Effectiveness of Gamification in the Engagement of Students

Summary

The study conducted in this article was how gamifying an 8th-grade Geometry class affected their engagement and achievement.  They took a group of 61 13-14-year-olds and split them into four groups.  Each group had a different amount of badges available to earn from ClassDojo and ClassBadges.  The badges were broken down into four categories, attitudinal objectives, cognitive objectives, conceptual objectives, and instrumental objectives.  There were both positive reinforcements (activities be completed, class participation, collaboration, cleanliness, etc), and negative reinforcements (missing class, talking off topic too much, being messy, tardiness, missing material, etc).

The findings were as follows, “The investigation has shown that gamification had positive effects on the engagement of students. Those who presented the highest levels of engagement on the indicators were also those with more badges given by the teacher and on the opposite side, those with lower indexes on the indicators were those with less badges from the teacher” (Seixas, et al. 2016).

Reflection

I was really excited to find a study that used one of the apps I reviewed (Class Dojo)!  I felt that this app would increase student engagement and interest, and it was really fun to see that it did have a really positive effect on the students, and the greatest effect on the students who were given the most feedback.

It got me thinking about my current group of students and how I could use this to help my C and D students.  My A and B students don’t seem to change their behaviors much regardless.  I’m wondering if applying this idea, of giving more feedback to my “middle of the road” students, will help push them to the next level?  Something to take to our 10th-grade team on Friday!

An Empirical Study Comparing Gamification and Social Networking on E-Learning

Summary

In this study, the researchers focused on the following questions, 1. Will gamification and/or social networking impact learning in large classroom environments? 2. Will gamification and/or social networking impact participation rates? and 3. Will students have a positive attitude towards these tools? (Marcos et al. 2016).  The study was gone on 114 undergrad students in the gamified course, there were 184 in the social networking group, and  73 students in the control group.  All three groups had their content delivered in an e-learning environment, the study was conducted over the course of a year.

The data collected from the pre-tests suggested that all three groups began with the same amount of prior knowledge.  The post-test data suggested that both the gamified group and the social networking groups outperformed the transitional learning style group.

That said, they did find issues with overall participation in the gamified and social networking groups.

“The bottom line is, in our opinion, that a careful instructional design driven by clear objectives is essential for a meaningful integration of gamification in e-learning approaches. Exactly in the same way that the motto “built it
and they will come and learn” proves to be wrong for e-learning (Zemsky & Massy, 2004), similar dictums like “socialize it and they will participate” or “gamify it and they will be motivated” seem to be equally flawed simply because they are ignoring the necessity of an underlying sound pedagogy.” (Marcos et al. 2016)

They concluded their study by suggesting that these new ways of teaching and learning and “challenging research lines” and that instead of perhaps looking at this like we need to harness the power of both social networking, gamification, and traditional e-learning.

Reflection

This is exactly what I’m finding with my 10th-graders as I jump into week two of a “gamified” learning approach to teaching Othello.  I have added badges to motivate my students, and I’ve added a social networking collaboration tool (Edmodo) to help facilitate their group work.  While the group work and collaboration are going okay, only a few students are seeming to get the full effect and truly participating the way I envisioned.  The overall interest and motivation seem high, those that are engaged are certainly learning at a deeper level than how I normally would teach this Unit, but a majority of the students seem to be participating less now that things are more collaborative.

Combining Software Games with Education: Evaluation of its Educational Effectiveness

Summary

In this study, the experiment was broken into four parts.  They looked at virtual reality educational games compared to other similar interfaces and compared the educational effectiveness and motivation.  Part one had 5 fourth grade elementary geography classes with 90 children total.  The second, third, and fourth part has 90 students and were categorized into three groups, a high achieving group, a midlevel achieving group, and a low-level achieving group.  Students took a 100 question pre-and post-test to assess the educational effectiveness and motivation in their group educational delivery.

Part 1:  90 students (two groups of 45)

Group one used the VR-ENGAGE program (virtual reality = VR).  The other group used a simple software.  The 45 students in the virtual reality group made 43.15% fewer mistakes on the post-test the other group scored 32.48% less, the VR group scored 10.67% better than the simple software group.

Part 2, 3 and 4  (90 different students split into 3 groups of 30 and split by achievement, then split each group into groups of 15/15 one in the VR-ENGAGE and simple software groups)

Low Group – VR-ENGAGE scored 10.47% higher on their post-test results than the simple software group.

