Gamification in e-Learning Systems: A Conceptual Model to Engage Students and Its Application in an Adaptive e-Learning System

Technology enhance learning is an growing area in recent years. For the last decade, a range of technologies was created to improve the learning process. Yet, an old problem still persists. As pointed by Atkin [1], the traditional educational system has many motivational problems: not understanding the curriculum, not understanding the benefits of staying at school, fear, tiredness, among others. According to Visser et al. [2], even with the use of technology, the education still faces the same motivation problems. One of the strategies used that tries to solve this motivational problem is gamification. Gamification is the use of game elements for purposes unrelated to games in order to get people stimulated and engaged to achieve a specific goal [3]. This paper proposes a conceptual model to help the implementation of gamification in different e-learning environments.

This paper is structured as follows: the Sect. 2 shows a definition of what gamification is and some examples of game elements that can be implemented. Section 3 presents the results of an analysis of ten different e-learning environments, explaining how gamification is applied. Section 4 introduces the conceptual model proposed to apply gamification in e-learning systems. Section 5 shows how we used this model in the AdapWeb^® environment. Finally, Sect. 6 presents the conclusions.

Gamification defines the use of game elements for purposes unrelated to games in order to get people stimulated and engaged to achieve a specific goal [3]. According to Burke [4], the word “Gamification” was coined by Nick Pelling in 2002, but it only became popular in 2010. In recent years, gamification has been applied in many different areas and it has motivated people to change behaviors, to develop skills and to drive innovation [5].

The key concept in game play is motivation [6]. Motivation is typically divided in two types: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation refers to the personal internal motivation, which means that someone does something because he/she wants to (e.g. for its own sake, for the enjoyment it provides, for the learning it permits or even for the feeling of accomplishment it evokes) [6]. Extrinsic motivation refers to the external motivation, which means that someone does an activity because he/she seeks to be rewarded with something (e.g., money, high grade, praise from a boss, certification, badge and admiration from others) [6].

If the system promotes a good experience, the players will remain motivated and, consequently, they will keep using it. Some aspects of user experience are desirable like being satisfying, engaging, fun, surprising, provocative, entertaining, challenging, rewarding and emotionally fulfilling [7]. Nevertheless, some others aspects are undesirable like being boring, frustrating, annoying, childish and gimmicky [7]. These experiences are influenced by the users and the system, once users bring their previous experiences, emotions, feelings, values and cognitive elements and the system represents artifacts that influence the experience [8].

Engagement is a goal of user experience that motivates the use of the system and it can be measured by analyzing which are the parts of the system where the users invest more time, attention and emotions. One way to measure engagement is by tracking users while they use the system (e.g. via web analytics tools) [9]. In the web context, click rate, number of pages viewed, time spent on the site, number of times users return to a particular website and number of users are some of the most commonly used metrics for web analytics tools. These metrics do not determine exactly why users are engaged with the system, but they can serve as an indicator: the higher and more frequent use, more engaged the users are [9].

Nowadays, gamification is applied in several different parts of our lives: shopping (e.g. eBay implements points to show users status, reputation as a reward for buyers and sellers and also badges for the best sellers), hanging out (e.g. Swarm enables users to “check in” somewhere and to share their experience about that place, developing their expertise similar to levels), working out (e.g. Nike + rewards users for their training with points that unlock awards, achievements and surprises), recycling (e.g. RecycleBank gives points to users when they use less water or energy, when they recycle or even when they go walking to work) and learning (e.g. Duolingo helps students learn a new language using points, levels, rankings, rewards, etc.) [10]. When gamification is applied in educational area, the main difference between gamified and non-gamified systems is that the gamified one promotes another layer of interest and introduces a new way to join game elements in an engaging experience that motivates while educates students [6]. In the next section, we explain different game elements used in the gamification process.

2.1 Game Elements

One of the most known and used framework for game design is the MDA [11]. MDA formalizes the consumption of games by breaking them down into Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics. According to Hunicke et al. [11], the MDA framework provides clear definitions of these terms, explaining how each component is related and their influence in the users experience.

