What The Paper Says!

(Langille, 2017)

The Introduction

This article will critique an article by Aaron Langille titled “How Gamification can Boost Student Success”, published in an online academic journal called “The Conversation” on September 13, 2017.

The author says that students lack the self-motivation to focus during lectures and practice or study the materials. This lack of focus is caused by the inability of the professors and teachers to develop and adopt techniques that would foster “engagement” on the part of the students.

In this article, the author believes that gamification enhances students’ interest and participation in academic work.

The Summary

The author begins by defining gamification as applying game design elements, such as quests, role-laying, and Levelling-up, to non-game tasks.

It also said that students require more motivation to complete homework assignments, study for tests or maximize project effort. The author made an effort to look for ways to offer extrinsic motivation to increase the level of engagement by drawing inspiration from video games.

The author found that he could tap into how video games structure motivation by awarding badges and achievement recognition for completing minor, secondary or non-essential tasks or goals that do not inherently affect the game’s outcome. He listed examples of applying the “achievement” element in several games like “Overcooked, Ori and the Blind Forest.” He also stated how non-game software and mobile phone application developers often use badges and achievements to promote sales and increased use.

With the help of a computer science student, the author created a website that supported the gamification elements such as colour-coded badges based on several categories like assignments, labs, tests, social interactions, and miscellaneous achievements.

Sample badges for academically and socially related tasks. (Langille, 2017)

The students can adopt nicknames to protect their identities. Students can also opt-out of the leaderboard altogether. All information on the site was made private between users.

Tracking Success

According to the author, results showed that students responded positively to the system, with over 75 per cent of them saying it was enjoyable and engaging and would like it implemented in other courses. Twenty per cent of the badges were hidden to create an element of surprise and also that when students discover them, it will encourage interaction amongst them. However, 68% of students did not like the mystery badges feature.

Unexpected Outcomes and The Future

The author discovered that students value the goal-setting nature of the badges over their potential as “fun” surprise elements. He also deduced that students lacked the enthusiasm they had for the badge site when it was applied to a follow-up course because the motivational properties tend to diminish over time. He intends to mitigate this by conducting further trials, collecting data, and integrating established positive behaviour modification techniques.

The author ends his article by saying that other educational practitioners believe that simple gamification continues to be a valuable engagement tool that capitalizes on students’ universal experience with video games and its reward system to provide extrinsic motivation. Therefore, he will continue the simple gamification process by collaborating with colleagues.

Critique

Pros

• The article’s title is clear and proper, with an introduction that clearly states the purpose of the write-up.

• The discussion is relevant with little or no errors in interpretation and facts.

• The author used his students as a basis for his survey, lending credibility to his conclusions.

Cons

• Although the author cited examples of games and their impact on players, he did not provide citations or sources of references.

The Write-up made an interesting read and was quite informative. I have left a link to the article so you can read the article. Please leave a comment and also share your thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you.

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References

Langille, A. (2017, September 12). How gamification can boost student success. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/how-gamification-can-boost-student-success-81666