Does gamification work for boys and girls?: An exploratory study with a virtual learning environment

SIGAPP ACM Special Interest Group on Applied ComputingThe development and use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) has increased considerably over the past decades. Following that trend, many research findings have shown the benefits of using VLE during the learning process. Nevertheless, there are important problems that hinder their use requiring further investigation. Among them, one of the main problems is the inappropriate use of these systems by students. The boredom, lack of interest, monotony, lack of motivation, among other factors, ultimately causes students to behave inappropriately and lead them to a lower performance. In this context, the proposed study investigates whether it is possible to reduce undesirable behaviors and increase performance of students through the use of game mechanics (i.e. gamification). We develop a VLE, E-Game, that can turn on/off several game mechanics, such as points, badges, levels and so on. A case study was conducted with two groups of students to investigate their behavior during their interaction with E-Game with and without gamification. The results indicate that the gamification implemented by E-Game contributed to improve student performance in the case of boys. Yet, improvement was not observed in the case of girls. Furthermore, it was not possible to conclude whether the use of gamification helps to prevent inappropriate student behavior, and therefore, further studies and experiments are needed

Does Gamified Educational Systems Change Students’ Learning Behaviors? A Case Study with Postgraduate Students

In the last few years, gamification studies have increased in the field of education and digital technologies, showing different results on the use of gamified educational systems in relation to students’ learning aspects. These studies, however, often keep the focus on quantitative or qualitative approaches directly related to student learning, without considering students’ perceptions of the gamification design and how the gamification design aspects of the system can influence positively the students’ behavior change. Therefore, this study compared a gamified with a non-gamified version of an educational system, through a mixed (quantitative and qualitative) approach to identify if gamified educational systems are better than non-gamified educational systems to provide positive students’ learning behavior change. The results confirmed that the gamified educational system was more effective than the non-gamified system

Investigating Potential Gender Differences in First-Year Engineering Students’ Academic Motivation and Homework Submission Behavior

Previous studies have shown that there exists a difference in undergraduate students’ academic motivation based on gender. Specifically, females have been shown to be more extrinsically motivated than their male peers in a university setting (D’Lima, et. al, 2014). However, little research has been done to examine the effects of gender relevant to academic motivation in gamified systems. The study of gamification systems is important due to the increase in their use within educational activities. This study leverages the Jones MUSIC Model of Academic Motivation and gamification profiles to answer the research question: How does gender influence student behavior and motivation towards an online gamified homework platform? Academic motivation was determined through student responses to the MUSIC Model survey. Behavior was measured through submission behavior including the number of attempts needed to complete a problem and the frequency of submission. The mastery-based homework portal that was employed in a first-year engineering design course provided data on the number of attempts needed for each student to successfully complete an assignment. In addition, the rate at which students submitted homework assignments within the self-pacing environment was also recorded. This information was utilized to extract gamification profiles to describe the behavior of students over time. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics to determine if any meaningful differences existed. Overall, it was shown that females have consistently higher overall academic motivation scores than males. It was also shown that males have a wider distribution of gamification profiles, ranging from disheartened behavior to overachieving behavior. Females, on the other hand, were more likely to have a consistent homework submission behavior

Gamificación personalizada para fortalecer aprendizajes significativos de la asignatura matemática

The objective of this research is to demonstrate that the application of gamification strengthens the meaningful learning of the mathematics subject. The mixed research whose population was high school students from the city of Guayaquil. The data was collected through a Google Forms questionnaire. Regarding the knowledge of Gamification, it was found that there are students who handle the strategy without knowing its theoretical foundations, there are students who have little knowledge and there are those who only found out about the technique.El objetivo de la presente investigación es demostrar que la aplicación de gamificación fortalece el aprendizaje significativo de la asignatura Matemática. La investigación mixta cuya población fueron los estudiantes de bachillerato de la ciudad de Guayaquil. Los datos se recolectaron mediante un cuestionario de Google Forms. Sobre el conocimiento de Gamificación, se encontró que hay estudiantes que manejan la estrategia sin conocer sus fundamentos teóricos, hay estudiantes que tienen poco conocimiento y hay quienes solo se enteraron de la técnica

Gender Moderation in Gamification: Does One Size Fit All?