Other framework called MDC (Mechanics, Dynamics and Components) is specific for gamification [12]. Mechanics are the elements that guide and stimulate users interaction and engagement, and they are a way to achieve one or more dynamics. Dynamics are elements that introduces the user to the environment or system, generally this introduction occurs slowly. Components can be defined as a more specific form of mechanics or dynamics [12]. Some examples of game elements available are described below.

Narrative. Werbach [12] defines narrative as a consistent ongoing storyline. The use of stories allows the transmission of information and the guidance of the users, creating interactive experiences to engage users [6].

Rules. A gamified system with rules determines what can and can not be done by the user, what he/she may or may not access and other issues that limit user actions, turning the system manageable [6]. The rules can be divided into operational (defining how the system works), foundational/constituative (defining the formal structure of environmental functionality), implicit/behavior (determining the contract/agreement between two or more users) and instructional (determining the form of learning) [6].

Challenges. They are elements to guide users on the activities that must be performed in the system [13, 14]. It is important to have challenges that users must complete, and the environment should provide many challenges as possible, so users will remain motivated [13].

Integration. It’s the act of making a new or inexperienced person enter and get involved into the system [13]. This item is important to engage and encourage the user to stay in a system hitherto unknown and its main benefit is the user engagement for a long term [14].

Reinforcement and Feedback. Resources are used to provide important data to the users, as their location in the environment and the results of their actions within the system. This feedback is important to support the users in their decision making of the situations presented by the system [14].

Loops of Engagement. This element involves creating and maintaining motivating emotions that contribute to the user to keep motivated and engaged in using the system [14], both in the present and in the future interaction [13].

Achievements. Achievements are a virtual or physical representation of having accomplished something. They can be easy, difficult, funny, surprising, accomplished alone or in a group.

Points. They are often used in non-game applications as a way to demonstrate the achievements of users. The points also measure the user’s achievements in relation to others and they work to keep the user motivated to the next level or reward. They can be divided into: (a) points of experience, that is the most important type and do not serve as a bargaining chip; (b) points of redeemable, which are used to get locked items; (c) points of skills, that are received for carrying out specific tasks that are not the main system; (d) points of karma, which are points that you need to share to receive some benefit and reputation [13].

Levels. Levels indicate the user’s progress within the system [13]. There are three different levels: (a) game level, that must meet the main goals of the history of progress in the system or the advancement of learning (in the case of educational environments), the development of user skills and the motivation of users to continue working toward system to new levels; (b) difficulty level, which could be easy and suitable for beginners with simple challenges and with system help, medium to the most users who need challenges and difficulties in a more balanced way, and difficult for more expert users because the challenges are more complex and there is no help from the system; (c) player levels, that show the user’s progress and they can be used to achieve special skills, to acquire new items or as a bargaining chip [6].

Rankings. The main purpose of rankings is to compare the users in the system and they also serve as a way to visualize the progression of the users within the environment. Rankings can be divided into two types: (a) not discourages, which puts the user in the middle of the rankings, except when he/she is in the top rank; (b) infinite, where the goal is to make the user does not get stuck in one position and/or he/she not be exceeded by many users in a short time, so the ranking can be divided into different categories that will cause the user to merge his/her position [13].

Badges. It’s a more robust version of points and a visual representation of some accomplishment/achievement of the user in the system [12]. For designers, badges are a way to make social promotion of products and services [13].

Customization. It’s the way users transform or personalize items according to their preferences. Customization can promote motivation, engagement, sense of ownership and control over the system [13, 14]. It is important to balance the amount of items available to custom.

Virtual Goods. They are elements present in the system to enable self-expression, where the user can use the points earned to customize the game in general [15]. For example, the user can buy different clothes for his/her “avatar” into the system or change its hair or face, among others characteristics.

