Game Play in Education: An Exploration of the What, How, and Why

This study explored whether teachers utilize games in the classroom, known as gamification and, if so, whether they used games according to game theory that exists in the field of gaming and game design. In higher education and secondary environments, educators report that problems exist as far as student behavior and engagement. Many students do not want to learn. The literature review conducted as part of this study indicated that when teachers gamified their classrooms few empirical investigations were conducted in the K-12 setting; another shortcoming was a lack of a uniform classification system for game elements among the literature, causing confusion in the research as to the approaches applied during each study and how conclusions were reached. The lack of practical application was important in this study because in order for game elements to engage and motivate students to trigger desired behavior, gamification should draw from the motivational qualities of good games as outlined by game designer McGonigal. Therefore, when a teacher opts to use gamification, a standard classification of game elements should be developed as part of educational game theory so that the what, how, and why is evident. In other words, teachers can benefit from this study by gaining an understanding of what constitutes a game element, how each element should be utilized, and for what purpose

Incorporating Kahoot! in core engineering courses: student engagement and performance

Technology-enriched lessons can contribute to improving student engagement and learning in engineering courses. In this study we systematically incorporated Kahoot!, a game-based response system, in two mandatory content-intensive undergraduate engineering courses. In both courses, short quizzes were incorporated regularly at the beginning of the lesson. The questions were mostly about concepts, and students earned bonus points. At the end of the course, the students filled in an anonymous survey regarding their perceptions of the Kahoot! part of the lessons. In addition, the students’ grades in the final test were compared to their gains in the Kahoot! quizzes. We found that student satisfaction with the systematic incorporation of the Kahoot! quizzes was high in both courses. Most students were motivated to review the course content before class and about half were motivated to attend class. Most students perceived Kahoot! quizzes as contributing to their understanding of the course content. We also found a positive association between student success in the quizzes and their performance in the final exam in both courses. The frequent Kahoot! quizzes supplied continuous feedback to the students and lecturers, and the students became more engaged in the course content. Our findings indicate that technologyenriched strategies, specifically gamification techniques, contribute to increased student engagement, motivation, and performance in content-intensive engineering coursesPeer Reviewe

The online classroom experience: gamification with Gather.Town versus conventional videoconferencing platforms

https://www.ester.ee/record=b5512349*es

Using Gamification to Enhance Self-directed, Open Learning in Higher Education

This paper reviews the literature on games based learning in the fields of psychology, education and video games, with a focus on the disparity of opinion regarding intrinsic motivation. Work in the field of education has shown that a state of optimal learning (flow) can be encouraged and sustained using a variety of reward based techniques. In contrast, psychological studies have shown that intrinsic motivation is inhibited by external reward techniques. The author’s experience as a professional game developer is that there are large commercial benefits and efficacy in a range of reward-based game mechanics. By identifying game design features that could cross over into education this paper will outline a range of techniques that could be implemented using a mobile device platform for use in the classroom within a higher education setting. An experiment is proposed to investigate the impact of this approach to games based learning and a software design is presented to support the experiment’s aims. A meta-game is described that links into normal student activities, gamifying them to enhance the student experience. Keywords: Game-Based Learning, motivation, mobile, gamification, software desig

Impact of Gamification on an Online Middle School Classroom

Gamification is defined as the use of game elements in non-game contexts. The gamified element explored in this thesis is a leaderboard with various forms of engagement being tabulated. This study investigates the impact a leaderboard has on the behavioral engagement of an online middle school classroom. Research has revealed that elements of gamification can increase engagement but there is a gap in research that focuses solely on a leaderboard as an intervention to increase engagement. Also missing from the literature were studies conducted in middle school settings. The study presented in this thesis addresses these limitations and provides value to the knowledge base. A quasi experimental study using classroom observations was conducted. During the study, a total of 8 classes (4 control and 4 intervention) of an online English Language Arts class were observed over the period of 5 weeks. During the intervention, a leaderboard was used to measure behavioral engagement

