being that the techniques did seem to improve student engagement, but there is no evidence of an effect on student performance. Another modification that the system needs to improve is the lack of collaborative components. But according to Goehle (2013) Overall the Mathchievement system adds an element of fun to WeBWorK and is a good example of how gamification can be used in mathematics education. Another example of a gamification system published by Giannetto (2013) uses QizBox, a social learning environment designed to increase active learning in a lecture or discussion classroom setting developed at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). The system allows students attending a lecture in a lecture hall to log in to the system and turn the lecture into an interactive lecture in an online setting. Qizbox displays a slideshow of the lecture slides synced live to the presenter. It features a sidebar that allows questions and answer to be posted, as well as the ability to takes notes for each slide. The presenter has the ability to have pop-up quizzes during the lecture. Qizbox records all of this to an archive that is accessible by the students. Their system has three parts. The first part is the XP and level system. The target for gaining XPs will be like those employed in many game systems and encourage five separate types of behaviors including social, intelligence, helpful, inquisitive and hardworking. The second part is an achievement system that gives badges for completing tasks. Achievements can either be earned by completing actions during lectures or can be awarded by the presenter. These achievement badges can be displayed publicly to other users of the system which will hopefully trigger the recognition and competition aspects and encourage engagement. The third part is a multiplier component where students who have leveled up in specialized areas can help other students gain XP faster through an XP multiplier, giving the system a social feature of cooperation. The paper published how their system worked, but at the time of publishing, they

8 Running head: GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION 8 had only just started implementing the system in several BGSU classes and have not yet published any results. The QizBox system does incorporate all the aspects of the gamification model and they have taken on the challenge of motivating the students to engage in the system. They identified two different types of motivators, internal and interpersonal, that will be focused on. I believe if the design of the system can satisfy the internal motivators of challenge, curiosity, and control along with the interpersonal motivation of cooperation, competition, and recognition they will succeed with creating a learning environment that encourages social engagement from the students. Gamification is a new term, and a new process being used in education for engaging students to interact and encourage learning. There is a lack of research data with results due to it being a new area of technology. The research in progress is aiming to assist educators and schools with information to improve students motivation and learning outcomes. The systems need to continue to monitor the motivation of students to learn, so the overjustification effect will not hinder any long term incentives. Systems will also need to continue to choose the proper game guidelines to be applied in specific situations and learning activities and increase the engagement of teachers and parents to motivate and reward the students. With improvement and continual evolvement, Gamification or Explotationware could enable us to continue to learn, and possibly have a little fun doing it.

9 Running head: GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION 9 References Bogost, I. (2011). Persuasive Games: Exploitationware. Gamasutra. Retrieved from Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: Defining gamification. MindTrek '11 Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments DOI: / Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Sicart, M., Nacke, L., & O'Hara, K.(2011, May). Gamification. using game-design elements in non-gaming contexts. In CHI'11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp ). ACM. Giannetto, D., Chao, J., & Fontana, A. (2013). Gamification in a Social Learning Environment. Issues In Informing Science & Information Technology, 10, Retrieved from Goehle, G. (2013). Gamification and Web-based Homework. Primus, 23, 3, DOI: / Jensen, M. (2012). Engaging the Learner Gamification Strives to Keep the User's Interest. T+d, 66, 1, Retrieved from McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. London: Penguin. McGonigal, J. (2011). We spend 3 billion hours a week as a planet playing videogames. Is it worth it? How could it be MORE worth it?. We spend 3 billion hours a week as a planet playing videogames. Is it worth it? How could it be MORE worth it?. Retrieved from

10 Running head: GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION 10 Nicholson, S. (2012). A user-centered theoretical framework for meaningful gamification. Games+ Learning+ Society, 8, 1. Retreived from Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American psychologist, 55(1), 68. DOI: // X Simões, J., Redondo, R. D., & Vilas, A. F. (2013) A social gamification framework for a K-6 learning platform. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, DOI: /j.chb