Gamification of education is a developing approach for increasing learners’ motivation and engagement by incorporating game design elements in educational environments. With the growing popularity of gamification and yet mixed success of its application in educational contexts, the current review is aiming to shed a more realistic light on the research in this field by focusing on empirical evidence rather than on potentialities, beliefs or preferences. Accordingly, it critically examines the advancement in gamifying education. The discussion is structured around the used gamification mechanisms, the gamified subjects, the type of gamified learning activities, and the study goals, with an emphasis on the reliability and validity of the reported outcomes. To improve our understanding and offer a more realistic picture of the progress of gamification in education, consistent with the presented evidence, we examine both the outcomes reported in the papers and how they have been obtained. While the gamification in education is still a growing phenomenon, the review reveals that (i) insufficient evidence exists to support the long-term benefits of gamification in educational contexts; (ii) the practice of gamifying learning has outpaced researchers’ understanding of its mechanisms and methods; (iii) the knowledge of how to gamify an activity in accordance with the specifics of the educational context is still limited. The review highlights the need for systematically designed studies and rigorously tested approaches confirming the educational benefits of gamification, if gamified learning is to become a recognized instructional approach.

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Gamifying education: what is known, what is believed and what remains uncertain: a critical review

Computer-based technology has infiltrated many aspects of life and industry, yet there is little understanding of how it can be used to promote student engagement, a concept receiving strong attention in higher education due to its association with a number of positive academic outcomes. The purpose of this article is to present a critical review of the literature from the past 5 years related to how web-conferencing software, blogs, wikis, social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter), and digital games influence student engagement. We prefaced the findings with a substantive overview of student engagement definitions and indicators, which revealed three types of engagement (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) that informed how we classified articles. Our findings suggest that digital games provide the most far-reaching influence across different types of student engagement, followed by web-conferencing and Facebook. Findings regarding wikis, blogs, and Twitter are less conclusive and significantly limited in number of studies conducted within the past 5 years. Overall, the findings provide preliminary support that computer-based technology influences student engagement, however, additional research is needed to confirm and build on these findings. We conclude the article by providing a list of recommendations for practice, with the intent of increasing understanding of how computer-based technology may be purposefully implemented to achieve the greatest gains in student engagement.

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Computer-based technology and student engagement: a critical review of the literature

https://estudogeral.sib.uc.pt/bitstream/10316/44490/1/IJMEblindR3.pdf

Teaching operations research to undergraduate management students: The role of gamification

Whether gamification is an organized structure that contributes to student achievement, a simple pontification process or total nonsense is a matter of debate. In such, this study was conducted to ...

The effects of gamification on students’ academic achievement: a meta-analysis study

This paper presents a follow-up of a systematic mapping study of the empirical research on applying gamification to education, covering the period July 2014-June 2015. Its goal is twofold: to complement the previous survey by reviewing the papers published within the last year and to identify the shifts and emerging trends in this research field by comparing the new results to the previous data. The study also confirms that the penetration of gamification in education is still fast growing and the practice has outpaced researchers’ understanding of its mechanisms. But it indicates that it has passed the “peak of inflated expectations” in Gartner’s hype cycle and is sliding down into the “trough of disillusionment”. The rise of the number of studies with inconclusive or negative results suggests that the gamification has passed its early phase and is considered in a more critical and analytical way instead of ‘riding the hype’. Introduction Gamification has been a rising technology trend since 2010. Its growing popularity is stemming from the belief in its potential to foster motivation, behavioral changes, friendly competition and collaboration in different contexts, such as customer engagement, employee performance and social loyalty. As a result, it has been applied in various domains including marketing, health care, human resources, training, environmental protection and wellbeing. One key sector where gamification techniques are being explored is education. Gamification in education refers to the

Gamification in Education: Where Are We in 2015?

This study investigated how utilizing gamification mechanics and customer engagement principles in college business courses can engage and foster learning among Generation Y students.  Findings in this research suggest that using gamification techniques in the classroom can be an effective tool for enhancing student engagement and learning. Specifically, Generation Y students exposed to gamified instruction performed better on a final assessment tool and reported experiencing higher levels of involvement, participation and positive emotional responses to instruction than those not exposed to gamification techniques.  The positive results of this study support the use of gamification applications in courses and demonstrate its effectiveness. Further implications and future research are also presented.

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Lauri Patterson

Papers

Get Your Head in the Game: Using Gamification in Business Education to Connect with Generation Y