In order to verify the use of game elements described in Sect. 2.1, some educational environments were analyzed in the end of 2014. For this, the analysis method adopted was the use and observation of the learning platform, from the registration, through inspection of all areas of the environment, to the perspective of students and teachers, when available in the environment. The e-learning systems evaluated were Khan Academy, PeerWise, QizBox, BrainScape, Peer2Peer University, URI Online Judge, CodeSchool, Duolingo, Passei Direto and MeuTutor, and the game elements found in each educational environment are described below.

Khan Academy is an e-learning focused on teaching math, science, history, art, computer programming, etc., without subscriptions, and free for anyone [16]. The Khan Academy has videos hosted on Youtube to teach content, many exercises to practice the learned content and also allows parents and teachers monitor the student learning process. In the Khan Academy, were found six different gamification elements: the use of points, levels, challenges and the implementation of badges, customization and virtual goods. Experience points are earned when the student completes an activity. These points serve to enable the challenge to evolve the learning level and also to release the characters to customize the avatar of the student, characterizing virtual goods. In addition, there are badges that are won by points or specific challenges.

PeerWise allows students to create multiple choice questions and also answer questions created by others students [17]. It is a free platform where initially the teacher creates the page for the course that will teach and inform students to sign up for the course. PeerWise can be used in a wide range of disciplines, like Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Medicine and Physics [18]. It has four gamification elements: points, rankings, badges and challenges. Similar to the Khan Academy, the student achievement badges through completed levels, but in PeerWise there is also a ranking indicating how many students have won that badge previously. Furthermore, PeerWise has reputation scores, the score regarding created questions and answers.

QizBox is a free application to enhance learning in the classroom, allowing the teachers: to present slides, ask and answer questions to the students who are watching the presentation; to discuss the lecture in a chat room; and to provide a real-time feedback [19]. In QizBox, were found two elements: points and levels, where the experience points earned during tasks are used to improve the level of the student.

Brainscape is an online study platform focus on a fast learn by simplifying and accelerating the learning process. The platform, which has free and paid courses, performs questions to students and allows viewing of the answers. This way, learn is based on repetition, active recall and metacognition [20]. In Brainscape we had found two game elements: points and rankings, where points are won during learning through the progress and, based on this progress, there is a ranking of the most advanced students of each content.

Peer2PeerUniversity (P2PU) is an educational project that takes advantage of the internet and educational materials available for free to create a learning model that helps the traditional formal higher education [21]. P2PU is a social platform that allows any member to design and create a course or study group, which can then be accessed by any other member of the online community. Students can participate, complete, and let challenges at any time in P2PU. In P2PU there are two game elements: personalization, where the user can put an avatar photo, and badges won during the execution of the courses offered.

URI Online Judge is a platform to provide programming practice and knowledge sharing, containing more than 700 problems [22]. The platform allows teachers to create courses and exercise lists, which can be solved in C++ or Java. There are four game elements: rankings, badges, challenges and customization. As the P2PU, the URI Online Judge also allows students to customize their avatar. The challenges allow the student to make several badges. There ranking classifies students according to the number of problems solved.

CodeSchool is a site that teaches web technologies and web languages through videos and interactive exercises [23]. Only a few courses offered by the platform are free. In CodeSchool we found the same elements applied to the Khan Academy, offering challenges that once completed, give points to students. These points can be used to “buy” answers when the student has difficulty in completing a challenge. Similar to the Khan Academy, the student level up by completing challenges. In CodeSchool, students earn badges by completing levels, unlike Khan Academy which gives badge to challenges and points. CodeSchool also allows customization of the avatar, such as P2PU and Online Judge URI.

Duolingo is a platform to learn languages for free while helping to translate the web [24]. In Duolingo, there are seven game elements available: points, levels, rankings, challenges, badges, customization and virtual goods. The points earned can be redeemed (lingots) or of experience. These lingots enable the player to buy additional units, “super powers” and practical tests (virtual goods). Experience points are used to reach the daily goal (challenge) stipulated by the student while lingots can be used to purchase virtual goods. Each completed level is entitled to a badge, as in CodeSchool. In addition, there is a ranking by period based on experience points gained by the student, and this ranking only considers other students who are “followed” by the student. Duolingo also allows customization of the avatar.

