Gamifying Education

Abstract: In Project Based Learning, learners work in teams to produce a series of artefacts culminating in a final product, which is usually organised around a driving question. Informal ethnography suggests that many students over-emphasise the product of a project to the detriment of learning. Moreover, this is something that continues into the workplace (Keegan, 2001). The problem is that what the students have learned is rarely available to them in future projects. The question is: how can we encourage more of a focus on mastery rather than mostly focusing on the product? A promising approach to addressing this problem is to design a gamified system – that is a system in which game elements are applied in non-game contexts to more engaging and fun (Deterding et al., 2011). A set of requirements for the system were identified, using a standard HCI design process. Chief among them were: (i) to represent a changing set of learning outcomes and (ii) to motivate students to achieve these outcomes, and (iii) to motivate students to help other students master those learning outcomes they themselves have already mastered. We have designed, developed, and deployed a prototype of a gamified system meeting these requirements. One such game element is a progression loop in which the learner’s learning outcomes are depicted using graphical representations which show his/her growth and journey to mastery. Another is a points system which creates an engagement loop that motivates students to assist other students. Learners can create learning resources for learning outcomes they mastered and these are assessed by other students and lecturers using a game like interface, where the learner obtains points from the learning objects depending on the quality and quantity, giving rise to a status structure similar to that of stackoverflow. A study was carried out with a group of third level Computing students in a Project Based Learning context. After using the system for 2 weeks, a survey was administered including measuring user’s perception of the value of the goals of the system, the importance of reflection on learning and sharing learning, and usability. This talk describes the goals of the system, its design, and the design the study and the results of the study in the context of the research question (how successful the game-like system was in encouraging more of a focus on mastery rather than mostly focusing on the product.)