Gamification and Implications for Second Language Education: A Meta Analysis

Gamification is a fairly new concept that involves using game elements in non-game contexts. It has been shown that gamification can increase motivation and learning, but there have been conflicting results, with some studies reporting opposite findings. Because of these motivational results and benefits that have been reported, many researchers have attempted to use gamification in educational settings. Again, these studies have shown mixed results. However, as a large number of studies have shown benefits from using gamification in educational settings, it is important to know exactly what aspects of gamification are beneficial so that it can be properly used in second language education. The present study is a meta analysis of gamification of education research that set forth to determine what aspects of gamification are important in educational settings, and how this information can be used to successfully use gamification in second language education. Overall, it was found that gamification typically had a positive effect. Additionally, several moderator variables were of importance, including the length of instruction, inclusion of competitive aspects, and usage of time on task elements

Applying gamification in student coaching industry : A competitive environment analysis

The purpose of this study is to explore if gamification can create competitive advantage in student coaching industry in Finland. Using “game-like” elements in services can engage and motivate customers, which leads to several other positive behavioral patterns. Lately, this phenomenon has attracted the attention of both academia and practice. The aim of this thesis is to explore gamification and its benefits in the context of student coaching in Finland and more specifically the high school students in Finland. To give a foundation for this study and to gain better understanding of the context a competitive environment analysis is conducted of the student coaching industry in Finland. Current state of the industry is analyzed, and different strategic groups are recognized. This analysis takes the perspective of how attractive the market is. The empirical part of the study was conducted by interviewing experts in the student coaching industry in Finland. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews from professionals in the industry, who worked in different companies, which provided different viewpoints on the object of this study. I combined the data from the interviews with secondary data found online and analyzed them together. The findings indicate that using gamification and executing it correctly in educational context it can create positive behavioral patterns in students and further competitive advantage in the market. When gamification is implemented the right way, it has the potential to improve educational experiences, increasing user engagement, activity, social interaction, and other positive behavioral patterns

Building a Better Game: A Theory of Gameful Learning & the Construction of Student Personas with Agency

Gameful course design creates learning environments that support student motivation, drawing inspiration from well-designed games. This dissertation establishes the theoretical framework on which gameful pedagogy is founded. One key piece of gameful course design is that the instructor creates opportunities for students to make decisions about how they will complete course work. Designing these opportunities requires instructors to reflect on how different types of students are likely to behave, and to decide what grade outcomes can be earned through different routes of action. The field of Human-Computer Interaction uses a design tool called personas to help software developers better understand target users and their respective goals as they build new technologies. This dissertation investigates what choices students made within a gameful course, with the intention of developing a method to systematically construct student personas, based on a combination of behavioral, performance, demographic, and psycho-social data. Such personas would ideally enable instructors to more finely tune gameful course structures to student needs. While this research succeeded in establishing a method to describe the pathways students took through the gameful course studied, it identified very little commonality in students’ choices at the assignment level: the 159 students studied took 158 unique pathways through the core assignment work. This finding speaks to the success of gameful course design in enabling students to have autonomy over their learning experience, but, in addition to a general lack of significant findings between basic student characteristics and assignment choice, did not allow for the creation of data-driven personas that felt cohesive and representative of the students they represented. Three goals for future research into data-driven personas are identified: First, to confirm in a larger and more diverse context that the characteristics examined in this study do not have strong relationships to assignment choice. Second, to re-evaluate whether characteristics like ethnicity and gender need to be included in learner personas at all if they do not offer a better understanding of how similar learners are likely to behave. And third, to investigate whether it is more valuable to iterative course design to focus on how different behavior patterns relate to each and impact each other rather than assuming that the patterns themselves will relate to any particular learner characteristic.PHDInformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144070/1/cholma_1.pd

Il gioco di apprendere: l'uso della Gamification per ingaggiare i soggetti nel contesto e-Learning

openC’è una ferita aperta in campo formativo: molti compiti correlati all’apprendimento formale vengono avvertiti come noiosi e faticosi dai soggetti coinvolti. Neppure l’eLearning, pur ricco di promesse, sembra riuscire ad avvincere i soggetti lungo i suoi percorsi. Tant’è che si considerano fisiologici gli altissimi tassi di abbandono. L’idea di sfruttare il potere del Gioco nei contesti di apprendimento non è nuova. I giochi sono impegnativi eppure attraggono. Il nuovo trend, rappresentato dalla Gamification apre nel contesto formativo degli scenari promettenti. Tale metodologia implica l’uso di elementi di gioco in contesti non ludici per creare coinvolgimento, motivazione e quindi incidere sui comportamenti degli utenti. Per indagare il possibile impatto della Gamification nei contesti formativi, e specificamente sull’eLearning, si sono in prima battuta approfonditi i principali riferimenti della letteratura di settore in materia di Gioco, Apprendimento, Motivazione e eLearning e studiando le relative interrelazioni. Poi, per valutare l’impatto reale, si è condotta una review sistematica della letteratura specificamente volta a indagare quelle esperienze empiriche già in essere che vengono riportate da pubblicazioni passibili di peer review. Si sono analizzati 40 articoli. Purtroppo le valutazioni sui risultati che si ricavano, nella maggior parte dei casi, non risultano attendibili, rendendo così difficile il compito di trarre delle conclusioni sugli effetti di tale approccio o di compararne i risultati. Si sono potute comunque individuare alcune tendenze. Inoltre, la netta prevalenza di valutazioni positive che vengono riferite comprova l’esigenza di ricerche più approfondite in questa direzione.There’s still an open wound on training: most main topics, related to institutional learning tasks, are felt as boring and laborious, to whom has to perform. Also the e-Learning, that promised to keep the interest alive, looks as a failure, in the long term. In fact, there are many expected derelictions, that use to be considered as part of the learning process. The idea of taking advantage of the Game, in institutional learning, is not a real innovation. Games are a challenge and they keep interest alive. The new trend, performed by Gamification, looks to be able to redefine the learning. The method involves gaming outside usual context, in order to create involvement and motivation, and this will impact the behavior of the performers. The study, which is meant to investigate on Gamification impact on learning and especially on eLearning, has been based on the major studies on Games literature, Learning, Motivation and eLearning. They have been compared and analyzed together. At the end, to obtain a real datum of the impact, there has been a systematic review of the literature. In the end, this was useful to investigate on empirical experiences that were already present on peer reviews. Forty articles have been reviewed, unfortunately the outcomes, most of times, are not so real. To obtain effective conclusions is difficult because the comparison is. Some tendencies have been identified, anyway. Moreover, the positive ratings obtained by the method, has revealed that there is a need of more specific studies on this direction.E-LEARNING - TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNINGInnocenzi, SilviaInnocenzi, Silvi

