May 2023​

 

Gamification in Education - Can teachers use it for assessment?

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In 2020, almost half of Australian children aged between 6 and 13 years of age used a mobile phone. Of this percentage, over 70% used a mobile phone to play games. (Australian Communications & Media Authority, 2022). It is plain to see that games will certainly play a part in education in the future with their use by our youth already on the rise. Can teachers use this tool to better assess students? Let's have a look at how gamification is already changing education today. There are positive benefits to using gamification in education. However, there is also a growing concern that gamification may not be all it's cracked up to be either!

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What is Gamification?

 

"In 2002, a British programmer and inventor, Nick Pelling, made up the word gamification. A definition of gamification is to apply game design and game thinking to normally non-gaming activities." (Yip, 2015, p. 43). You may be aware of games such as Duolingo, which I have personally enjoyed, that gamify education in languages. It contains such elements as leaderboards, badges, and rewards upon completion. There are also quiz-type games such as Kahoot and Blooket, that I have recently discovered since commencing university. A Kahoot quiz gives options for players to choose multiple-choice answers and try and beat other players in answering quickly. Blooket is a more gamified alternative to Kahoot where players can receive rewards for getting a winning streak for answering multiple questions correctly. Blooket can also be assigned as a homework task and be played non-competitively. 

 

Positive Benefits of Gamification

 

There have been multiple studies done on how gamification can be used in education. One such study performed in 2020 examined a total of 187 valid surveys at the University of Malaga. It was found that students found improved levels of commitment and motivation, became more participatory and had greater independence in their learning decisions. (Santos-Villalba et al., 2020). Generally, adolescents were found to be more engaged and enjoyed the gamification aspect of the information relayed.

 

Negative Impacts of Gamification

 

One such study on gamification looked at how assessment used in gamification seemed to hurt students' content knowledge (Kwon & Özpolat, 2021). Kwon & Özpolat (2021) were actually “surprised to find that gamification of assessment activities of a course has a negative impact on content knowledge and student perceptions” (p. 79). Obviously, “gamification is not always appropriate for all types of content” (Zainuddin et al., 2020, p. 12).

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So can teachers use gamification to assess students?

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I believe teachers can use gamification to assess students for certain subjects. However, I believe it needs to be done in conjunction with other learning and the right gamification platform being used. Teachers can obtain data from Kahoot and Blooket and can certainly see data from Duolingo. I know of no reason why educators can not access the data from tools they use for their students. Teachers need to be mindful though to not rely on gamification but "be trained in a variety of contemporary methods" (Zainuddin et al., 2020, p. 15). If educators can be open to the possibility of what can be achieved using the most recent trends in digital technology, students will benefit!