Gamification for educational purposes: What are the factors contributing to varied effectiveness?

Twenty-five years of education and information technologies: Insights from a topic modeling based bibliometric analysis

“…On the other hand, "Gamification" is the most accelerated topic, and it has the least rate in terms of count of publications. The abundance of publications on this topic in the last period has revealed this result (Ekici, 2021 ; Luo, 2021 ; Ofosu-Ampong et al, 2020 ). Gamification has got an important place among educational technologies in recent years.…”

Gamification tools in the learning of shipbuilding in the undergraduate marine engineering education

“…Participation and attendance have always been high (between 58 and 67 attending students of 70 enrolled students, see Table 6); it can be said that regarding student engagement, this experience leads to higher student motivation, as in References [7,16,18,31]. Some important factors that have been taken into account were the game design and student diversity when responding to gamified elements, as in References [24,29,34], using here different gamification tools and different learning complexity. In general, no student has been left behind, neither in the use of tools nor in the transmission of teacher-student information.…”

“…There are previous studies on the use of games in higher education, but their conclusions are still uncertain about the effect on academic performance [1,25]. Regarding student engagement, studies confirm that this type of practice leads to higher student motivation [7,16,18,31], but it is important to pay attention to game design and student diversity when responding to gamified elements [24,29,34]. This is the case of gamification in relation to achievement orientation [21], the use of badges [22,23], although most achievements do benefit motivation and performance [11,19], it must be borne in mind that this is not always the case and that their design must be done properly.…”

Human–computer interaction tools with gameful design for critical thinking the media ecosystem: a classification framework

“…Furthermore, Alt and Reichel (2018) show, through a longitudinal study, that problem solving is an asset to enhance digital skills advancing creativity. However, as pointed out by Luo ( 2021 ) in a comparative–contrastive study of 44 articles about educational gamification, effectiveness varies depending on several design factors which are not homogenous throughout gamification systems. To compare and contrast the suitability of different tools, we propose ten classification criteria and we then map how they are met by existing tools through the help of a focus group.…”

“…Our ten classification criteria encompass design and functionality to allow for comparison across tools. Explicit gameful design (McGonigal 2001 ): strategies that involve applications which are structurally game-like (Chou 2019 ); labels = (i) gamification ( gam ), elements from games are applied to a situation that is not a game (typical hallmark: badges); (ii) serious games ( sg ), games that have a specified ‘serious’ learning objective (iii) simulation ( sim ), activity that is designed to mimic a real-world scenario involving an interaction which does not necessarily entail gameplay; Implicit gameful design (Luo 2021 ): human-focused design techniques which affect the user experience without showing signs of a game; labels = (i) interaction ( inter ), the game focuses on how other agents, human or computer-controlled, interact with the player; (ii) achievement ( ach ), the design includes progression marks regardless the user’s performance (iii) competition ( com ), the design prompts the user to establish superiority over other players iv) challenge ( chal ): the design prompts the user to reach milestones in increasing levels of complexity v) fantasy ( fan ): the design posit the user in an imaginary scenario far in space and/or time from the real news-making process (vi) feedback ( fb ): the design allows for users to receive reactions from other game participants during their decision-making process rather than only afterward (vii) uncertainty ( unc ): the design does not allow the user to have expectations as to next steps. Pedagogical learning outcomes in relation to the Five Ws described in Sect.…”