The Impact of Gamification on Word-of-Mouth Effectiveness: Evidence from Foursquare

Companies are encouraging and incentivizing contributors of online word-of-mouth (WOM) through gamification elements such as badges, mayorships, points, and such. We study how gamification elements, which capture and signal contributors’ accumulated expertise, affect consumers’ perception of contributors’ knowledge, and therefore the perceived effectiveness of their contributed WOM. We focus on two specific gamification elements on Foursquare: badges, which signal breadth of knowledge, and mayorships, which signal depth of knowledge. Using experiments conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk, we find: (1) badges and mayorships that appear alongside contributors’ online WOM, provide a unique way to signal WOM contributors’ knowledge and therefore have an impact on the perceived effectiveness of such WOM; (2) the impact of badges on perceived WOM effectiveness is higher than that of mayorships. Our findings have important implications for the ongoing research on the impact of gamification and also suggest ways for firms to benefit from gamification

Game On? Smoking Cessation Through the Gamification of mHealth: A Longitudinal Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: Finding ways to increase and sustain engagement with mHealth interventions has become a challenge during application development. While gamification shows promise and has proven effective in many fields, critical questions remain concerning how to use gamification to modify health behavior. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to investigate how the gamification of mHealth interventions leads to a change in health behavior, specifically with respect to smoking cessation. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative longitudinal study using a sample of 16 smokers divided into 2 cohorts (one used a gamified intervention and the other used a nongamified intervention). Each participant underwent 4 semistructured interviews over a period of 5 weeks. Semistructured interviews were also conducted with 4 experts in gamification, mHealth, and smoking cessation. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematic analysis undertaken. RESULTS: Results indicated perceived behavioral control and intrinsic motivation acted as positive drivers to game engagement and consequently positive health behavior. Importantly, external social influences exerted a negative effect. We identified 3 critical factors, whose presence was necessary for game engagement: purpose (explicit purpose known by the user), user alignment (congruency of game and user objectives), and functional utility (a well-designed game). We summarize these findings in a framework to guide the future development of gamified mHealth interventions. CONCLUSIONS: Gamification holds the potential for a low-cost, highly effective mHealth solution that may replace or supplement the behavioral support component found in current smoking cessation programs. The framework reported here has been built on evidence specific to smoking cessation, however it can be adapted to health interventions in other disease categories. Future research is required to evaluate the generalizability and effectiveness of the framework, directly against current behavioral support therapy interventions in smoking cessation and beyond

The Effects of Gamification Rewards in E-Learning: A Longitudinal Field Study on Motivation and Mental Fatigue

E-Learning, as a prevalent instructional approach in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, is often criticized for reducing motivation and increasing mental fatigue among learners. Despite the attractiveness of various gamification designs to resolve these issues, there still exists a lack of comprehensive and integrated understanding of the pedagogic effectiveness of gamification rewards. Motivated thus, this study assesses and compares four different types of gamification rewards: unexpected-hedonic rewards, expected-hedonic rewards, unexpected-utilitarian rewards, and expected-utilitarian rewards. Drawing from self-determination theory and opportunity cost model of subjective effort and task performance, this study evaluates the effect of gamification reward type on learning motivation and mental fatigue. The effect of gamification reward type will be examined in a longitudinal field experiment in an introductory undergraduate computer science course

Implications of Gamification on Computer Science Women for Performance, Engagement, and Self-Efficacy

SEP-CyLE is an online learning tool created at FIU as a part of an NSF IUSE Design and Development 2 project. Its goal is to determine the impact of online learning and engagement strategies on student learning, and in this study, the impact of role identity, self-efficacy beliefs, and the effect of gamification on women. Previous studies have reported mixed results of the impact of gamification on women, however, many studies have reported a positive impact of gamification in academic performance and engagement. Investigating the role of gamification on women in computer science is important to improving the representation and retention of women in computer science, a statistic that has seen a stark decline in the past few decades. The qualitative study will consist of two interviews with women participants in SEP-CyLE courses. The initial interview will be conducted at the beginning of the course to assess expectations and exploration of computer science identity and self-efficacy beliefs. Midsemester usage patterns will be collected to explore the participants’ interaction with the tool. The second interview will be conducted at the end of the semester to explore changes to identity and self-efficacy beliefs along with the perceptions of the tool’s effectiveness and specific gamification elements. The interview protocol will be developed based on prior literature about identity development. Analysis of the data will consist of inductive and deductive coding through collaborative coding and triangulation between collaborators. Results will drive future iterations of SEP-CyLE to improve the effectiveness of gamification in engaging women computer science students

