Measuring the effects on learning performance and engagement with a gamified social platform in an MSc program

Abstract

New generations of students are highly involved with technology. Therefore, while coming to traditional classrooms, it is required to call for different forms of teaching that are more motivating and engaging for them. One approach to this problem is combining games and education. Gamification could be defined as the use of game design elements in non‐game contexts. The research gap in the literature could be found in requiring more experimental studies assessing if gamification can improve learning outcomes. To this end, this paper further contributes to determining if a gamified social e‐learning platform can improve the learning performance and engagement of MSc students. The developed platform combined submission of activities with points, achievements, leaderboards, and rewards (with a virtual store) and social elements such as friends, forums, Q&A, blogs, and microblogging. Results show that, indeed, social gamification is a suitable technique to improve the learning outcome of students, at least for those skills related to programming, providing more communication skills and producing more engagement and motivation while using the platform.

The configurational effects of task-technology fit, technology-induced engagement and motivation on learning performance during Covid-19 pandemic: An fsQCA approach

“…Past empirical evidence documented a causal link between TTF (Isaac et al, 2019;Lin, 2012), TIE (Garcia-Cabot et al, 2020;Sun, 2014) and TIM (Rashid & Asghar, 2016;Yüce et al, 2019) with learning performance individually and also employed net effects approach. Reports by OECD (2018), delineate the presence of genderedbias as the root of failures and learning outcomes.…”

“…This paper deepens the literature with the inclusion of gender- and location-based digital divides. Past work mostly linked TTF, TIE and TIM with learning performance (Garcia-Cabot et al, 2020 ; Isaac et al, 2019 ; Kangas et al, 2017 ; Rashid & Asghar, 2016 ; Yüce et al, 2019 ). From this vantage point, our findings showed the relevance of gender and location in determining student learning performance, which somehow questions and interrogates the validity of past findings.…”

“…Several studies conducted prior to Covid-19, found that students' engagement creates a more supportive learning culture using technology (Heflin et al, 2017 ). In that, social gamification appears to stimulate student engagement and motivation which in turn electrifies learning achievements (Garcia-Cabot et al, 2020 ). Consequently, Sun ( 2014 ) showed that the use of clickers also could help to increase learners’ engagement and attention, and student’s engagement happens to be a determinant for learning performance (Chen, 2017 ).…”

“…Studies claimed that learning motivation can be increased with the help of technology products or media (Haste & Hogan, 2012 ). Consequently, the technology-induced engagement (TIE) and technology-induced motivation (TIM) serve as facilitators for learning outcome and performance (Garcia-Cabot et al, 2020 ; Heflin et al, 2017 ).…”

Using web‐based gamified software to learn Boolean algebra simplification in a blended learning setting

“…The term "gamification" refers to the use of game mechanics in nongame contexts [31,56], which are employed with the objective of increasing the user's participation [32], therefore, it has been used in several areas, such as in marketing [25], health [86], and education [18].…”