Gamification in intelligent tutoring systems

Gamification is the use of game mechanics and strategies in nongame contexts. Currently, according to various reports, is an emerging trend in many application fields, including education. It seeks to encourage people, behavior change and improve troubleshooting. Furthermore, mobile and ubiquitous learning make possible to extend the teaching-learning beyond formal contexts such as classrooms. Moreover, while the intelligent tutoring systems have been shown to improve student achievement and enhance learning, they still have major problems in their use and need further investigation. Among them, one of the main problems found is the inappropriate use of these systems by the students, perhaps due to boredom, lack of interest or motivation and monotony, which among other factors, cause the student to behave incorrectly when interacting with these kind systems. For this reason, in this paper we present a conceptual architecture proposal for an Intelligent Tutorial System (ITS) known as EMATIC (Mathematics Education through ICT) that includes gamification elements as key components of the system.