Passei Direto is a free collaborative social network to connect students and to share knowledge, which allows students to organize their schedule, meet other students, take questions, find study materials and receive invitations to jobs in Brazilian companies [25]. In Passei Direto it was possible to find six game elements: points, levels, rankings, challenges, badges and customization. The student must complete challenges to earn experience points and increase their level in the system. Unlike other environments, Passei Direto increases students level, when they gain a different badge that is displayed next to the avatar and the avatar can be customized by the student. There is a ranking of the students/university which is based on acquired points.

MeuTutor is a partly free educational platform, personalized, focused on the quality of teaching and student performance [26]. The platform social goal is to reduce the discrepancy between the public and private education in Brazil through its use as an aid in preparation tool for the National High School Exam (ENEM). In MeuTutor we had found six game elements: points, levels, rankings, challenges, badges and customization. There are challenges to gain experience points, these points are used to increase the level and to assemble the ranking. There are challenges to win badges and allows the student to customize their avatar.

To help the implementation of gamification in new or existing e-learning systems, our conceptual model aims to assist in identifying which elements are involved in the gamification process. This model provides information of what game elements, actors, data and behavior are involved in the gamification process.

The conceptual model proposed is separated in four main dimensions which defines: who, why, how and what. “Who?” aims to identify the actors of the system that will be involved in the gamification process; “Why?” identifies some of the possible behaviors that gamification can improve during the student’s interaction with the system; “How?” defines which game elements will be implemented and; “What?” represents the data that are involved in the gamification process. These main dimensions are described bellow with more details.

Who?. An e-learning environment can have different types of actors like students, teachers and monitors. This model focuses on the two most important type of actors of an e-learning system: the students and the teacher. The student is the main actor because gamified systems were primarily designed to satisfy students’ learning needs [27]. The teachers also have a key role: they have the responsibility to provide the content of the course, to understand the needs of the students and to evaluate the development of the learning. In addition, some e-learning environments often let the teacher evaluate certain aspects of students, and these ratings may have a direct consequence on the gamification process (such as the points system and achievements).

Why?. The use of gamification allows desired behaviors within the system to be promoted [28]. Thus, based on the basic functions that an e-learning system must allow, seven possible behaviors were mapped: (1) Accessing of the concepts, examples, materials and classes; (2) Resolution of exercises and delivery of tasks; (3) Increasing exercise performance; (4) Creating and answering forum threads; (5) Using the chat; (6) Using the message board and; (7) Accessing the system more frequently.

These behaviors were classified in four different categories: Theoretical: The theoretical part of the system, such as access to the classes and materials related to the course; Practical: It is related with the practical part of the system, such as the resolutions of the exercises; Social: It is related to the social aspects of the system, such as using the chat and forum and; System: It is related to the system itself, as the amount of hits and the usage time of the environment by the students.

How?. The introduction of gamification in an e-learning environment is done through the use of game elements and these elements encourages certain behaviors that can benefit students. Different elements are discussed in Sect. 2.1.

What?. To implement gamification in an existing e-learning environment, some data modifications are necessary to enable the support to the game elements.

To implement the points system, the student model must be updated to allow control and storage of the points received. The update is done through the database, creating tables to keep the information related to the system, and through callback functions that are triggered after an action is performed in the system. For levels, it is also used a database table that defines how the levels are structured. The ranking is just a visual element that has relation with other elements already implemented, such as points and achievements. For challenges, a model must be created to define the characteristics of the challenges according to the system requirements, it is also necessary to implement a way to find out if the challenges were completed or not. For that, analytics tool and system log can be used. Badges and achievements, as well as rankings, are graphical elements, and their implementation is necessary to maintain the database updated about what challenges have been carried out by the students. The narrative can be introduced to adapt the educational content based with the plot created for the environment. Finally, rules are a part of all gamified systems, so teachers and designers have to define during the planning process what rules the system will follow. Figure 1 presents our proposed conceptual model.

