Gamification – a Solution to the Needs of Education

Many people can agree that our world is becoming advanced with the use of technology and how everything is being automated. Numerous systems are making use of technology to achieve effectiveness and efficiency in what they do. Gamification is an example of innovation that has been applied on many of our activities. It refers to the use of elements of game-playing in another activity, usually in order to make that activity more interesting. “Gamification has drawn the attention of academics, practitioners and business professionals in domains as diverse as education, information studies, human–computer interaction, and health. ” Gamification is being invested in education and it is a solution to the needs of the 21st century education and training.

Gaming has become significantly popular and it is regarded as “one of the central entertainment media of the future possessing a high level of motivational potential. ” Since the 21st century already has so many technological advancements, it is safe to say the current generation has been born into the world of technology and it makes sense to adhere to the standards. Gamification in an educational context blends in with the current status of the world and has room for improvement as the world gets more advanced. The world is becoming technological and it is only reasonable that we acknowledge gamification in education as one of the ways in which our world is growing and education becoming more effective. Learning is not learning if it is not useful, engaging and valued.

An effective learning approach is one that “captures and retains learners’ attention, engages, entertains and challenges them, and finally teaches them”. According to an abstract in Marriam Webster online dictionary, “gamifications taps into people’s natural desire for competition and achievement and it is found that gamification improves production and participation. ” To improve learning, learners should be motivated to learn. Nothing good can come out of learning if there is no willingness and motivation. Besides that, progress is easily monitored, and this helps in implementing necessary correctional measures and applause in the case of failure or success respectively. Furthermore, the instant feedback that games provide enables growth and detection of mistakes, also, the learning environment is “personalized and as a result learners could evolve in their own rhythm”. Gamification ensures learning with significant meaning therefore it is needed as a solution for education and training.

Gamification provides a platform that accommodates everyone. Although it may be argued that not everyone is technologically inclined or comfortable with games, the ever-growing innovation and creativity of human beings has allowed systems to be made in such a way that things can be designed to suit a person’s personality or condition. In the case of giving feedback to students with regards to their learning and finding corrective measures, teachers might try to generalize problems and solutions because it takes time to individually evaluate one student at a time hence it is possible to neglect other students because people have different abilities and problems. The way in which games are designed enables each student to learn individually according to their capabilities. No one is excluded because each one of them receive their individual feedback according to their performance and help is given accordingly. Elements such as levels where a user is kept at one level until they get a certain degree of outcome to progress to the next level is a smart way of helping students learn and excel because at the end, since they did the activity several times, it is certain that they have truly learned. It also avoids the mistake of proceeding to the next level which can be more challenging than the preceding level which can lead to frustrations of not understanding the level they are currently on. Learning is a process, and everything builds up, it is important to learn accordingly before progressing to the next stage. Additionally, making a mistake in a game context is easy to recover from because games give an opportunity to restart, the non-game context does not have enough time to do an activity several times until everyone achieves an adequate means of achievement. Gamification will accommodate different people and enable teachers to identify different types of students and their needs.

According to Accessing the Effects of Gamification in The Classroom: A longitudinal study on intrinsic motivation, social comparison, satisfaction, effort and academic performance, a study was conducted in which students from two courses were tested to measure, amongst others, their motivation, effort, satisfaction, empowerment and academic performance. In the study, one course had gamified curriculum whereas the other had none. Their results showed that students using the gamified curriculum were, amongst others, “less motivated, less satisfied and less empowered as compared to students using a non-gamified curriculum”. The study focused on the use of game elements such as leaderboards and earning points which apparently were the reason behind students losing motivation for instance. The results of this study imply that gamification is not a solution to the needs of education. However, this only proves that the educational system should be selective as to which game elements they implement to the learning environment. It does not necessarily mean gamification is bad because if it were true that gamification is not helping, then activities such as online quizzes should not be effective at all.

Clearly then, gamification is a solution to the 21st century education and training. It significantly adheres to the standards of the century, meeting the requirements of the advancing world that we find ourselves living in, it is an effective means of learning and engaging students and it works for different personalities and abilities. Gamification may have a long way before being fully implemented in the education system, but it is undeniably necessary for our growing nature, education and training and “can be described as a successful integration. ”