Organizations actively seek methods for increasing employee engagement by incorporating game elements in core systems and processes, in an effort to increase their perceived playfulness. However, little is known about the actual impact of these elements on perceived playfulness. This study includes results from three repeated experiments performed during a gamified academic course. The relationships between enjoyment of specific game elements, the way they increase perceived playfulness, and gender moderations of these relations were examined. All three experiments show that badges had a positive relation with perceived playfulness and were more enjoyable to women. Surprisingly, the results showed that when men were the majority of subjects in the group, the relations between the game elements and perceived playfulness were different from when men were a minority. These results provide important insight into what possibly influences perceived playfulness in gamified solutions

Um modelo conceitual para a gamificação de Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem

Esse artigo apresenta um modelo conceitual para auxiliar na implementação da gamificação em ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem, observando os dados envolvidos, as tarefas disponíveis, os alunos que utilizam e os objetivos da gamificação. São levantadas diferentes características dos alunos que podem influenciar no sucesso da gamificação e frameworks existentes que auxiliam a fundamentar o modelo proposto. Por fim, o modelo proposto é aplicado a um ambiente virtual de aprendizagem

Análise sobre a gamificação em Ambientes Educacionais

A gamificação é a utilização de elementos de jogos em outros contextos sem relação com jogos, sendo uma técnica bastante utilizada nos ambientes educacionais para motivar os alunos. O objetivo desse trabalho é identificar como é feita a avaliação da experiência e interação do usuário com a gamificação aplicada em ambientes educacionais. Foram analisados trabalhos que fazem experimentos controlados comparando um ambiente educacional com e sem gamificação. Nesses trabalhos, existe uma grande variação em relação ao contexto, ao tempo de duração, ao número de participantes e de elementos utilizados. As métricas empregadas foram obtidas através de implementações no ambiente e em questionários de satisfação. Espera-se que, com o levantamento de diferentes formas de experimentação, outros trabalhos possam avaliar a utilização da gamificação em ambientes educacionais

Gender Differences in Participation and Reward on Stack Overflow

Programming is a valuable skill in the labor market, making the underrepresentation of women in computing an increasingly important issue. Online question and answer platforms serve a dual purpose in this field: they form a body of knowledge useful as a reference and learning tool, and they provide opportunities for individuals to demonstrate credible, verifiable expertise. Issues, such as male-oriented site design or overrepresentation of men among the site's elite may therefore compound the issue of women's underrepresentation in IT. In this paper we audit the differences in behavior and outcomes between men and women on Stack Overflow, the most popular of these Q&A sites. We observe significant differences in how men and women participate in the platform and how successful they are. For example, the average woman has roughly half of the reputation points, the primary measure of success on the site, of the average man. Using an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, an econometric technique commonly applied to analyze differences in wages between groups, we find that most of the gap in success between men and women can be explained by differences in their activity on the site and differences in how these activities are rewarded. Specifically, 1) men give more answers than women and 2) are rewarded more for their answers on average, even when controlling for possible confounders such as tenure or buy-in to the site. Women ask more questions and gain more reward per question. We conclude with a hypothetical redesign of the site's scoring system based on these behavioral differences, cutting the reputation gap in half

Gamificação como ferramenta de ensino na disciplina de estatística do curso de Psicologia