The four dimensions of our conceptual model for gamification of e-learning environments.

Full size image

An important part of the model is the relationship between each of the four dimensions. There is a relation between the “Why?” (desired behaviors in the system) and the dimensions “How?” (game elements that are used in gamification) and “Who?” (actors). In addition, according to the identified techniques, it is possible to make a relationship with the dimension “What?” (data involved). This relationship will be based on the possible behaviors mapped before, as follows:

Accessing concepts, examples, materials and classes: All of the elements “How” can be used to encourage this student’s behavior. The work of Barata et al. [29] rewards the students with points, levels and rankings for watching classes. The authors also use achievements and challenges to encourage users to read the materials and report any error encountered on them. The work of O’Donovan [30], uses a steampunk bases story that is revealed in the process of accessing the materials and classes in the system. The student is the only actor involved in this process, he/she decides when and if he/she is going to watch or access any of the material/classes.

Resolution of exercises and delivery of tasks: A common practice in gamified e-learning systems is to reward student’s with points, levels and rankings for solving exercises or delivering homework [31, 32]. Using achievements and challenges can improve this behavior on students [33]. In the work of O’Donovan [30], each solved exercised would give the student a clue to solve the mystery behind the narrative introduced in the system. Both the student and the teacher are involved in this behavior, the student solving exercises and delivering homework and the teacher evaluating the student answers.

Increasing exercise performance: Besides encouraging the students to solve exercises, it’s important to encourage them to make less mistakes and improve their performance. One way of doing this is introducing challenges and achievements. The work of Denny [33] encourages users to answers a long list of questions without making any mistake. The only actor involved in this behavior is the student, only he/she can try to follow the incentives of challenges and achievements and increase his/her performance when solving exercises.

Creating and answering forum threads: Points, levels, rankings, achievements and challenges is a great way to encourage students to create and answer threads in a forum. StackOverflow is a very successful tool that rewards people for creating and answering question with those elements. Both the student and the teacher is involved in this behavior. The student creating and answering question, while the teacher acts as a moderator of the tool.

Using of the chat and the message board: Using achievements and challenges, for example, trying the chat for a first time with a colleague, posting something interesting in the message board, like an important date is a good way to incentive students to use those tools. We believe that rewarding points and levels for using those tools might make the student use those tools arbitrary, and those kind of behavior it’s not desired in an e-learning environment. Both student and teacher are involved in this behavior, the student chatting with other students or the teacher and posting important stuff in the class message board, and teachers being the moderator of this tool.

Accessing the system more frequently: One of the challenges of e-learning systems is to improve students attendance. Using gamification throughout the system can improve indirectly this behavior. Using challenges and achievements can improve students access to the system, like rewarding the student for accessing the system during a certain period.

Based on the foregoing model, it was implemented the gamification model in an adaptive and open source learning environment called AdaptWeb^® (Adaptive Web-based learning environment). The AdaptWeb^® aims to adapt disciplines presentations of courses on the web, giving many students the content presentation in different ways, tailored to their individual preferences [34]. AdaptWeb^® was originally developed through a partnership between the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and the State University of Londrina in collaboration with the Brazilian Council CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) and nowadays it has been continuously developed, improved and used by the Santa Catarina State University [35].

AdaptWeb^® has an architecture based on four distinct modules: the authoring module, the storage module, the content adaptation module and adaptive interface module [36]. The authoring module helps authors to organize their class materials inside the system, defining categories and prerequisites for their materials and choosing which courses will have access to their content (avoiding material duplication) [36]. The storage module creates and organizes files in XML (eXtensible Markup Language) with the data entered in the authoring module [36]. The content adaptation module, as the name suggests, is responsible for adapting the material inserted in the authoring module to the students by filtering the existing XML files in the storage module, generating different presentations for the same content [36]. The adaptive interface module is responsible for adapting the environment interface and navigation, according to the students course/background, their navigation preferences and their knowledge [36].

