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Analysing gamification elements in educational environments using an existing Gamification taxonomy
Armando M. Toda, Ana C. T. Klock, Wilk Oliveira, Paula T. Palomino, Luiz Rodrigues, Lei Shi, Ig Bittencourt, Isabela Gasparini, Seiji Isotani, Alexandra I. Cristea
TL;DR
Educational gamification lacks consistent definitions and guidance for selecting and analysing game elements. This paper expands a previously evaluated taxonomy and applies it to gamified learning environments. The resulting taxonomy is organized into five dimensions related to the learner and learning environment and is intended to support design and evaluation.
Problem
Educational gamification lacks formal definitions and shared guidance for selecting and applying game elements in gamified strategies.
Method
The paper expands a previously proposed and evaluated taxonomy, details its elements, and uses it to analyse gamified educational systems.
Results
The expanded taxonomy organizes game elements into five dimensions related to the learner and the learning environment.
Takeaways & Limitations
The detailed taxonomy can support designers and developers in analysing, evaluating, and designing gamified learning environments.
Takeaways & Limitations
The new grouped dimensions were not evaluated for acceptance with experts; only five researchers participated because of time constraints.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
Gamification has been widely employed in the educational domain over the past eight years when the term became a trend. However, the literature states that gamification still lacks formal definitions to support the design and analysis of gamified strategies. This paper analysed the game elements employed in gamified learning environments through a previously proposed and evaluated taxonomy while detailing and expanding this taxonomy. In the current paper, we describe our taxonomy in-depth as well as expand it. Our new structured results demonstrate an extension of the proposed taxonomy which results from this process, is divided into five dimensions, related to the learner and the learning environment. Our main contribution is the detailed taxonomy that can be used to design and evaluate gamification design in learning environments.
Introduction
Gamification frameworks support educational design, but inconsistent game-element terminology and application guidance make selection difficult. This paper extends an evaluated taxonomy by detailing element use and proposing a hierarchical organization for educational stakeholders.
- Educational gamification uses game-design elements outside fully fledged games to enhance student engagement and motivation.
- Many frameworks lack a common understanding of usable game elements and how to apply them in gamified systems.
- Teachers and instructors have interest in gamification but often lack time or resources to choose suitable elements for education.
- The authors extend an evaluated taxonomy by improving element selection, descriptions, and use for analysing existing educational systems.
- The paper proposes a semantic hierarchy for organizing game elements for designers, teachers, and other education stakeholders.
Related works
Existing gamification frameworks vary in scope, terminology, and element organization, with relatively few focused on education. The reviewed taxonomies do not explicitly explain how to analyse game elements in learning environments.
- Literature reviews have mapped more than 50 gamification frameworks, but fewer than 10 focus on education and learning contexts.
- Frameworks use different names for similar concepts, such as Social Status and Classification for a title used to compare players.
- The 6D framework hierarchically organizes elements as Dynamics, Mechanics, and Components, linking task abstractions to motivation and processes.
- The GAME framework lists 52 elements across 8 player profiles, while treating Progress/Feedback differently from the 6D framework.
- Educational frameworks include Klock et al.’s 14-element adaptive e-learning approach and Toda et al.’s Feedback-and-Property classification.
- The reviewed taxonomies do not explicitly provide ways to analyse game elements in learning environments.
Methods and tools
The study expanded and evaluated a 21-element educational gamification taxonomy, then used it to analyse selected gamified learning environments under expert supervision. It also proposed a five-dimension hierarchical classification.
- Taxonomy development: The authors defined 21 educational gamification elements through literature and semantic analysis before expert evaluation.
- Evaluation criteria: The taxonomy evaluation considered comprehensibility, description, relevance, examples, and coverage.
- System analysis: Selected educational environments were analysed for element application, with matching supervised by five gamification experts.
- Comparison: The related-works comparison is presented in Table 1.
- Taxonomy expansion: The study expanded element descriptions with literature examples and discussed advantages and disadvantages of employing them.
- Hierarchical classification: A new hierarchy organized the elements into five dimensions associated with aspects of the learning environment.
Results
The paper extends a previously evaluated taxonomy by organizing gamification elements into five dimensions and applying it to educational environments. Analyses of Duolingo and MeuTutor show strong Personal and Measurement dimensions, while Fiction is absent in both systems.
