A game-style master's course may have raised attendance and posts

The study

1. 01

   Who took part

   77 students over two years of one semester-long course in Lisbon, Portugal: 42 in the first year and 35 in the second. Most had just finished a computer science degree.

2. 02

   What they did

   The first year ran as usual, with grades from quizzes, a presentation, labs, an exam, forum posts and attendance. In the second year, students earned points for course activities. They could see their levels on a public leaderboard, and they had challenges and badges.

3. 03

   What happened

   Lecture attendance went up, and students wrote almost six times as many forum posts a week. Slide downloads per lecture rose by about half, and grades stayed about the same. Guest-lecture attendance fell, though not clearly, and students found the course no easier or harder to learn from.

What the study found

1. HelpedOther outcomes

   More students came to lectures: 92 in 100 in the gamified course, against 81 in 100 before.

   • Action: Track your progresstested
   • Action: Set a specific goaltested
   • Rule: Get feedback on your progresstested
   • Rule: Get a reward or payment for doing ittested
   • Rule: Compete or compare with otherstested

   Small trial, groups not picked at random of 77 students on one master's course in Lisbon · vs the usual course · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ summary claims more than the results show

2. HelpedOther outcomes

   Students wrote almost six times as many forum posts each week in the gamified course.

   • Action: Track your progresstested
   • Action: Set a specific goaltested
   • Rule: Get feedback on your progresstested
   • Rule: Get a reward or payment for doing ittested
   • Rule: Compete or compare with otherstested

   Small trial, groups not picked at random of 77 students on one master's course in Lisbon · vs the usual course · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ summary claims more than the results show

3. No differenceGoals

   Grades stayed about the same in the gamified course as in the usual course.

   • Action: Track your progresstested
   • Action: Set a specific goaltested
   • Rule: Get feedback on your progresstested
   • Rule: Get a reward or payment for doing ittested
   • Rule: Compete or compare with otherstested

   Small trial, groups not picked at random of 77 students on one master's course in Lisbon · vs the usual course · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ summary claims more than the results show

4. HelpedMotivation

   Students said the course was more motivating and more interesting than their other courses.

   • Action: Track your progresstested
   • Action: Set a specific goaltested
   • Rule: Get feedback on your progresstested
   • Rule: Get a reward or payment for doing ittested
   • Rule: Compete or compare with otherstested

   Small trial, groups not picked at random of 77 students on one master's course in Lisbon · vs their other courses that term · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ summary claims more than the results show

Source