The Gamification Inventory : an Instrument for the Qualitative Evaluation of Gamification and its Application to Learning Management Systems

Gamification has risen meteorically in popularity since the beginning of the decade, both in practitioner circles and among researchers. We show that empirical results of gamificationa s effects do not match the hype around it as studies have largely failed to prove any effects. We posit that a proper evaluation of gamification requires an understanding of how gamification can be expressed in real-world applications and employ Wittgensteinian family resemblances as a basis for such a definition. We have collected a set of properties that gamified applications can have through the analysis of goals and means of gamification mentioned in the literature and through an expert survey. We then used those results to create the Gamification Inventory, an instrument for the qualitative assessment of gamification in a given system. We have tested the instrument with a set of evaluators in the field of learning management systems (LMSs), informing both a refinement of the instrument and the preparation of an experiment with the intent of testing the effectiveness of common forms of gamification. The analysis of these LMSs led to results very similar to what our analysis of previous empirical studies in gamification, and especially gamification in education, have shown: most gamification is concentrated on using points, badges, levels and leaderboards as game design elements. We argue that a large-scale, long-term experiment with a proper factorial design is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of gamification and have prepared such a study. Having identified points and badges as two major elements to be tested, we developed an extension to a competency grid add-on for the LMS Moodle that allows for a 2x2 factorial design of using points and badges. The system is designed for large-scale distribution among schools using the competency grid in Moodle, with minimal invasiveness in mind. We briefly discuss the challenges that come with such large-scale experiments, especially in German schools. As a result, we present a new, tested, and refined instrument for the qualitative assessment of gamification in a given system, an overview over gamification as it is being used in the most popular LMSs, and an experimental setup to test the effectiveness of points and badges in schools, using custom add-ons to the competency grid for Moodle and to the corresponding mobile application

A Social-Centred Gamification Approach to Improve Household Water Use Efficiency

The research community is showing a growing interest in gamification and there are works showing the usefulness of gamification in different problem domains. Recently, a special interest has been given to the gamification design on systems addressing natural resource consumption issues such as to encourage efficient household water consumption. Despite the potential benefits, the gamification design method for such system is not conclusive. In this paper, we proposed a social-centred gamification approach to improve household water use efficiency. The approach firstly identified the water use related social network activities based upon existing popular social network activities. The approach then gamified each identified activity in terms of traditional instruments for improving water use efficiency and gamification rewards. The approach also used a set of indicators to explicitly detect and monitor both online social network activities and offline water use activities. With this approach the gamification effectiveness can be better traced and evaluated.ISS-EWATUS, Integrated Support System for Efficient Water Usage and Resources Management, FP7 project (grant no. 619228), funded by the European Communit

An Examination of Influential Factors on Gamification in Higher Education: A Content Analysis

Student disengagement and disconnection post pandemic has become a prominent concern in higher education. As colleges and universities navigate the post-pandemic landscape, addressing student disengagement and reconnecting them to the learning community has become a priority. Gamification has been used in education since early 2010s, however, the empirical studies on the effectiveness of gamification have yielded inconsistent results. Without a clear understanding of how gamification works and which gamification design elements have a higher potential to influence learning outcomes, gamification intervention may not achieve the desired results. Guided by Self-Determination Theory and Theory of Gamified Learning, this study aimed to examine the factors that contributed to the successful implementation of gamification in higher education, and to identify the design elements that had most influence on student learning outcomes. The study employed a correlational research design and quantitative content analysis method. Data was collected from the empirical studies conducted between 2014 and 2023. The literature search yielded 1038 publications. After a careful screening, 67 experiments were included in this study. Data analysis was conducted using logistic regression and Chi-Square tests. Two gamification design elements, Social Interaction and Leaderboards, were found to have significant influence on student learning outcomes. The results showed that integrating social interaction and leaderboards in the gamification design facilitates the satisfaction of the needs for competence and relatedness, which helps improve student engagement and connection with the learning community and alleviates the issue facing higher education. This study provided insights for college instructors and instructional designers in the design of gamification intervention in instruction. Implications for practice and future studies were presented