- Taxonomy extension: The extended taxonomy groups gamification elements into five dimensions associated with aspects of the learner and learning environment.Experts classified previously defined elements into appropriate dimensions, including Point as extrinsic feedback within the Measurement dimension.
- Measurement: The Measurement dimension contains Point, Progression, Level, Stats, and Acknowledgement as environment responses that provide learner feedback.The paper states that lacking this dimension may leave students disoriented because their actions receive no feedback.
- Ecological: The Ecological dimension comprises Chance, Imposed Choice, Economy, Rarity, and Time Pressure as properties of the gamified environment.Time Pressure is described as potentially disengaging learners and, alongside Social Pressure, among the least relevant elements.
- Social: The Social dimension covers Competition, Cooperation, Reputation, and Social Pressure, representing interactions among learners.The taxonomy associates absent Social elements with possible student isolation.
- Example on the use of the taxonomy: Duolingo has all five Personal elements, four Measurement elements, two Ecological elements, two Social elements, and no Fiction element.Its Rewards, Leaderboards, Level-system, and Badges are mapped to taxonomy elements including Economy and Competition.
- Example on the use of the taxonomy: MeuTutor has all five Personal and Measurement elements, two Social elements, one Ecological element, and no Fiction element.The system includes points, levels, progression, acknowledgement, statistics, competition, cooperation, renovation, and sensation.
Discussion
The discussion examines how the taxonomy’s dimensions relate to learners, environments, feedback, behaviour, social interaction, and contextual meaning in gamified learning.
- Overall implications: The taxonomy’s new dimensions might support analysing and designing gamified learning environments while addressing calls for attention to feedback, context, and universal taxonomies.The authors infer that the taxonomy may make it easier to analyse existing systems and extract their gamification elements.
- Measurement/Feedback: Feedback should be present because unrecognised interactions may frustrate learners, while poorly planned acknowledgements can encourage undesired behaviour.The example warns that awarding badges for task speed may encourage students to complete tasks quickly rather than correctly.
- Progression/Property: Environmental properties such as time pressure can guide behaviour but require careful design, with flexible deadlines offered as a healthier implementation.The passage links implicit time pressure in MOOCs with potentially high dropout rates.
- Social: Social elements connect learners and influence task-related behaviour, but competition can either create a healthy achievement environment or demotivate learners.The discussion emphasizes that interactions among learners require careful design.
- Personal: Personal elements are intrinsic to educational environments: objectives guide learning, novelty can counter repetition, and puzzles provide challenges and cognitive tasks.All analysed educational environments contained the five elements in this dimension, although some did not use them in ways that favoured learners.
- Fiction: The Fiction dimension connects the learner and environment through Narrative and Storytelling, giving tasks meaning and context within an immersive environment.Narrative concerns interaction with the system, while Storytelling materialises context through text, audiovisual, or other sensory stimuli.
Conclusions and future works
The paper extends and organises an existing taxonomy for analysing and evaluating gamified educational systems, while identifying limits in validating its grouped dimensions.
- Conclusions: The authors improved game-element descriptions, added educational examples, and proposed an initial hierarchy of five dimensions to support design and evaluation.The hierarchy is linked to feedback, user interaction, and motivation.
- Conclusions: The study discussed advantages and disadvantages of using each dimension in gamified educational environments.
- Future works: Acceptance of the new grouped dimensions was not evaluated with experts broadly; only five researchers participated because of time constraints.Future work will examine learners’ perceptions and seek concrete usage guidelines through data-driven approaches or machine learning.
Authors’ contributions
The listed contributors proposed the taxonomy and study design, created its visual representation, supervised the work, and reviewed the final manuscript.
- Authors’ contributions: The taxonomy was proposed by AMT, ACTK, WO, LR, PTP, and AIC, while PTP designed the visual representation.
- Authors’ contributions: AMT, ACTK, IG, and AIC proposed the study design.
- Authors’ contributions: AIC, SI, IB, LS, and IG supervised activities and wrote parts of or reviewed the paper for final submission.All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
- Funding: The project received funding from FAPESP, FAPESC, CNPq, and CAPES.
- Availability and disclosures: The paper states that all materials and data are available within the paper and that the authors declare no competing interests.
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