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”

This video.  

The gamification movement is currently something that is lighting my educational brain on fire.  I grew up playing “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?”  probably starting around 4th grade.  “The Oregon Trail,” “Reader Rabbit,” “Jump Start Kids…” etc., I loved the games and I loved the multidimensional learning I gained from them instantly.

It was through gaming that I developed the skills to “explore” technology, to push myself to solve puzzles, and to do and try things with a “fail-forward” attitude.  Games like these helped me with history, geography, technology, reading speed, reading comprehension, memory, math, science, typing speed, and I’m sure more that I’m forgetting.

In Gabe Zichermann‘s TED talk, he states that “Where in the Word is Carmen Sandiego” was the “last substantial hit in the education/video game business.”  He continues to say that it was this game that brought parents, educators, and students all together…and that this was a fantastic game.  He then goes into details that will amaze you about gaming improving IQ and Generation G in the classroom.  He references a study conducted by Ananth Pai, which had results that were something we should really stop and think about.  I don’t want to give away too many details, but if you have a spare 15 minutes or so, I’d highly recommend watching Zichermann’s TED talk.

The first reading I chose for this week is “Developing Mobile Based Instruction” by Martin and Pastore. In this study, Martin and Pastore touch on a topic we’ve already discussed this year, the fact that mobile technologies and online access are becoming more readily available and affordable.  In this particular case study, they looked at the design and development of mobile websites and apps.

They had a group of 8 students developed a mobile app or a mobile website.  The design itself turned out to be more challenging than anticipated.  Getting a mobile app or mobile website to look and function the way that they wanted took considerable knowledge of C++, Dreamweaver, and Java.  And while it looks right on one device, that didn’t mean it would look right on another.  They didn’t go into much detail about what the actual apps or websites contained content-wise, the focus on was the design.

They concluded their study by reiterating the fact that access to technology is increasing.  Additionally, more and more businesses and schools are seeking educational and informational resources that can be delivered via mobile apps and websites.  The stress that the potential for mobile devices to aid in teaching learning is here, we just need to get better at designing and developing the content.

This is where my current dilemma lies.  I have a million ideas of gamification, especially in the English language arts classroom (think – video games to make books and literary devices come alive).  But I lack the design knowledge to make them a reality.  Well, I shouldn’t say that.  I have enough knowledge to make a really basic (read: boring), flat design.  I can make a basic website, I’m sure I could make a basic app, but I couldn’t make something like Battlefield 1.  If anyone has any ideas for where I could be going with this…feel free to steer me in a new direction!  For now, I have this wonderful idea of having my 10th-grade class for the next Unit come up with a classroom design for a game for Shakespeare’s “Othello.”  My head is spinning with new ideas.

For my second reading this week, I dove into “A Mobile Gamification learning System for Improving the Learning Motivation and Achievements” by Su and Cheng.  In their study, they looked at how mobile gamified learning systems helped motivate and improve achievement in an elementary school student’s science classroom.  Early in the reading the stated that,  “Preliminary research suggests that mobile devices can create more active learning experiences, which improve student engagement, learning and course retention (Joosten, 2010).”

In this study, a teacher that had been teaching this class for more than three years, and had three fourth grade classes with 102 students total, conducted the test.  After a lesson on insects, each of the three classes were then split into three groups.  The first used game-based mobile learning to continue learning about insects, the second used conventional mobile learning, and the third use traditional teaching.  The knowledge in each group was determined to be relatively the same before the continued education on insects began.  The study took place over six weeks, the differentiated portion over three of the six weeks.

Some of their findings surprised me!  The number one factor of success among the three groups was the initial interest, followed by gender, and then prior knowledge. Ultimately, “The learning achievement of the experimental group was higher than either of the two control groups which demonstrates that if teachers construct learning experiences, using technologies to help students solve problems and face issues that are important to them, then students will be intrinsically motivated to learn,” (16).  I was cheering at this point.  While I suspected this to be the finding…I was extremely excited to find that it was actually the case!

The information gathered from the gamified group’s post-surveys found that “[t]hese applications could make learning more enjoyable, and greatly increase learner engagement, offering students the opportunity to become more active in their learning process,” (16).  And hasn’t that been the goal all along?  To make the classroom more student-centered?  To make learners self-motivated.  To make learning fun?

While this study was done with science in a 4th-grade classroom, I think the research (and they even say this in their conclusion) points to the fact that gaming in the classroom could have very positive effects on learners in many subject areas and grade levels.

One side note, I wanted to include this since it surprised me and really made me stop and think. In their conclusions, they suggested that, “[p]arent support of gamified learning would greatly affect student learning achievement. In the other words, if parents encouraged students to adopt game-based learning, students would approach this new mode of learning more confidently,” (17).  I hadn’t thought about the parent factor but this does make a lot of sense to me.  When I was growing up, my parents had semi strick “technology” rule especially when it came to the time we spent on them.  Screentime and technology limitations might be making students think that technology is somehow a negative instead of a positive.  Getting parents on board may be a key in making educational gaming and gamification an overall success.

