Enhancing the student learning experience with gamification : the case of "GRH, mondialisation et innovation" course

Abstract

Today, students are becoming more demanding towards their learning experience. With the emergence of sophisticated information and communication technologies (ICTs), they are more than ever distracted and quickly bored when their needs are not fulfilled. Moreover, learners are impatient with typical and traditional styles. They are aspiring for innovative and new learning methods that optimize their experience. At the same time, teachers and instructors are actively aiming for approaches that engage students as they are more aware of their motivational needs. However, lecturers face severe challenges in engaging and motivating students, especially in online environments. Hence, gamification evolves as an innovative approach that uses game principles to increase users’ engagement and motivation. Through game elements, gamification introduces fun, feedback, and challenge elements. In an educational setting, this method aims to promote interest, engagement, and motivation of students towards learning activities. Therefore, this master thesis attempts to explore how gamification enhances the students’ learning experience from an empirical perspective. Through an experiment in a higher education context that uses a blended learning approach, 38 students participated in a gamified course at the University of Liège using the learning management system (LMS). We introduced game-elements such as levels and missions, badges, progress visualization, and character in the online environment to investigate their potential effect on students’. The findings of the qualitative and quantitative research suggest that the game elements positively affect the students’ motivation and engagement. They improve the interactions between students, with the instructor, as well as with the learning management system. Moreover, gamification is perceived as an engaging, interactive, and a modern approach that fosters motivation. However, the study points out that gamification could be a discriminatory approach and highlights the need to consider contextual elements when designing a gamified experience.