Validating the Effectiveness of Data-Driven Gamification Recommendations: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Gamification design has benefited from data-driven approaches to creating strategies based on students' characteristics. However, these strategies need further validation to verify their effectiveness in e-learning environments. The exploratory study presented in this paper thus aims at verifying how data-driven gamified strategies are perceived by the students, i.e., the users of e-learning environments. In this study, we conducted a survey presenting 25 predefined strategies, based on a previous study, to students and analysed each strategy's perceived relevance, instanced in an e-learning environment. Our results show that students perceive Acknowledgement, Objective and Progression as important elements in a gamified e-learning environment. We also provide new insights about existing elements and design recommendations for domain specialists.

Contributions for Gamification Design in Educational Contexts

“…This study is another extension from where we explain how this taxonomy can be used with Design Sprint Method to design gamified educational systems (TODA et al, 2019d). In this sense, this study extended the previous work by focusing on the following SRQh: How can we gamify learning environments using the Design Sprint method and existing game elements?…”

“…1.3. Data-Driven Gamification Design 27 TODA et al, 2019d;. One of the main essential differences of this framework is that the domain specialist has the assistance of a game designer, or gamification designer, to help with the selection of game elements for their specific context, reducing significantly the workload of the domain expert.…”

“…These studies range from the initial concept (TODA; to the application of early versions in different courses through different research collaborations as: biochemistry , introduction to programming , introduction to business , and others. In this Chapter we also present how our proposed taxonomy for gamification elements can be used to analyse and design educational learning systems (TODA et al, 2019d;, as well as how we integrated it with our conceptual framework and other characteristics (e.g. culture).…”

“…In this page, the students would have visual access to certain elements, as the weekly leaderboard (Competition and Time Pressure), Cooperation (Their groups), their progress within the system (Point, Level, Progression, Acknowledgement and Reputation) as well as the missions that were assigned to them (Objectives). These elements were combined and proposed based on the recommendations of the Taxonomy and other studies that validated those combinations with students (Toda et al, 2019d). On the Fourth Day (prototype), the gamification design was discussed among all team members and all team members agreed with the proposal.…”