How Do Gamification Rules and Personal Preferences Affect Coding?

Recently, many studies have applied gamification to software engineering education and software development to enhance work results. When applying gamification, we make various game rules, such as a time limit. However, it is not clear whether the rule affects working time or not. Additionally, personal preference may alter the effects of the rule. For example, if we apply a time limit to impatient developers, the working time may become shorter, but the rule may negatively affect the quality of the work. In this study, we analyze with experiments whether changing the rules affects work results such as working time, and whether the effects of gamification are altered by personal preferences. For the coding tasks, working time was shortened when we applied a rule that made developers aware of working time. The subjective evaluation of gamification rules was different between individuals. To shorten coding time, it is effective to apply the rule that made developers aware of working time by showing elapsed time. The gamification rules should be applied considering personal preferences.

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