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Gamification is an innovative approach to foster motivation. It refers to the use of game elements in non-game contexts. This article adopts a differentiated view on the topic of gamification and investigates, how and why different game elements can address different motivational mechanisms. At first, the concept of gamification and specific game elements characteristic of gamification are described. After that, different motivational perspectives were analyzed and motivational mechanisms in form of effect hypotheses were derived from these perspectives. To investigate the motivational pull of gamification, game elements are matched with motivational mechanisms. Our theoretical inquiry shows that gamification potentially addresses motivational mechanisms and thereby fosters motivation. These theoretical results can be used for the effective design of gamification environments and represent a basis for empirical research. Further research is required to confirm these theoretical findings.

Staff motivation as a key challenge in logisticsLogistics is concerned with effectively managing the flow of materials and supplies for production, commerce and other purposes (Christopher, 2003). Transport logistics deals with resource flows on a large scale level, as it involves transport by land, water, and air. A second domain of logistics is intralogistics, which is concerned with the internal handling of materials and supplies within specific production sites or intermediate storage facilities (Arnold, 2006). This paper focuses on intralogistics or, more specifically, on one of its central tasks, order picking.Despite ongoing automation efforts, order picking still frequently involves intensive and repetitive manual labour. For fulfilling a customer order, workers typically receive lists of items to be picked from storage and combined in a shipment. Orders have to be fulfilled under time constraints with as few errors as possible in shifts which can easily involve dozens of orders. Due to these challenges and context conditions, and taking into account that order picking is typically performed by low-paid unskilled workers, it is not surprising that staff motivation and high turnover rates are recurrent problems for efficiency in intralogistics. However, most optimization approaches in order picking concentrate on technical aspects, leaving out the human factor (cf. Coffey, 1999). This paper introduces gamification as an innovative approach to enhance staff motivation in intralogistics. Gamification is a recent trend (originally from marketing) that quickly spread to other areas of application such as education and training, traffic control, or influencing environmental behaviour. Conceptually, gamification denotes the application of game elements for engagement, motivation, learning, or problem-solving purposes in non-gaming, real world contexts (cf. Kapp, 2012, p. 10). As games continually succeed in luring players into investing large amounts of time and effort, it is expected that some of the mechanisms making them effective entertainment devices can also be used in nongaming environments.

Evaluations of gaming simulations and business games as teaching devices are typically end-state driven. This emphasis fails to detect how the simulation being evaluated does or does not bring about its desired consequences. This paper advances the use of a logic model approach, which possesses a holistic perspective that aims at including all elements associated with the situation created by a game. The use of the logic model approach is illustrated as applied to SIMGAME, a board game created for secondary school level business education in six European Union countries. Keywords: business games; evaluation methods; logic model; secondary educationO ne can look back at a very long history of gaming simulations and their use for educational purposes. The history of efforts to study and prove their effectiveness and efficiency as a learning tool for business education purposes is also long (Wolfe & Crookall, 1998) and has been accompanied by changes in what has been accepted as valid evaluation criteria and methodologies (Feinstein & Cannon, 2002). Accordingly, a frequent critique in the gaming simulation literature concerns the conduct and results of its evaluation activities. It has been argued that past evaluations have been based on anecdotal evidence (Greenblat, 1989), lacked methodological rigor (Dorn, 1989;Remus, 1981), failed to use valid outcome criteria (Anderson & Lawton, 1992;Feinstein & Cannon, 2002;Wolfe, 1990), or used psychometrically unproven measurement techniques (Gosen & Washbush, 2004;Spector, 2000;Spector, Christensen, Sioutine, & McCormack, 2001).Even when the picture is confined to research considered methodologically sound, traditional evaluation shortcomings become apparent. These failings have resulted in widely varying appraisals of the value of games and simulations for teaching business subjects. This can be exemplified by reviews conducted by those (2001), Gosen and Washbush (2004), Keys and Wolfe (1990), Wolfe (1997), and Greenlaw and Wyman (1973). Although the overall picture suggests gaming simulation is an effective learning tool, the results of the relevant studies are far from ambiguous and are often contradictory.Such heterogeneous results indicate that mediating factors may exist, and that these factors exert an important influence on what makes for an effective experiential learning environment. For practitioners, such as simulation designers and trainers who use them, it would be of value to learn more about these influences. However, because most studies concentrate on showing whether simulations are effective as compared with an alternative teaching method (Wolfe, 1997), they fall short of divulging the specific conditions and factors that must be met to make simulation an effective learning tool. Thus, the problem of knowing whether an educational method such as simulation gaming works is relevant only if we also know how it works. Despite the considerable efforts that have been spent on evaluating the simulation gaming method, too little attention has been paid to gene...

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Tanulmányukban a szerzők azt vizsgálják, hogy mi jellemzi a tanulás probléma-központú felfogását, és az új médiumok mennyiben tudnak hozzájárulni a tanulási környezet átalakulásához.Arra a következtetésre jutnak, hogy az új médiumok használata az oktatásban lehetőséget ad arra, hogy az iskolában teret nyerjen a probléma-központú tanulás. A számítógépes alapú stratégiai játékok és szimulációk lehetővé teszik, hogy a problémákat valószerűen, különböző kontextusokban, más-más nézőpontokból tudjuk tovább gondolni, az interneten történő adatgyűjtés pedig az önálló tanulás és a kritikai szemlélet új lehetőségeit és kihívásait rejti magában, egyedül a számítógépre alapozva azonban nem volna ésszerű alapvető változásokat várni az iskolai tanulásban. A cikk második része ismerteti a hesseni SEMIK programot és több más németországi kezdeményezést a számítógépek és az internet újszerű, interaktív alkalmazására a problémaközpontú oktatásban, rámutatva bizonyos nehézségekre és akadályokra is.