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

This meta-analysis was conducted to systematically synthesize research findings on effects of gamification on cognitive, motivational, and behavioral learning outcomes. Results from random effects models showed significant small effects of gamification on cognitive (g = .49, 95% CI [0.30, 0.69], k = 19, N = 1686), motivational (g = .36, 95% CI [0.18, 0.54], k = 16, N = 2246), and behavioral learning outcomes (g = .25, 95% CI [0.04, 0.46], k = 9, N = 951). Whereas the effect of gamification on cognitive learning outcomes was stable in a subsplit analysis of studies employing high methodological rigor, effects on motivational and behavioral outcomes were less stable. Given the heterogeneity of effect sizes, moderator analyses were conducted to examine inclusion of game fiction, social interaction, learning arrangement of the comparison group, as well as situational, contextual, and methodological moderators, namely, period of time, research context, randomization, design, and instruments. Inclusion of game fiction and social interaction were significant moderators of the effect of gamification on behavioral learning outcomes. Inclusion of game fiction and combining competition with collaboration were particularly effective within gamification for fostering behavioral learning outcomes. Results of the subsplit analysis indicated that effects of competition augmented with collaboration might also be valid for motivational learning outcomes. The results suggest that gamification as it is currently operationalized in empirical studies is an effective method for instruction, even though factors contributing to successful gamification are still somewhat unresolved, especially for cognitive learning outcomes.

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The Gamification of Learning: a Meta-analysis

Background Engagement in online programs is difficult to maintain. Gamification is the recent trend that offers to increase engagement through the inclusion of game-like features like points and badges, in non-game contexts. This review will answer the following question, 'Are gamification strategies effective in increasing engagement in online programs?' Method Eight databases (Web of Science, PsycINFO, Medline, INSPEC, ERIC, Cochrane Library, Business Source Complete and ACM Digital Library) were searched from 2010 to the 28th of October 2015 using a comprehensive search strategy. Eligibility criteria was based on the PICOS format, where "population" included adults, "intervention" involved an online program or smart phone application that included at least one gamification feature. "Comparator" was a control group, "outcomes" included engagement and "downstream" outcomes which occurred as a result of engagement; and "study design" included experimental studies from peer-reviewed sources. Effect sizes (Cohens d and 95% confidence intervals) were also calculated. Results 1017 studies were identified from database searches following the removal of duplicates, of which 15 met the inclusion criteria. The studies involved a total of 10,499 participants, and were commonly undertaken in tertiary education contexts. Engagement metrics included time spent (n = 5), volume of contributions (n = 11) and occasions visited to the software (n = 4); as well as downstream behaviours such as performance (n = 4) and healthy behaviours (n = 1). Effect sizes typically ranged from medium to large in direct engagement and downstream behaviours, with 12 out of 15 studies finding positive significant effects in favour of gamification. Conclusion Gamification is effective in increasing engagement in online programs. Key recommendations for future research into gamification are provided. In particular, rigorous study designs are required to fully examine gamification's effects and determine how to best achieve sustained engagement.

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Does gamification increase engagement with online programs? A systematic review

Background. Definitions of gamification tend to vary by person, both in industry and within academia. One particularly popular lay interpretation, introduced and popularized by Ian Bogost, and reit...

Gamification Science, Its History and Future: Definitions and a Research Agenda:

Taking advantage of the vast history of theoretical and empirical findings in the learning literature we have inherited, this research offers a synthesis of prior findings in the domain of empirically evaluated active learning strategies in digital learning environments. The primary concern of the present study is to evaluate these findings with an eye towards scalable learning. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have emerged as the new way to reach the masses with educational materials, but so far they have failed to maintain learners' attention over the long term. Even though we now understand how effective active learning principles are for learners, the current landscape of MOOC pedagogy too often allows for passivity — leading to the unsatisfactory performance experienced by many MOOC learners today. As a starting point to this research we took John Hattie's seminal work from 2008 on learning strategies used to facilitate active learning. We considered research published between 2009 and 2017 that presents empirical evaluations of these learning strategies. Through our systematic search we found 126 papers meeting our criteria and categorized them according to Hattie's learning strategies. We found large-scale experiments to be the most challenging environment for experimentation due to their size, heterogeneity of participants, and platform restrictions, and we identified the three most promising strategies for effectively leveraging learning at scale as Cooperative Learning, Simulations a Gaming, and Interactive Multimedia

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Activating Learning at Scale : A Review of Innovations in Online Learning Strategies

Many MOOCs report high drop off rates for their students. Among the factors reportedly contributing to this picture are lack of motivation, feelings of isolation, and lack of interactivity in MOOCs. This paper investigates the potential of gamification with social game elements for increasing retention and learning success. Students in our experiment showed a significant increase of 25% in retention period (videos watched) and 23% higher average scores when the course interface was gamified. Social game elements amplify this effect significantly -- students in this condition showed an increase of 50% in retention period and 40% higher average test scores.

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A Playful Game Changer: Fostering Student Retention in Online Education with Social Gamification

Tactile patterns are a means to convey navigation instructions to pedestrians and are especially helpful for people with visual impairments. This article presents a concept to provide precise micro-navigation instructions through a tactile around-the-head display. Our system presents four tactile patterns for fundamental navigation instructions in conjunction with continuous directional guidance. We followed an iterative, user-centric approach to design the patterns for the fundamental navigation instructions, combined them with a continuous directional guidance stimulus, and tested our system with 13 sighted (blindfolded) and 2 blind participants in an obstacle course, including stairs. We optimized the patterns and validated the final prototype with another five blind participants in a follow-up study. The system steered our participants successfully with a 5.7 cm average absolute deviation from the optimal path. Our guidance is only a little less precise than the usual shoulder wobbling during normal walking and an order of magnitude more precise than previous tactile navigation systems. Our system allows various new use cases of micro-navigation for people with visual impairments, e.g., preventing collisions on a sidewalk or as an anti-veering tool. It also has applications in other areas, such as personnel working in low-vision environments (e.g., firefighters).

Around-the-Head Tactile System for Supporting Micro Navigation of People with Visual Impairments

We propose around-the-head spatial vibrotactile patterns for representing different kinds of notifications. The patterns are defined in terms of stimulus location, intensity profile, rhythm, and roughness modulation. A first study evaluates recall and distinguishability of 30 patterns, as well as agreement on meaning without a predetermined context: Agreement is low, yet the recognition rate is surprisingly high. We identify which kinds of patterns users recognize well and which ones they prefer. Static stimulus location patterns have a higher recognition rate than dynamic patterns, which move across the head as they play. Participants preferred dynamic patterns for comfort. A second study shows that participants are able to distinguish substantially more around-the-head spatial patterns than smartphone-based patterns. Spatial location has the highest positive impact on accuracy among the examined features, so this parameter allows for a large number of levels.

Marc Mogalle

Papers

A Playful Game Changer: Fostering Student Retention in Online Education with Social Gamification

Around-the-Head Tactile System for Supporting Micro Navigation of People with Visual Impairments

Design and Evaluation of On-the-Head Spatial Tactile Patterns