Aprendizagem da programação no Ensino Superior: a adoção de cursos "online" gamificados

A temática da aprendizagem da programação tem sido objeto de estudo crescente nos últimos anos. Como forma de mitigar as dificuldades de aprendizagem da programação diversas soluções foram propostas. Procura-se assim motivar e criar experiências de aprendizagem ricas e envolventes, centrar o estudante na aprendizagem, contribuindo assim para que o estudante não desista na primeira dificuldade encontrada. A presente tese estuda em primeiro lugar os diferentes tipos de problemas, percecionados por alunos e professores, na aprendizagem da programação, e a aplicação de soluções que possam criar um maior envolvimento por parte dos estudantes. Baseado em diversas teorias nomeadamente na teoria da gamificação e do "flow" é aqui proposta e validada uma "framework" teórica de cursos "online" no contexto da aprendizagem de programação. Neste sentido, foi desenvolvido numa plataforma "online" um curso gamificado para operacionalização da "framework" teórica. Foi realizado um estudo com estudantes de diversos cursos de ensino superior das áreas de engenharia, para aferir dos resultados percecionados acerca do curso "online". Nesta tese foi também desenvolvido, um modelo teórico de adoção tecnológica de cursos "online" para a aprendizagem da programação, no qual se identificam os principais determinantes dessa adoção. Este modelo foi objeto de estudo e foi realizado um inquérito para validação das hipóteses aqui definidas. Como dimensões determinantes dessa adoção estão: fatores de personalidade dos estudantes, a facilidade de utilização da plataforma e do curso de aprendizagem de programação, o prazer na utilização do curso, a utilidade percebida do curso e o "flow". Os vários estudos conduzidos no âmbito desta tese, demonstram que o desenho de cursos gamificados e os fatores de personalidade dos estudantes são fatores chave na aprendizagem da programação e na adoção de cursos "online" realizados para o efeito

Os meus amigos sentimentos

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Comunicação Social como parte dos requisitos para obtenção de grau de mestre em Audiovisual e Multimédia.A criança é um ser que busca naturalmente fontes de entretenimento e diversão. A par da crescente influência dos dispositivos móveis nas nossas vidas, é natural que também as crianças mostrem interesse nestes computadores de bolso que se mostram cada vez mais indissociáveis do ser humano. Apesar de existirem categorias de aplicações móveis (apps) destinadas a crianças, a maioria destas são dedicadas a áreas como as línguas, ciências e matemática, ficando penalizadas áreas cruciais para o desenvolvimento da criança em idade pré-escolar como a psicologia, áreas do autoconhecimento e dos sentimentos. Desta lacuna surge a necessidade de criar uma aplicação destinada a crianças dos 4 aos 6 anos, com personagens e cenários com as quais as crianças se possam identificar, estimulando a conversa entre pais/educadores e crianças sobre medos, birras e ciúmes. Através de cenários interativos, a criança irá ajudar os “amigos sentimentos” a ultrapassar os medos do Medo Alfredo, as birras do Quero-Tudo e os ciúmes da Zanga Franga. Foram entrevistadas dez crianças acerca das personagens, cenários e histórias, que responderam com grande entusiasmo ao universo dos “amigos sentimentos”.ABSTRACT: Children are natural seekers of entertainment and fun. Along with the growing influence of mobile devices on our daily lives, children show growing interest in these pocket computers, becoming inseparable from them. Although there are categories of mobile apps meant for children, most of them are dedicated to language, science and mathematics, leaving behind crucial areas for the preschooler children’s development such as psychology, self-knowledge and feelings. This gap in the mobile app industry arises the need to develop a mobile app for children from age 4 to 6, with characters and scenarios wherewith children will relate to, stimulating conversation between parents/tutors with children about their fears, tantrums and jealousy. Through interactive scenarios, children will help their “feeling friends” to overcome the fears of Medo Alfredo, the tantrums by Quero-Tudo and Zanga Franga’s jealousy. Ten children were interviewed on the characters, scenarios and stories, who responded with great enthusiasm to the world of the “feeling friends”.N/

Gradequest - Evaluating the impact of using game design techniques in an undergraduate course

status: publishe