All About the Game: How Gamification Can Improve Engagement and Learning
/by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
There is no question that technology, particularly in the last two years, has played a large role in the field of education. With remote learning, students and educators were required to become not only familiar but fluent in EdTech. But as we spent more time on screens away from each other, students became less focused. With engagement at an all-time low, teachers did everything they could to get the attention of students, even resorting to employing games in their curricula in order to encourage participation.
Though gamification of learning objectives was around before the pandemic, this teaching method was not used as widely. As teachers tried everything to engage students, they soon found that when they began implementing games in their classwork, students were participating, paying attention, and even learning lessons.
Now that students are back in the classroom, will games still be an active part of education?
Last month in Hong Kong, the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), an organization bringing together member universities, researchers, and policymakers contributing to economic, scientific and cultural advancement in the Pacific Rim, hosted the third annual MetaGame Conference. The event assembled a global network of esports leaders to work with universities and showcase how gamification can inspire new learning methodologies and new ways of thinking.
In this article on Yahoo! Finance, Professor Yang Wang, Vice-President for Institutional Advancement at HKUST and APRU Senior International Leader, said, "With the advent of the metaverse and blockchain technologies, the higher education landscape as we know it will be rewritten completely. This will bring new opportunities and challenges for scholars, students, creators and universities, unlocking the next level of interaction and engagement in universities."
Now that educators know that games work in engaging students, there is sure to be expansion in this field of EdTech.
While gamification undoubtedly gets students focused on the course material and interacting with the subjects in a productive way, gamification in education may not be a one-size-fits-all type of learning solution. Educators may find more benefit in tailoring these games to different needs, characteristics, and preferences to get the most out of their students.
In terms of measuring the success, it will be helpful to have some standard benchmarks. In their study, “Gamification in Education: What, How, Why Bother?,” researchers Joey J. Lee and Jessica Hammer illustrate that gamification definitely engages students with the learning material, but there isn’t yet a uniform way to measure information retention. As Lee and Hammer write, “In tandem with the creation of gamification projects, we must develop meaningful assessments of whether they are achieving their aims.”
Though educators are still improving gamification in education in various ways, there continue to be positive studies coming out, such as “The Effect of Gamification Activities on Students' Academic Achievements in Social Studies Course, Attitudes towards the Course and Cooperative Learning Skills,” where researchers Çilem Öztürk and Özgen Korkmaz found “social studies courses supported by educational gamification significantly improve the students’ academic success in the subject.” Though their survey set is small—60 students—it does show that there are lasting benefits of using games for learning.
With hope, as we develop more standard methods of measurement, educators will see continued benefit in both engagement and long-term learning for students using games.
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