Drivers and Barriers to Adopting Gamification: Teachers' Perspectives.

Gamification is the use of game design elements in non-game contexts and it is gaining momentum in a wide range of areas including education. Despite increasing academic research exploring the use of gamification in education little is known about teachers’ main drivers and barriers to using gamification in their courses. Using a phenomenology approach, 16 online structured interviews were conducted in order to explore the main drivers that encourage teachers serving in Higher Education institutions to using gamification in their courses. The main barriers that prevent teachers from using gamification were also analysed. Four main drivers (attention-motivation, entertainment, interactivity, and easiness to learn) and four main barriers (lack of resources, students’ apathy, subject fit, and classroom dynamics) were identified. Results suggest that teachers perceive the use of gamification both as beneficial but also as a potential risk for classroom atmosphere. Managerial recommendations for managers of Higher Education institutions, limitations of the study, and future research lines are also addressed.

[1]  Anthony Adams,et al.  The Great God of the Future: The Views of Current and Future English Teachers on the Place of IT in Literacy , 1997 .

[2]  Alison Kington,et al.  Effective Classroom Practice , 2014 .

[3]  S. Mumtaz.  Factors affecting teachers' use of information and communications technology: a review of the literature , 2000 .

[4]  William Littlewood,et al.  Why do many students appear reluctant to participate in classroom learning discourse , 1997 .

[5]  Muhammet Demirbilek,et al.  Secondary and High School Teachers’ Perceptions Regarding Computer Games with Educational Features in Turkey , 2013 .

[6]  Jean Écalle,et al.  Serious games as new educational tools: how effective are they? A meta-analysis of recent studies , 2013, J. Comput. Assist. Learn..

[7]  Richard E. Morehouse,et al.  Beginning Qualitative Research: A Philosophical and Practical Guide , 1994 .

[8]  Diane Jass Ketelhut,et al.  Teachers and game-based learning: Improving understanding of how to increase efficacy of adoption , 2011, Comput. Educ..

[9]  Juho Hamari,et al.  Why Do Teachers Use Game-Based Learning Technologies? The Role of Individual and Institutional ICT Readiness , 2015, 2015 48th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[10]  Ron Blonder,et al.  Teaching two basic nanotechnology concepts in secondary school by using a variety of teaching methods , 2012 .

[11]  Gwo-Jen Hwang,et al.  Development of a Contextual Decision-Making Game for Improving Students' Learning Performance in a Health Education Course , 2014, 2014 International Conference of Educational Innovation through Technology.

[12]  Lennart E. Nacke,et al.  From game design elements to gamefulness: defining "gamification" , 2011, MindTrek.

[13]  HwangGwo-Jen,et al.  Development of a contextual decision-making game for improving students' learning performance in a health education course , 2015 .

[14]  Douglas Williams,et al.  A research agenda for developing and implementing educational computer games , 2007, Br. J. Educ. Technol..

[15]  Ian Glover,et al.  Play As You Learn: Gamification as a Technique for Motivating Learners , 2013 .

[16]  Kursat Cagiltay,et al.  Turkish Prospective Teachers' Perceptions Regarding the Use of Computer Games with Educational Features , 2006, J. Educ. Technol. Soc..

[17]  J. Keller.  The Arcs Model of Motivational Design , 2010 .

[18]  Jo Campling,et al.  Practical Social Research: Project Work in the Community , 1996 .

[19]  S. Berg.  Snowball Sampling—I , 2006 .

[20]  Jeffrey Earp,et al.  An update to the systematic literature review of empirical evidence of the impacts and outcomes of computer games and serious games , 2016, Comput. Educ..

[21]  R. Mayer,et al.  Narrative games for learning: Testing the discovery and narrative hypotheses. , 2012 .

[22]  Leonard A. Annetta,et al.  Game immersion experience: its hierarchical structure and impact on game-based science learning , 2015, J. Comput. Assist. Learn..

[23]  Martin Valcke,et al.  Acceptance of game-based learning by secondary school teachers , 2013, Comput. Educ..

[24]  Rebeca P. Díaz Redondo,et al.  A social gamification framework for a K-6 learning platform , 2013, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[25]  Hayo Reinders,et al.  Can I Say Something? The Effects of Digital Game Play on Willingness to Communicate. , 2014 .

[26]  John W. Rice,et al.  The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-Based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education , 2012, Int. J. Gaming Comput. Mediat. Simulations.

[27]  Junjie Shang,et al.  Impeding Phenomena Emerging from Students' Constructivist Online Game-Based Learning Process: Implications for the Importance of Teacher Facilitation , 2015, J. Educ. Technol. Soc..

[28]  Matthew Montebello,et al.  Social Interactive Learning in Multiplayer Games , 2011, Serious Games and Edutainment Applications.

[29]  V. Shute,et al.  Assessment and Learning of Qualitative Physics in Newton's Playground , 2013, AIED.

[30]  Ya-Ting Carolyn Yang,et al.  Building virtual cities, inspiring intelligent citizens: Digital games for developing students' problem solving and learning motivation , 2012, Comput. Educ..

[31]  M H de Bie,et al.  The use of digital games and simulators in veterinary education: an overview with examples. , 2012, Journal of veterinary medical education.

[32]  K. Lynch,et al.  Group Project Work and Student-centred Active Learning: Two different experiences , 2000 .

[33]  J. Piaget.  Play, dreams and imitation in childhood , 1951 .

[34]  John Brown,et al.  Gamification » Blog Archive » Gamification in Education: What, How, Why Bother? , 2014 .

[35]  Cyril Brom,et al.  Flow, social interaction anxiety and salivary cortisol responses in serious games: A quasi-experimental study , 2014, Comput. Educ..

[36]  A. D. Meyer,et al.  Mind at Play. The Psychology of Video Games , 1985 .

[37]  Mark Priestley,et al.  The role of beliefs in teacher agency , 2015 .

[38]  T. Teo.  Pre-Service Teachers' Attitudes towards Computer Use: A Singapore Survey. , 2008 .

[39]  Jesse Fox,et al.  Assessing the effects of gamification in the classroom: A longitudinal study on intrinsic motivation, social comparison, satisfaction, effort, and academic performance , 2015, Comput. Educ..

[40]  Jie-Chi Yang,et al.  A Digital Game-Based Learning System for Energy Education: An Energy COnservation PET. , 2012 .

[41]  Diana G. Oblinger,et al.  The Next Generation of Educational Engagement , 2004 .

[42]  Muhammet Demirbilek,et al.  Math teachers’ perspectives on using educational computer games in math education , 2010 .

[43]  Kenneth Y. T. Lim,et al.  The Rise of Li’ Ttledot: A study of citizenship education through game-based learning , 2012 .

[44]  Muriel Ney,et al.  Supporting Teachers in the Process of Adoption of Game Based Learning Pedagogy , 2013 .

[45]  C. Ferguson,et al.  Friends, fun, frustration and fantasy: Child motivations for video game play , 2013 .

[46]  S. Wilson.  What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy , 2006 .

[47]  C.-H. Cheng,et al.  A mobile gamification learning system for improving the learning motivation and achievements , 2015, J. Comput. Assist. Learn..