2nd Term Test:

Gamification

➢ Students: Carolina Griffa, Nadia Hilbert, Fiorella Iuliano and

Gabriela Montero

➢ Course: 2A (Morning shift)

➢ Year: 2022

➢ Subject: Fundamentos de la Enseñanza y el Aprendizaje en

Inglés I

➢ Teacher: Sandra Luna

What is Gamification?

Gamification is defined as the application of elements of games into non-game

contexts. Games, and elements that make up games have been incorporated into
the area of education, where the need to ensure student interest and participation
has meant that game mechanics - such as rewards and group tasks - have become
fundamental teaching tools. (Oxford Analytica, 2016, p.3). Also, this presents
opportunities to improve the stock of technological skills of future generations of
students as well as encourage public-private collaboration in the investment or
design of gamified curriculums.

As a new way of teaching and learning, the main attraction of gamification is the
liberty that it provides pupils and teachers, as summarised in the four freedoms:
The freedom to fail: mistakes that had a little consequence. (Oxford Analytica, 2016,
p.4)
The freedom to experiment: exploration and discovery of new strategies and pieces
of information. (Oxford Analytica, 2016, p.4)
The freedom of effort: students have periods of intense activity and relative inactivity,
so they can have a moment to reflect on tasks they have done. (Oxford Analytica,
2016, p.4)
The freedom to self-express: students can see problems from different perspectives.
(Oxford Analytica, 2016, p.4)
These freedoms represent a welcome pedagogical change for those students
whose educational potential is hampered by conventional teaching methods.

History and Evolution: Difference between Game and Gamification

Games are a universal part of the human experience and have existed across all
cultures. As there are many different types of games, there isn't a specific definition
of them (Oxford Analytica, 2016, p.4). They are defined by certain characteristics:
-Set of rules well-defined.
-Rapid feedback system.
-Well-established goal.

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-Voluntary participation and for enjoyment.

On the other hand, the idea of gamification is to take what makes games so
enjoyable for the players and it is applicable into other areas of life to motivate
people. In this case, the focus is in the area of education.
Unlike using a game to teach - for example, asking children to play word-based
games like Scrabble to encourage better reading skills - gamification focuses on
extracting the underlying principles of games and asking whether an education
experience can be reconfigured to build on those principles (Oxford Analytica, 2016,
p.3). In addition, the gamification programme will use the “four freedoms of play” as
we described before.
Among the many elements that games consist of, three of particular relevance to
education are:
-Mechanical elements: incremental progression, onboarding, and instant feedback.
-Personal elements: status and visibility (avatars), collective responsibility and
leaderboards or rankings.
-Emotional elements: the psychological state of flow.

These categories include how game elements can trigger greater engagement
through their internal design, how they encourage student engagement, and how
they create an environment of intense focus that stimulates learning and retention of
information.
Mechanical elements: progression system
In games, part of the reward for solving a problem is to be presented with a slightly
more difficult problem: a game´s sub-goals (missions, levels). It is a challenge to the
player. In education, in a short term, the replacement of a completed task with a
slightly more difficult one stimulates the students and expands their skill set. In the
long term, incremental sub-goals with clear definitions keep the learner focused and
motivated. This method allows the cumulative addition of layers of complexity,
thereby isolating each and aiding comprehension.
Badges
They are visible symbols of achievement which provide intermediate goals to ensure
that the player is not only focused on the intermediate task, which might lead to lack
of interest once completed.

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Onboarding and increasing accessibility
This serves for games to familiarize the players with their mechanisms and
objectives. In the area of education, this has two purposes: for the students,
decreasing uncertainty among them about how to complete the task, allowing them
to more fully engage with the work and to the teachers, so they don't waste time in
the class explaining several times an activity.
Instant feedback
It is important for the players to know if what they are doing is correct or not. In
games, the consequences of a player's choice or action during a game are visible for
players almost immediately. In contrast, many educational programmes involve long
feedback cycles and delayed consequences and rewards. During a course, students
may not be aware of whether or not they have met expectations, or learned the
required material, until much later in the course cycle.

