Quite a lot of people desire to know what is the use of gamification in education research? Well, this, put straight, will lead us to digging to what is gamification before which we can ask to know its use in or/and how it is related to education research. The strategic attempt to enhance systems, services, organizations, and activities by creating similar experiences to those experienced when playing games in order to motivate and engage users is what is known as gamification.
Hence, it is also the utilization and implementation of game-like elements in an activity. Currently, gamification in education is receiving a lot of traction as it is effective at increasing student engagement and motivation.
For instance: Kahoot is a great example of gamification as it allows an educator to quickly create a formative assessment to check for student understanding, such as by creating a multiple choice quiz. Students can easily login through a web browser or app and participate in a live interaction.
Simply put, gamification increases competition between peers which can lead to increased engagement; it involves creativity and student choice; and gives students immediate feedback allowing them to easily track their progress toward their learning goals.
Essence of Gamification in Education Research
With much to say about the concept of gamification and the use of it in research, below are answers to the question – what is the use of gamification in education research?
By integrating game elements into your research methodologies we can increase the engagement of participants in any research at all, even if it has to be in education because it does nothing but gathers valuable insights from students and also buoys interests knowing that there is a mix of pleasure with learning. The idea behind gamification is to use elements from games, such as competition, rewards, and challenges to motivate and incentivize students or users and their participation during research activities:
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Gamification allows for Increased engagement
One of the benefits of gamification in education research is that it adds a level of fun to the activity that you have set up for your participants. And fun increases enjoyment and interactivity. Applying gamification elements can also lead to higher participation rates and, more importantly, more accurate collection of data.
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Gamification enhances your student’s motivation
When you use gamification elements in your research method it can motivate students to more actively engage with the research activity. Elements you can use can be, rewards, badges, levels, achievements, etc. These types of elements increase the intrinsic motivation of participants by focusing on achievement, competition, and progress, making the research activity more compelling to partake in.
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Gamification can help gather deeper insights
Another benefit of applying gamification to your research is the ability to gather rich and qualitative data from your users. By using interactive game mechanics, participants can become more willing to provide detailed feedback and share their experiences during the research activity. This leads to a deeper understanding of your users’ preferences, behaviors, and pain points. And understanding those gives us deeper insights into our user’s motivations and mental models.
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Gamification allows for real-time feedback
Instant feedback from participants becomes available when conducting gamified education research. It allows the users to see the impact of their actions and make adjustments accordingly. It allows the user to see how their actions impact the activity (such as a product test or evaluation) and shows the researcher how the users make adjustments in their behavior towards your activity. This immediate feedback can facilitate quicker iterations for your designers and the decision-making process for product development.
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Gamification allows for long-term engagement
Our users are busy, they don’t have time to partake in research activities. Research can be boring too. By applying gamification to our research methods we can facilitate long-term engagement with the participants. And by doing so create ongoing relationships that can be useful for later research projects as participants had a fun and pleasant experience that intrinsically motivated them to participate.
