Motivation

Gamification in education can be a loaded or even an overwhelming concept. Upon designing a gamified course, I asked myself if students could sense the advantages of such an untraditional form of running a history curriculum.

You may have heard the phrase fish are the last to discover water. In this section, I will highlight the perceptions and experiences my students had with motivation and self-regulation in the class. I have gathered student data from surveys and reflections that were given to students regularly to get a sense of their awareness of their motivation, organization, and learning process. I looked for the forms in which motivation manifested in the student by the gamified elements and motivational theories of self-determination, self-regulation, goal setting, and goal achievement. Through these various pathways, I saw students taking ownership of their learning, increasing motivation based on the gamified elements that appealed to individual needs.

Initial Responses to Gamification

On the first day of class, I introduced the interventions that would gamify our course (i.e., leaderboard, badges, quests, levels.) After the presentation, I surveyed the students on questions to clarify the purpose of the gamified elements, predictions of benefits of gamified elements, current emotional state towards the course, and relationship with history.

12 out of my 15 students responded to the survey with positive feedback. The survey revealed common themes found in the literature and research that support gamification. For example, in the question "what feature of gamification did you find the most interesting?" 6 out of my 12 students were able to identify that the point system and the ability to level up were catalysts for motivation and goal setting:

"I enjoy the point system very much, it sounds unique but really nice."

"The quests and points"

"It's very different from the classes I've had before and I think that the level system gives me a lot of potentials to work at my own pace."

"... that it's going up so it's like racking up points"

"I like how the points are listed pretty clearly before us. The requirements are also very clear, so I feel it's easier to be motivated to achieve my full potential."

"I like the points system! The leaderboard’s interesting too since it makes it easier to see if I’m really behind"

Students recognized how the point system could create pathways for motivation by measuring their performance based on their autonomy, pace navigating the course, exploring their own potential, and the ability to see an incremental point system. As stated before, the idea of gamification is to create an atmosphere where students can create a personalized experience and become their best selves. Whether my students initially regarded the point system as a means for intrinsic or extrinsic motivations, I would argue that the sense to create personal goals for the acquisition of points to level up and achieve full potential was beginning to form and was being recognized.

Initial Predictions for Gamification

I found it very essential to make a positive impression on my pupils when presenting gamification as our design for the course. I am the only faculty member employing such interventions, making gamification inconsistent with other traditional instructional designs. Gamification continues to slowly gain popularity, and its nuance can sound appealing but also overwhelming and unorthodox. I thought it was important to get a sense of my students' understanding of the gamified elements and asked them to predict if gamification could serve as a benefit or disadvantage to their learning. While all 12 students responded with positive feedback, these predictions were more informative of its impact:

"I think it’ll mostly be a benefit! The system’s really interesting and I think I’m good at the collecting points-type of activities."

"I see it as a benefit. Especially for people our age, I think gamification could be very helpful, and a new way to learn."

"I would look at it as a benefit since history can sometimes be tedious but gamification can make it alive."

"I predict that gamification will definitely benefit my learning. I feel like in the past the support system of my teachers weren’t nearly as strong, and they didn’t want to see us succeed as much as you."

There is a sense for a student-centered response to this question. Students found a personal benefit that will motivate them to take on their own learning. Whether it is age, the familiarity with games, relevance with digital culture, and personal support, this initial response seems to appeal to individual needs, creating multiple pathways for motivation rather than a homogenizing "catch-all" technique. (Toshalish &Nakkula 2012)

Why Motivation?

In gamifying my course, I wanted to emphasize motivation as the predominant step for engagement. In collecting data, I soon realized that students had mixed experiences with what interventions motivated them. At first, this was a deep concern for me. I saw motivation as a "once size fits all" approach rather than a student-centered mechanism that would fit individuals' needs. In personalizing pace, goal setting, self-regulation, and posing challenges for competency, students found what worked for them and what did not. In the last survey of the Winter Term, I asked students to think about what motivated them to submit quests throughs the term. I conceptualized the areas that would measure their motivation, using student language from previous reflections, interviews, and surveys. These were the options:

Gathering Points for a Better Grade
My organized progression of setting my own dates for submission
My growth to better understand history
Having Deadlines as the pressure helped me focus

Oftentimes, we establish interventions and disregard them if they don't work. For instance, I wanted students to be more motivated in intrinsic areas like their appreciation for history, rather than extrinsic motivations like acquiring points for a better grade. Therefore, I thought fewer students whose motivation lay on their growth for history signaled that gamification was simply not working. Instead, I wondered if the charts showed the results of the different pathways I had established for my students. As stated above, my initial perception of motivation was indeed a single pathway to instill intrinsic motivation. However, this data helped me understand that I could establish multiple pathways for motivation so that students can find multiple perspectives that may fuel their motivation to participate in our history course. Now that I come to the realization that motivation is not a "one size fits all" approach, I can learn more about what motivates each of my students to support their learning better. Whether it is establishing deadlines to help them organize their goals or establishing freedom for students to set their own dates for submission, I can better create a personalized experience for their learning.