In the system itself, the students access the course and they can (1) view the content inserted by the author: they can access the content freely or in the tutorial mode that follows the prerequisites set by the author, (2) check the message boards: a fast communication mode between the students and the author and (3) access the discussion forum: asynchronous communication tool that allows the class to share ideas, questions, among other uses.

Following the dimensions described in the previous session, we defined who, why, what and how before start the gamification implementation on AdaptWeb^®.

Who. It was defined “who” through a questionnaire answered by thirty-eight students from the Department of Computer Science of the State University of Santa Catarina. Through this questionnaire, we found that most of them (54 %) have a profile directed to solve puzzles and to enjoy the victory achieved with great effort, which can be classified as Achievers according to the Marczewski’s user types [37]. Based on that, the main game elements that can be used to attract Achievers are: points, levels, rankings and badges.

Why. To stimulate student behavior, it was possible to identify four of the seven behaviors mapped before that can be encouraged through gamification. The behaviors that can be encouraged are: (1) accessing the concepts/examples/materials/classes, (2) creating and answer forum threads, (3) using of the message board and (4) accessing the system more frequently. However, some behaviors can not be gamified in AdaptWeb^®: (1) resolution of exercises and delivery of work, (2) increasing of the exercise performance and (3) using the chat, because AdaptWeb^® does not support the problem solving system and synchronous chat yet.

What and How. The gamification has been implemented in the system through elements that generate a sense of progress, competition and achievement in order to increase engagement and motivation. Points, that are displayed by a progress bar, can be achieved when students access the system (the first access of the day) and materials (the first time), when they use the message board, when they create and reply topics in the forum, when they receive a good ranking from the teacher in the forum and when they complete challenges. Levels are based on the amount of points the student earned (level 1: 50 points, level 2: 150 points, level 3: 300 points, and so on). Rankings are also determined by the amount of points, showing the top five students on AdaptWeb^® homepage. Challenges (access the system every day for a certain period, access all available content, win a position in the ranking, the use of the message board, according to the number of responses in the forum and the evaluation of the teacher on them), Badges (visual representations for each completed challenge) and Rules (leading the entire system) were also implemented.

Beyond the game elements, it was implemented some metrics to see what the students are doing in the system and measure their engagement: the number of system visits per student, the frequency of access to the system, the access to concepts, examples, exercises and supplementary materials and the access, creation and response to forum threads. Figure 2 presents AdaptWeb’s students profile page.

AdaptWeb’s students profile page, which gamification elements available

Full size image

This paper presented a conceptual model to the gamification process of e-learning environments. This model aims to help identify which elements are involved in the gamification process related to four dimensions (Who, Why, What and How). The model provides information of what game elements, actors, data and behavior are involved in the gamification process. It is generic enough to be used by diverse e-learning systems, since it does not focus on the implementation process or induces to one specific game element, thus, this model can be applied to existing e-learning environments and also helps to create others.

To understand which game elements is commonly used by e-learning systems, we analyzed ten different gamified e-learning systems. This analysis was based on our interaction into each system, and the exploration of some course freely available. From the thirteen mostly common game elements described in the literature, the e-learning who had most game elements support seven of them. It can be seen of two ways. On the one hand, we understand the area is new, and besides some e-learning systems have already some gamification process, they are in initial stage and they can be broadly explored. On the other hand, although the theme is new, different environments have incorporated gamification elements to improve engagement and motivation of students. The motivation and engagement in education is an old problem of the teaching-learning process, and different strategies are being used to increase student motivation.

As a proof of concept, our conceptual model was used in a existing adaptive e-learning system named AdaptWeb^®. As future work, we propose to extend the conceptual model, aiming to turn it adapted to the students profile and preferences. We plan to evaluate AdaptWeb^® and analyze the gamification process with students.