This systematic literature review by Saleem et al. (2022) Was conducted in order to uncover the reported benefits and challenges of using gamification in the context of online education. To my knowledge, none of the studies reviews as part of this article were my age range or education sector of focus, but the focus on online learning specifically garnered my interest. My belief is that the gap between the music studio and home practice can be effectively bridged using online platforms between teacher, student, and parent.

The findings here are similar to what we have been seeing in the realm of gamification: it offers a more productive, engaging and fun learning experience, it employs game mechanisms to engage learners in a similar way that games engage players, it provides instant feedback for learners, it offers easier achievement of determined goals, it increases motivation and provides incentives for participation. These are starting to saturate ones understanding of gamification, but a few findings stand out due to their unique relevance to e-learning or online learning.

First, the incentive to revisit and engage with class content via the learning platform. The idea of students revisiting class content like this is especially interesting to me as daily practice of an instrument SHOULD involve revisiting content introduced in class, especially because lessons are short and on a weekly basis. These findings imply to me that gamification would be a good step in this direction.

Second, I it was found that gamification in an e-learning space can improve the relationship between student and instructor. This is less acutely relevant to my context as teachers would not be interacting with students via the platform throughout the week, but the idea of the student feeling closer to their teacher or the school is an interesting thought. With a platform that essentially connects students to their learning material, essentially brushing the gap between lesson and home practice, the student, and more relevantly their parent, should hopefully be well now supported by their teacher or the school in general. A digital platform could hopefully emulate the feeling of interactivity.

Third, the fact that an e-learning experience required effort from teachers, students, and in my context, parents. In some studies, faculty members hesitated to adopt gamification due to doubts about the effectiveness, the need for great efforts, or technical problems. This is something that I am already seeing with my school’s online learning platform, and it is just a hub of information at the moment. No efforts have been made to gamify the platform, but all just there is a huge lack of usage from students, parents, and teachers. It’s it a matter of “build it and they will come”? Our will it end up being a huge waste of time and effort that results to nothing?

Outside of e-learning specific findings or discourse, I found their comparison between games and gamification interesting. They found that Games offer broken down and easy to attain targets that provide easy pockets of success, which allows for gamers to enjoy the experience through external motivators. These same techniques are used in the gamification of education to offer the learner that sense of success from bite sized learning tasks. Gamification isn’t just about bringing over the elements of a game, but also the feelings of elicits in the gamer.

Additionally, the authors made specific mention to Self Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci et al., 2001), a theory that I am very interested in exploring to understand its place in my research. What was confusing to me is that they made a specific link between gamification and SDT, starting that gamification is based on SDT’s three psychological needs. Although I haven’t done extensive it deep research into SDT, I didn’t think that gamification was based off it, although I can see many links between the two. A potential avenue to look into as I progress with my reading.

References

  • Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (2001). Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation in Education: Reconsidered Once Again. Review of Educational Research, 71(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543071001001
  • Saleem, A. N., Noori, N. M., & Ozdamli, F. (2022). Gamification Applications in E-learning: A Literature Review. Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 27(1), 139–159. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-020-09487-x