Personal elements of gamification: visible status (avatars)

They are representations of self within the game that are visible to other players and
they are designed to permit an element of personal expression and creativity. In
education, students can project a profile of themselves with relevant scholarly
achievements, to other students and the outside world. The students interact with
different forms of identity and approach their studies from different perspectives. The
benefits are social.
Collective responsibility
This is designed to use group-based activities to provide an incentive for learners to
keep learning. If students are in a team work, they have a social responsibility and
their emotional investment increases. They keep focused on completing tasks to
contribute to their group of work.
Leaderboards or rankings
Leaderboards are to rank players in order of ability or achievement. Although they
are among the most common elements of gamification, in the area of education they
are not common. Students at a higher position can be motivated because of that and
those who are at the bottom might suffer loss of confidence, motivation, social
exclusion or psychological damage.

Emotional elements

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines it as: “one of the key principles of games is that they
bring players into a mental state called “flow”, a state of total focus on the task at
hand”. He suggests three necessary conditions:
- A clear goal, or set of goals. This adds structure and direction to the task.
(Oxford Analytica, 2016, p.12)
- Clear and immediate feedback. This helps people adjust their performance to
meet any changing demands. (Oxford Analytica, 2016, p.12)
- Balance between challenge and skill. For flow to be achieved, a person must
consider the challenge level to be appropriate - they can neither be bored nor
anxious.(Oxford Analytica, 2016, p.12)

In education, flow can be achieved in basic educational and skill-based levels.

However, achieving flow might be difficult in a noisy and crowded classroom
because students tend to lose their attention to the class easily.
Flow can be established by presenting students a series of tasks that are engaging
enough to prevent students´minds from wandering. These new tasks that are a
break from what students consider normal, achieve flow by presenting a novel
experience.

When did Gamification Start? The origins and context of Gamification

We may believe that the term ‘gamification’ has been around for a long time in
education, since the classroom ‘has always contained elements or mechanics used
in games.’(Oxford Analytica, 2016, p.14). Although gamification has existed for a
long time, the concept is relatively recent.

Different events, experiences and the work of various experts contributed to the
development of this term and practice.
● The beginning of gamification can be traced in the business field. In 1896,
the company S&H designed a system to reward loyal customers. If you
shopped and spent money at certain retailers, they gave you stamps. Once
enough stamps were collected, they could be exchanged for different goods
from the company’s catalog (Christians, 2018, p. 10).

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 ● In 1908 The Boy Scouts movement was founded. The boy scouts use a
badge system to recognize the achievements or accomplishments of its
members (Christians, 2018, p.11)
● In 1973, Charles Coonradt released a book called The Game of Work, where
he suggested applying game-like elements, such as giving feedback through
scores, to the work environment in order to increase the engagement of
employees.
● In 1978, Elementary school teacher John Hunter designed the World Peace
Game, where kids have to solve common world problems but by assuming
the role of heads of state.
● In 1980, Thomas W. Malone wrote a series of papers where he suggested
that game-like elements from computer games could be applied to other
areas, particularly to education. (Christians, 2018, p.13)
● 2002 was the birth of the term gamification. Nick Pelling, a British
computer programmer and game designer, coined the concept: “applying
game-like accelerated user interface design to make electronic transactions
both enjoyable and fast” (Oxford Analytica, 2016, p.17).
● Many years later, in 2007, gamification began to appear in other areas
besides Business or the gaming industry. The Institute of Play was founded in
New York city. According to Connected Learning Alliance (s.f.) it was a
non-profit design studio who created learning experiences based on the
principles of game design. In 2009, a project run by the Institute of Play called
Quest to Learn opened. It offered gamified courses and classes.
● In 2010, the term gamification finally began to appear in academic
literature.
● In 2011 the first gamification conference was held in San Francisco. Also, the
Oxford English Dictionary chose the term as one of the words of the year: ‘the
application of concepts and techniques from games to other areas of
activity’ (Oxford Analytica, 2016, p.17).