Estudos recentes apontam a gamificação como uma poderosa ferramenta para melhorar oaprendizado dos alunos. A disciplina de estatística apresenta grande índice de desistência nocurso de psicologia. Isto está ligado a muitos fatores, mas os principais são a dificuldade e areatância dos alunos quanto ao conteúdo, no entanto, o conhecimento estatístico é essencialpara graduação como psicólogo. Aliado à necessidade de engajar os alunos a gamificação traznovas tecnologias para sala de aula. Essas novas tecnologias, mais próximas da realidade dosalunos podem impactar positivamente a interação com a disciplina. A gamificação, portanto,necessita de um meio para ser implementada e o escolhido nesta pesquisa foi um ambientevirtual de aprendizado (AVA). Um AVA gamificado difere de uma simples lista de exercíciosem formato de jogo. A principal diferença é a possibilidade de interação social proporcionadapelo AVA, seja ele gamificado ou não. Portanto, a presente pesquisa teve como objetivoverificar se a gamificação como ferramenta de ensino pode influenciar no desempenho dosalunos de Psicologia. Além disso, este trabalho verificou se a gamificação auxilia na motivaçãoe engajamento dos estudantes. A avaliação do desempenho através do AVA, que catalogou eregistrou o desempenho obtido por cada participante. Um AVA continha elementos degamificação (medalhas e ranking) enquanto o outro apenas os exercícios da disciplina, aferramenta escolhida para isto foi o moodle. O resultado dos participantes foi avaliado de 0 a10 ao longo de diversos quizzez (questionários). Estes quizzes foram agrupados em 5 blocos(cursos) referentes ao conteúdo abordado. Como resultados verificou-se que o engajamentofoi extremamente baixo, o que resultou em uma amostra pequena. Os alunos foramseparados aleatoriamente, mas isto levou a um desequilíbrio entre as condiçõesexperimentais. O desinteresse aliado ao desequilíbrio de condições resultou em poucosdados. Os resultados obtidos foram inconclusivos e o cumprimento dos objetivos da pesquisafoi afetado. Sem diferenças significativas entre os grupos não foi possível afirmar se agamificação exerceu a algum efeito na aprendizagem. As correlações, positivas esignificativas, entre as atividades disponíveis indicaram que o aprendizado em um AVA podeter seus benefícios. Entende-se que o baixo engajamento está relacionado a diversos fatoresexternos a pesquisa, como a pandemia, ensino EaD, ferramenta utilizada e motivação. Apandemia aliada ao EaD levou os alunos a um desengajamento geral. Um dos principaismotivos para o desengajamento foi a dificuldade em operacionalizar uma ferramenta degamificação. Ferramentas voltadas para o público adulto são mais complexas e exigem certoconhecimento em programação, ou TI. A falta de conhecimento em operacionalizar aplataforma contribui não só com o engajamento, mas também no desequilíbrio dosparticipantes

Investigating the Potential of Gamification to Improve Seniors’ Experience and Use of Technology

A non-negligible proportion of seniors rarely uses new technology. Far too often, these rather tech unexperienced seniors struggle with new soft- or hard-ware, that do not provide easy access. As a result, some seniors avoid or completely desist to further use “these modern technologies” and consequently miss out on the benefits of digital age. Game-inspired design is supposed to be a promising way to overcome some perceived barriers of seniors by providing hedonic value during early interaction. Previous research has shown that game-inspired design is suitable to motivate seniors’ use of Health-IT. To investigate its potential to facilitate the use of information and communication technology (ICT), an experimental study was conducted. The study investigated the appeal of various gamification features, which were embedded in a prototype of an ICT learning software and compared it to a non-gamified version of the software. Results indicate that the concept of gamified ICT learning software appeals to seniors in general, but that the acceptance of different gamification features is quite diverse. A clear-cut superiority of adding gamification to the software was not found. After interacting with both software versions, seniors in around equal parts preferred either the non-gamified version, the gamified version, or could not decide. Those seniors that clearly favored the gamified version were particularly fond of continuous positive feedback and receiving rewards for each task they have accomplished. Whereas the remaining seniors rather disliked the intensive endorsement through these two features and decided against the gamified version, albeit they liked many of the other game features. Our results underline the necessity of following a user-centered design approach when developing game-inspired applications, and the need for an individualized use of gamification elements to meet the needs of the heterogeneous group of senior users.BMBF, 16SV6183, Gamification - Spielerischer Umgang mit Technik für ältere Menschen - GaT