Middle Group – VR-ENGAGE scored 10.54% higher on their post-test results than the simple software group

High Group –  VR-ENGAGE scored about 1% difference, with the VR students performing slightly higher than the simple software group.

Students and teachers were then interviewed to see their takeaways.  The big one for the students was that while this was “fun” the educational games were not up to the quality or standard they were used to in their “regular” video games.  The teachers were very impressed with how much the VR-ENGAGE game helped the lowest level students and all of the students.  They said that adding the game changed the behavior in the class completely and students seemed more interested in the content than before, this made them all want to include more games throughout the year.  They had less behavioral issues as well because students were all so immersed in the game they didn’t have time to be disruptive or act out.

Reflection

I wish that this study had included a control group that didn’t use any gamification in their delivery at all.  I think that would have been really beneficial to see just how much of an impact this had, but I did like seeing the comparison between VR and just a simple software/gamified impact had on student educational effectiveness.  I also had not thought about the behavioral impact this might have on a brick and mortar classroom.

I would love to be able to include VR in my classroom and more games, but finding the content out there is tricky!  I think there is a great need for this type of teaching material in the 9-12 content areas.

Tying it Together

I want to share of the paragraphs from Virvou’s 2005 study,

“Indeed, there are many researchers and educators that advocate the use of software games for the purposes of education. Papert (1993) notes that software games teach children that some forms of learning are fast-paced, immensely compelling and rewarding whereas by comparison school strikes many young people as slow and boring. Boyle (1997) points out that games can produce engagement and delight in learning; they thus offer a powerful format for educational environments. Moreover, there are studies that have shown that the use of carefully selected computer games may improve thinking (Aliya 2002). As a result, many researchers have developed games for educational purposes.” (e.g. Conati & Zhou 2002)

This echoes the TedTalk that I found a few weeks ago by Gabe Zichermann and his explanation for the need for gamifying the classroom, especially the part about “speeding up” the slow and boring parts of school for some (most?) children.

As I look at these three articles and their findings, and think back to the rest of the readings and research I’ve discovered this semester, I’m drawn to this idea over and over again of gamifying content leading to more engaged students who are understanding content that they previously struggled with.  While this isn’t a fix for every student, I think that this could be a link to reaching more of our struggling students.  Plus, it’s fun.

Da Rocha Seixas, L., Sandro Gomes, A., José de Melo Filho, I. (2016). Effectiveness of gamification in the engagement of students. Computers in Human Behavior, 58,  48-63.

De-Marcos, L., Domínguez, A., Saenz-de-Navarrete, J. Pagés, C. (2014). An empirical study comparing gamification and social networking on e-learning. Computers & Education, 75, 82-91.

Virvou, M., Katsionis, G., & Manos, K. (2005). Combining Software Games with Education: Evaluation of its Educational Effectiveness. Journal Of Educational Technology & Society, 8(2), 54-65.

Updated working definition of learning with mobile computers

Original Post: https://sites.psu.edu/meganriggers/2017/08/28/learning-with-mobile-computers/

Learning with mobile computers transcends the four walls of a classroom. It opens up endless resources and the imagination.  It allows for new ways of receiving and conveying information.  It can be both individual and collaborative, asynchronous and synchronous, and therefore can always find new ways for students to learn and interact with the content and each other.

‘‘[P]lay is considered to be such an educationally powerful process that learning will occur spontaneously, even if an adult is not present,’’ (Kimb, Buckner, et.al).

Woah.  Learning will occur spontaneously and independently.  Learners will be intrinsically motivated to go out there and learn on their own.  Isn’t that what we want, ultimately?  To teach our students to find learning fun.  To pursue their own bunny trails?  To get so wrapped up in discovering new things that they lose track of time?  To find something that they get excited about and maybe become inspired to make a change or pursue a passion?

How many bunny trails have you gone down since we were able to explore our own interests, in this course alone?  I don’t know about you but I’ve been lost for hours…(and I need about 5-10 more hours in the day as it is), but I’m self-motivated, and there’s no stopping my curiosity for what else is out there!

I think about how this relates to what we read this week.  In Kim, Buckner, et.al’s study, “A Comparative Analysis of a Game-Based Mobile Learning Model in Low-Socioeconomic Communities of India,” they looked at game-based learning’s effect on very poor children.  They found that games, “do not put the children in the passenger seat, but in the scientist’s console chair or experimental lab where the young scientists are sharing cognitive tasks and collectively inquiring and solving problems.”  The scientist’s chair.  What a cool way to phrase it.  They specifically looked at the effects of poor living conditions, technology exposure (or lack thereof), children’s thought processes to figuring the games out, and what factors lead to fastest results (particularly, groups and group size).