In conclusion, the study of gamification is still relatively new and it is a nascent trend
still developing in education. There are not many studies that assess its effects on
education, but it will surely continue to develop in years to come.

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Impact of gamification in the classroom
There is a general doubt about education regarding how we -teachers- can make it
more efficient and enjoyable. The use of gamification in our classrooms could
be a viable answer with views in the future. Technology has a strong influence on
most aspects of our daily life. Because of this, many children and adolescents under
15-16 years old have been born as digital natives, surrounded by all types of
technological devices you can imagine (Lynch, 2017).
The objective of gamification as an educational resource is to boost the
engagement and motivation of the students as well as capture their interest. But
nowadays, there is limited use of elements of games in non-game contexts due to:
● insufficient access to technology,
● lack of professional expertise in merging new technologies with traditional
instruction, and
● resistance to changes.
This is why Lynch advises us to understand how gamification may facilitate
learning systematically. Three essential points support the use of gamification in
education:
● It helps the student's brain to deal with new information.
● It might enhance inspiration and engagement in the student.
● It alters the brain's reward and pleasure centre and eases the learning
process.
In practice, the world implementation of gamification in classrooms is significantly
low because of a lack of educational policies from governments (Oxford Analytica,
2016, p. 18). But when individual teachers tried to use it with their groups of
students, there were two predominant methods: gamified courses and gamified
activities.
Gamified courses are mainly employed at universities for several reasons. One of
them is that this approach is easier to apply in short-term courses than in an annual
one, as there is at primary or secondary school. Furthermore, university professors
may have a broader space and freedom to develop different pedagogical strategies.
Gamified activities are most common at a basic educational level, where teachers
use gamification to supplement (but not replace) the core teaching structure
designated for each group. The purpose of this method is to engage students without
bypassing traditional approaches.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of gamification
Advantages
“Gamification has a lot of potential to motivate people.” (Christians, G. (2018). The
origins and future of gamification. University of South Carolina, p.7)

● Students are not limited by worry because games assume that mistakes will
be made, so failure becomes a smaller concern. (Oxford Analytica 2016, p.30)
● Gamification is an excellent way to connect lessons to real- word problems.
Experience a new life through the game can be a powerful pedagogical tool.
By assuming a new identity, students are encouraged to see the world
through a different perspective.
● Experimentation permits self-directed learning and therefore increases the
volume and quality of learning. Also, it serves to increase the amount of
knowledge.
● Gamified learning helps students retain more of what they learn. (Duncan
Ryan, 2022)
Students will have their attention spans refreshed and they can solve a single
task for a considerably longer period of time by alternating periods of intense
concentration.
● Gamification can make learning an almost addictive experience because of
the rewards and competition that trigger dopamine release in the brain,
making the learning process more enjoyable.
● Students have the opportunity to become hooked on learning and dominate
new skills.
Disadvantages
● Resistance from parents of gamifying activities
● A loss of pupil interest. There are large groups of people who don’t play
games, so in this context, gamification is unlikely to be a useful pedagogical
innovation.
● Students who lack access to technology
● Distracting attention. Gamification does not have to change the learning
objective. If the course is poorly designed, students may discover a path to
their game objective that does not require learning.
● Prioritises extrinsic rewards over intrinsic rewards

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Sources:

● Christians, G. (2018). The origins and future of gamification. University of

South Carolina.
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1255&context=sen
ior_theses
● Connected Learning Alliance (s.f.). Institute of Play. Transforming education
through play. https://clalliance.org/institute-of-play/
● Duncan, Ryan (2022, March 7). 5 Benefits of Gamification in education
https://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/benefits-of-gamification-in-educati
on/
● Lynch, M. (2017, March 18). How does gamification effect the learning
process?. The Edvocate. Retrieved November 8, 2022 from:
https://www.theedadvocate.org/how-does-gamification-effect-the-learning-pro
cess/
● Oxford Analytica, World Government Summit (2016). Gamification and the
future of education. Oxford. GAMIFICATION AND THE FUTURE OF
EDUCATION.