My final reading this week was “The Effects of Cognitive Capacity and Gaming Expertise on Attention and Comprehension,” by Lee and Heeter.  In this reading, they closely look at two studies on educational game-based learning.

Toward the beginning of this reading, I was drawn to this thought, “[m]ere exposure to educational games does not predict learning outcomes.”  These studies look closely as, “how learners’ cognitive abilities affect their learning from digital games and whether some learners are more likely to benefit or become disadvantaged from digital game-based learning,” (2).

Study 1

88 undergraduate students with slightly more men than women all in the 20’s took part in this study.  They used The ReDistricting Game to help students understand gerrymandering, with the underlying and more important message that, ” gerrymandering is a problematic practice and can undermine democracy.”

Study 1 found that the learners’ working memory (WM) had better results than the effect of having more game experience (GE).  This differed from their hypothesis, and they began to think of reasons why this might have happened.  Their first idea was that those with more game experience may have felt that the game was “too easy” and didn’t put enough thought into it, and therefore missed some of the higher level thinking.  Their second idea was that they were so focused on remembering their prior game knowledge, they simply missed the deeper meaning of the game because they were distracted.  In order to see which of the two were more likely, they conducted a second study.

Study 2

In study 2, they used the same game, with a similar test group, but skipped the easier “tutorial” like level of the game, and jumped into the more challenging one.  They looked closely at features like, how many times a participant turned in their work, how many times like clicked on the help feature, how long they read feedback before attempting again, etc. to see if those with more game experience where simply using their prior knowledge so much that they overlooked the content.  They ultimately found that, “[g]aming experts are more likely to approach the game with a sense of understanding that leads them to search for familiar information that are coherent with their schema, overlooking important new information such as the educational messages,” (10).

The main take away from their research was that, “[r]esearchers and practitioners need to not only consider the amount of working memory demand that a game imposes on the learners but also examine where learners allocate their attention and design the game to support players so that they will notice and process the underlying educational messages,” (11).  They feel that experienced gamers can do well with the more in-depth information, but only if it is presented in a way that aligns with their previous knowledge of gaming.

This really got me thinking about gamification in the classroom.  What if prior knowledge turns out to be a distractor from the content for the experienced gamer?  Would warning them of the pitfalls help, that was something this study didn’t test.  I know when I’m told to “read something closely” or “pay particular attention to…” I tend to tread more carefully.  I would consider myself a semi-experienced gamer.  If given a warning, I think that would make a big difference for me.  I play a game with my students from iCivics for my unit on the teleplay, “Twelve Angry Men.”  In this game, it’s easy to click away until you stumble upon the right answer, but I warn my students, this won’t get you the most points.  Even my lowest students performed that game well, as did my highest achievers.  It made a lasting impression on them and I all played it more than I required and asked if they could explore the rest of the website.  I was inspired to include a game in my class for another one of my grad courses last Spring, it was exciting to

I play a game with my students from iCivics for my unit on the teleplay, “Twelve Angry Men.”  In the play, the characters are all part of a jury and need to come to a unanimous decision to decided if a teenager is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. In this game, they need to decide if the defendants are guilty or innocent using the evidence provided and then convince the rest of the jury of their opinion.  It would be easy to click away until you stumble upon the right answer, but I warn my students, this won’t get you the most points for spending a short amount of time on the game, and for not interacting with all of the evidence and characters.  I think this makes a big difference because even my lowest students performed well in the game, as did my highest achievers.  It made a lasting impression on them and many played the game more times than I required and asked if they could explore the rest of the website.  I was inspired to include a game in my class for another one of my grad courses last Spring, it was exciting to see a part of my course come to life with games!

Putting it all Together

In Martin, Pastore, and Snider’s study, I realized the limitations and concerns for developing mobile apps and websites. In Su and Cheng’s study, I saw the potential for gaming to lead to engaged learners with higher comprehension, and in Lee and Heeter’s study, I saw the potential of prior knowledge of gaming and game design to lead to overconfidence (and therefore a false sense of understanding) that may lead to lower comprehension. Lee and Heeter said, “[w]e need to understand how learners approach and process information in digital games so that educators and developers can design better curriculum and game systems that support different learner needs,” (11). If you don’t already think games have a huge role to play in educations future, then I urge you to go back and watch the TED talk at the beginning of my post by Zichermann. Taking what else I read I think that is a great way to summarize where we are at with gamification. We are in a place where we need to think critically about the types and delivery of educational games so that they are meaningful, engaging, and leading to deeper levels of understanding for both experienced gamers and beginners.

Martin, F., Pastore, R., & Snider, J. (2012). Developing mobile based instruction. TechTrends, 56 (5), 46-51

Su, C.-H. and Cheng, C.-H. (2015), A mobile gamification learning system for improving the learning motivation and achievements. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 31: 268–286.

Lee, Y.-H., and Heeter, C. (2017) The effects of cognitive capacity and gaming expertise on attention and comprehension. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 33: 473–485.

Zichermann, G. (2011). How games make kids smarter. Retrieved October 14, 2017, from https://www.ted.com/talks/gabe_zichermann_how_games_make_kids_smarter