I was so pleased with how well this article tied into mobile devices in the learning setting, seamless learning, and authenticity, collaboration, and personalization.

The learning setting for gaming for very obvious reasons goes well beyond a traditional classroom.  Students are spontaneously learning without the help of an adult, they are intrinsically motivated.  The Indian children played many games and kept playing and improving and exploring with their peers.

Seamless learning, I think, used to be, learn something at school from a teacher, then go home and practice the skill on your own or with a parent…seamless, right?  Sometimes it still is.  But is that really seamless learning anymore?  In seamless learning, learning “takes place through individual learning in private learning spaces, collaborative learning in public learning spaces, […]. There will be occasions where learners are engaged in self-learning or discovery, and at other times they will interact with others, such as their peers, teachers or experts.”  Again, with the study conducted in India, they saw students working alone or in small groups on their own and well beyond the classroom.  Given more access to devices and more variety in games, I think these children would certainly have continued to pursue learning seamlessly.

Authenticity, collaboration, and personalization are also standouts when I think about this study.

Authenticiy is this “general agreement that authentic tasks provide real-world relevance and personal meaning to the learner (Kearney, 2012, Radinsky et al., 2001).”  One of the key design elements of the games these particular children were given was that they would be given “real-world” examples they could identify with.  In the game, Fire Rescue Math, “the children did not seem to be confused with such concept and putting out fire was not an uncommon event. Overall, the concept of helping others or rescuing people was well received by children. We often asked, ‘‘How many people have you saved this time?’’ and they answered with confidence if they actually solved a given problem. When we said, ‘‘Great job! Save more,’’ meaning see if they can solve more and harder problems, they went right back to the problem” (Kim, Buckner, et al., 2012).

Additionally, collaboration is “learning interactions with more capable peers or adults and there is a pedagogical emphasis on scaffolding,” (Kearney, 2012). In the study, they saw that the children worked differently in different sized groups and learned differently from one another.  The children in groups worked together and helped each other understand the game, the button function, etc.through trail and error and passing on “good” information to each other. The children in the individual groups understood the game at a much slower pace than those in the groups working together.  I did find it interesting that they found a “cap,” the group with three did the best, with the group with 9 still did better than the individuals, it wasn’t nearly big as a gap.

Finally, personalization is “drawing on motivational theory (Pintrich and Schunk 1996) and
socio-cultural theory (Vygotsky 1978), has become a corner stone of e-learning,” (Kearney, 2012).  Personalization.  I think it’s vital that the game successfully motivated the group as a whole but only advanced each child as they learned at an individual rate at their own pace.  The game in this study was successful, but this doesn’t always seem possible in our everyday teaching…

Thinking about all of these pieces and parts in our own contexts or classrooms…is both exciting and overwhelming.  Time is a valuable resource for us all,  and thinking of ways to make measurable, meaningful, personalized, collaborative, authentic, seamless learning experiences for each of our students seems like an enormous task.  A worthwhile challenge.

There are obvious challenges to making this all come together.  I think Looi said it best here, “Research into seamless learning needs a strong focus on pedagogy, professional development of teachers, co-design of lessons with teachers, a design research perspective
and affordable mobile learning devices,” (166).  There needs to be more professional development, more co-designing, more research, more affordable learning devices…in order for this to work for the teachers and students that need this most and have the least.

This is all so new, so different from anything that’s come before…goodness, my grandmother taught in a one-room schoolhouse K-12 with all of her students in one room sharing a handful of books…look where we are today!  Every one of my students has their own laptop, with access to literally limitless information…it’s an entirely different world, and it’s full of possibilities.

Kearney, M., Schuck, S., Burden, K., & Aubusson, P. (2012). Viewing mobile learning from a pedagogical perspective. Research In Learning Technology, 20:1, 1-17. doi:10.3402/rlt.v20i0/14406.

Kim, P., Buckner, E., Kim, H., Makany, T., Taleja, N., & Parikh, V. (2012). A comparative analysis of a game-based mobile learning model in low-socioeconomic communities of India. International Journal of Educational Development, 32(2), 329-340. Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2011.05.008

Looi, Zhang, et al., “Leveraging Mobile Technology for Sustainable Seamless Learning: A Research Agenda”