Gamification, MDA, and CoI...and the literature review continues....

It appears as though the MDA framework can be used to design a gaming experience, and a successful  online course integrates Garrison's Community of Inquiry....but will they all work together to gamify an online course?

Integrating Gamification as per MDA Framework into the Community of Inquiry 

Although the Community of Inquiry framework was created to analyze online asynchronous communications, it is now being applied to other online settings. Harteveld, ten Thij, & Copier (2011) note that although many players play games individually, many more play collaboratively, tackling difficult problems and engaging with each other cross-culturally both within games and outside of games through game forums and wikis, even in-game and real-life meetings. Hudson and Cairns (2016) found that when teams lose a digital game, the negative impact on social presence is greater within teams than it is between teams. Networked interactivity in online educational games is linked to a student’s positive view of learning, test performance, and view of social presence yet no impact on learning outcome achievement (Lee, Jeong, Park, & Ryu,

2011). The Community of Inquiry framework has also been applied to a virtual world. McKerlich and Anderson (2007) observed all three presences in Second Life and concluded that the framework was appropriate to evaluate educational events in MUVE environments and suggested some additional elements such as technical support under teaching presence. Virtual world environments can potentially increase social presence, and in turn cognitive presence. In particular, according to the studies on social presence, the avatars (virtual representations of individuals) are likely to simulate human-to-human interactions to increase engagement and hence learning (Atkinson, Mayer, & Merrill, 2005). Children playing games such as Alien Rescue have reported learning gains in direct science content knowledge along with related areas of using scientific instruments, managing a budget, conducting research, and applying problem-solving skills (Liu, Rosenblum, Horton, & Kang, 2014).

Missing from the above discussion is a connection between gamified class designs and presence.  The following table depicts the components of the MDA Framework integrated with the three forms of presence:

Although this table is not an exhaustive list, it does serve as a starting point to use when gamifying an online course according to best practices for game design and for online course design.

Next? Drawing together all of these loose ends. . . . and making a decision. . . . . .

References

Atkinson, R. K., Mayer, R. E., & Merrill, M. M. (2005). Fostering social agency in multimedia learning: examining the impact of an animated agent’s voice. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30, 117–139.

Harteveld, C., ten Thij, M., & Copier, M. (2011). Design for engaging experience and social interaction. Simulation & Gaming 42(5), 590-595.

Hudson, M., & Cairns, P. (2016). The effects of winning and losing on social presence in team-based digital games. Computers in Human Behavior, 60, 1-12.

Lee, K. M., Jeong, E. J., Park, N., & Ryu, S. (2011). Effects of interactivity in educational games: A mediating role of social presence on learning outcomes. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 27(7), 620-633.

Liu, M., Rosenblum, J. A, Horton, L., & Kang, J. (2014). Designing science learning with game-based approaches.  Computers in the Schools, 31(1/2), 84-102.

 McKerlich, R., & Anderson, T. (2007). Community of inquiry and learning in immersive environments. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(4), 35–52.