Pros and cons of gamification - literature review continued

Next I explored the benefits and challenges of gamification   . . .

Benefits of gamification

Gamification has long been used in business and industry to solve problems. Companies use internal gamification to improve productivity while fostering innovation, enhancing camaraderie, and deriving other positive results from their employees. External gamification is usually the result of marketing objectives, designed to improve the relationship between the company and its customers, thereby increasing engagement, identification with the product, customer loyalty, and ultimately increased revenue (Werbach & Hunter, 2012). This is also important for educators. Applying gamification to an activity or a course has been linked to increased involvement and engagement, fostering ongoing relationships (Prince, 2013). Increased engagement often leads to increased retention by using internal motivation (Burke, 2014). Gamification, then, provides a way to enliven content and discussion. Robson, Plangger, Kietzmann, McCarthy, and Pitt (2015) suggest that gamification’s strength comes from tapping into the motivational drivers of human beings by using reinforcement and emotion. Positive and negative reinforcement encourage behavior repetition and behavior changes. Behaviors leading to satisfying outcomes are more likely to be repeated while those leading to unsatisfactory outcomes are likely to be extinguished.

Concerns of gamification 

Designing gamified content often takes a significant amount of time and effort, sometimes requiring the assistance of a local game development company. Application of game techniques may well be beyond the skills of an instructor. Unlike designing linear lectures or a static online learning module, gamification might require creation of a storyboard, narrative, flowcharts, or prototypes, in addition to cycling through experimentation, assessment, feedback, and modification. Another concern is that research is split as to whether or not to use gamification in education: there is no guarantee that gamification will making learning objectives easier to understand and achieve. Some research suggests that depending upon users and context, gamification shows positive effects (Hamari, Koivisto, & Sarsa, 2014; Nevin, et al., 2014), in contradiction to other research suggesting that some game elements are ineffective in supporting learning outcomes (Christy & Fox, 2014; Hanus & Fox, 2015). Another concern is that learners might not take a gamified course as seriously as one that is not gamified. Kim (2015) suggests that gamification needs a goal, a reason behind gamifying a course or a training and that without that goal, there is no reason to gamify.

Yet another concern is motivation. In broad terms, motivation can be divided into two types, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is often driven by some external reward or punishment while intrinsic motivation comes from personal ambition or enjoyment. Some scholars suggest gamification is too focused on extrinsic motivation to harness intrinsic motivation. A consideration in designing a gamified course, then, is to include game elements that trigger both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Well, the benefits are strong, but so are the challenges.....  I can do some of the instructional design - at least the lower level type - and my mind is spinning as to how to handle the motivation piece....

The next piece in my puzzle is to explore instructional design and gamification...

References

Burke, B. (2014). Gamify: How gamification motivates people to do extraordinary things.  Brookline, MA: Bibliomotion, Inc.

Cristy, K. R., & Fox, J. (2014, September). Leaderboards in virtual classrooms a test of stereotype threat and social comparison explanations for women’s mat performance. Computers and Education, 78, 66-77.  


Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., & Sarsa, H. (2014, January). Does gamification work? A literature review of empirical studies on gamification. Paper presented at the 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii.

Hanus, M. D., & Fox, J. (2015, January). Assessing the effects of gamification in the study on intrinsic motivation, social comparison, satisfaction, effort, and academic performance. Computers and Education, 80, 152-166.

Kim, B. (2015). Designing gamification in the right way. Library Technology Reports 51(2), 29-35.

Nevin, C. R., Westfall, A. O., Rodriguez, J. M., Dempsey, D. M., Cherrington, A., Roy, B., Patel, M., & Willig, J. H. (2014).  Gamification as a tool for enhancing graduate medical education. Postgraduate Medical Journal, 90(1070), 685-693.  

Prince, J. D (2013). Gamification. Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, 10(3), 162-169.

Robson, K., Plangger, K., Kietzmann, J. H., McCarthy, I., & Pitt, P. (2015). Is it all a game? Understanding the principles of gamification. Business Horizons, 58, 411-420.

Werbach, K, & Hunter, D. (2012). For the win: How game thinking can revolutionize your business. Philadelphia: Wharton Digital Press.