Fostering student engagement, learning communities and student performance through game-based learning

Abstract

One way to encourage student engagement is through incentivisation.  Rewarding students with marks, even for relatively low-tariff assessments, can encourage good study habits in students who were previously disengaged with learning materials.  However, assessment-based incentivisation has inconclusive results on student learning.  Therefore, this raises the question of whether alternative forms of incentivisation lead to better engagement and student learning.  A more subtle form of incentivised engagement are active learning pedagogies such as game-based learning.  The idea is that through fun and appealing learning activities, students are more likely to be actively engaged, and assimilate knowledge faster because there is an element of friendly competition with peers.  In theory, gamification works by drawing student’s attention to goals, nudging students in the right direction, giving students immediate feedback, rewarding good performance and breaking down learning into manageable tasks. 

In this study, students on statistics modules at an Australian and a UK university are incentivised through participation in games, and the effect is considered in terms of student performance, engagement, and the student experience.  At the Australian university, incentivisation seemed to help academically weaker students to achieve higher marks, but no effect was observed for academically stronger students.  At the UK university, incentivisation seemed to increase good student behaviour (attendance and homework completion) for around a third of students but this did not lead to better exam performance.  At both universities, qualitative feedback from students was positive in terms of their enjoyment, providing extra motivation and assisting their learning.