Gamification of The Future: An Experiment on Gamifying Education of Forecasting

In this study, we developed a gamied learning platform called F-LauReLxp that employed three gamification strategies (called Horses for Courses, JudgeIt and Metrics to Escape) to help educate statistical, judgmental forecasting and forecasting accuracy respectively. This study presents a quantitative analysis of experimental design concerning learning performance of 261 students of an undergraduate and a MBA course. Treatment and control groups were compared in a series of experiments. The results show that using gamified applications as a complementary teaching tool in a forecasting course had a positive impact on students’ learning performance

Imssap: after-school interactive mobile learning student support application

06.03.2018 tarihli ve 30352 sayılı Resmi Gazetede yayımlanan “Yükseköğretim Kanunu İle Bazı Kanun Ve Kanun Hükmünde Kararnamelerde Değişiklik Yapılması Hakkında Kanun” ile 18.06.2018 tarihli “Lisansüstü Tezlerin Elektronik Ortamda Toplanması, Düzenlenmesi ve Erişime Açılmasına İlişkin Yönerge” gereğince tam metin erişime açılmıştır.Bu araştırmada, dünya çapında m-öğrenme geliştirme sürecine giriyoruz. M-öğrenme aracımızı tasarlarken sosyal ve pedagojik faktörler kullanılmaktadır. Popülerlik odaklı bir kültürde, kullanıcılar arasındaki etkileşim tartışmaları zenginleştirir ve bilgi paylaşımını teşvik eder. Uygulama android yazılım geliştirme seti ve java programlama dili kullanılarak tasarlandı ve oluşturuldu. Google bulut depolama, verileri kaydetmek için gerçek zamanlı bir veritabanı altyapısı kullanıldı. Test ve geribildirim için Sakarya Üniversitesi, Türkiye. Anket tanıtılmadan önce, öğrenme sürecinin kavramı tartışılmıştır. Uygulamayı kullandıktan sonra, öğrenciler anketi cevapladılar. Anket üç ana noktayı yansıtıyordu: performans, kazanç ve mobil öğrenmenin kabulünü etkileyen sosyal faktörler. Popülerlik, öğrencileri mobil öğrenmeyi benimsemeye teşvik eden en önemli faktörlerden biridir. Anahtar Kelimeler: mühendislik, eğitim, etkileşimli yazılım, sınıf gösterimi, lisans eğitimi.In this research, we are engaging in the process of developing m-learning around the world. Social and pedagogical factors are being used while designing our m- learning tool. In a popularity-driven culture, interaction between users enriches discussions and promotes knowledge share. The application was designed and created using android software development kit and java programming language. Google cloud storage a real-time database infrastructure was used to save data. The application was offered to students in different majors in engineering departments in Sakarya University, Turkey, for testing and feedback. Before conducting the questionnaire we introduced mobile learning concept to students and explained its importance in their own learning process. After using the application, students answered the questionnaire. The questionnaire reflected three major points: performance, gain and the social factors effecting mobile learning acceptance. Popularity is one of the top factors that motivated learners to adopt mobile learning. Keywords: Engineering, Education, Interactive Software, classroom Demonstration, Undergraduate Education

Supporting Students in the Transition to Higher Education: Evidence from a Mobile App in Accounting Education

High drop-out rates among students endanger the goal of improving the quality of higher education. In the student lifecycle, the transition-in phase is particularly critical, as most premature drop-outs happen in this phase. Thus, universities and society need to find solutions to help students manage the challenges of the transition-in phase. We examine whether a mobile learning app designed and developed for the particular needs of business and economics students can support these students in this crucial phase. Using two well-established models – the five senses of student success and student approaches to learning , we document that the mobile solution proposed here is well suited to support success factors that are essential for the transition-in phase. Hence, we could show that app usage can positively affect students\u27 sense of capability, resourcefulness, and the strategic approach while mitigating the surface approach