By: Kennedi Drake
Gamification is the process of using game-like elements in a non-game setting to receive points. Gamification in the school system gives students more determination to listen in class. Students in school can get easily bored with learning about topics that do not interest them, so being able to gamify their study allows them to focus more which improves their overall learning. Instead of long boring lectures, dividing students into teams for a competition will keep their brains intrigued on learning material. Gamification should continue to be used in schools because it increases student motivation through competition.
Competitions in the classroom usually consist of websites such as Kahoot, and if a team gets the most correct answers, they will be awarded. If to learn is more like a game, which is something that is supposed to bring excitement and determination, then students will interpret information more sufficiently and have goals to understand their material. According to Evaluation of Gamification in E-Learning Systems for Elementary School Students, an experiment was taken place to see if students have more motivation to learn Arabic through either gamification or original learning method. Consequently, students had more enthusiasm to participate through gamified learning. (Alshammari 811). To listen to a teacher talking for an hour or two causes students to become more distracted and astray from what is going on. Students will pick up their cell phones, browse other websites that do not portray to the class, or even play games on their devices. Why not bring the game to the school system, so students do not have to go outside of the classroom's curriculum to find their interests?
Today’s generation sees everything as a competition, which gets them excited and easily engaged. They see it as a competition to get the most followers or likes on social media or have the highest score on a video game and if they succeed, then they have won the game. Because the youth is surrounded with electronics which involve competition, they can easily adapt to the same factors when brought to the school system. It is easier for students to be interested in the gamified learning system than lectures, because games are something they participate in frequently. On the other hand, lectures are too serious and not enjoyable, because students are forced to constantly listen to a teacher, in a quiet classroom. This causes minds to wonder, focus to drift away, and boredom to rise. Students care more about something if they get something out of it for themselves like candy, homework passes, or just the psychological satisfaction of winning. J. Garcia investigated which learning process students prefer in the article “Examining Competitive, Collaborative and Adaptive Gamification in Young Learners” where she states that including gamification elements like points, leaderboards, and badges helps find out that students preferred using the gamified system rather than traditional learning. This improves their performance in the programming test (Garcia 445). Games are intended to grasp attention through their desirable enjoyment, and by replacing the traditional way to learn, with the gamified way to learn, students are more likely to do well on tests. Even if the content does not seem interesting, the game does instead, which tricks the mind into believing that to learn can be satisfying with the correct techniques.
On the contrary, others may argue that gamification makes students too involved in the game instead of new knowledge, meaning their only purpose is to win the game, and not understand the importance of the assessment. People will believe that because of this, students will remember the new material just to win the game ,and then forget all about it shortly afterwards. Although this is partially correct, the current generation of students are always playing games; their brains will function to remember the material so they can keep winning. For instance, when people are playing a video game, they learn different ways to improve their performance and once they figure out the best way, they remember it to maintain their winner status. “Games and Gamification in Business School Courses” states, “Serious-game mindset means that teachers pay attention to learning objectives and outcomes. Learning by games involves the new knowledge, behavior, attitudes, and the transfer of learning to real world contexts” (Beatty 2). Gamified teaching is the most sufficient way for students to memorize material because it pushes students to maintain high test scores. It also teaches people that to win, goes further than traditional video or board games and can persist into the real world with academic wins.
As it has been seen, gamification increases the motivation of students through competitions. Traditional learning tends to bore students quicker because they will not get the enjoyment brought to them by games. Bringing game-like tendencies to learning gives students the desire to want to know the material even if it does not sound intriguing. The youth encounters competitions frequently, and they are adapted to anything where they have the satisfaction of winning something. Through gamified learning students grasp knowledge more efficiently, thus increasing their determination and urge for success.
Works Cited
Alshammari, Mohammad T. “Evaluation of Gamification in E-Learning Systems for Elementary School Students.” Tem Journal, UKITEN, 7 Oct. 2022,
Beatty, Joy E. “Games and Gamification in Business School Courses: Experiential ...” Wiley Online Library, Version of Record, 25 June 2021
Jagušt, Tomislav, J. Garcia. “Examining Competitive, Collaborative and Adaptive Gamification in Young Learners' Math Learning.” Computers & Education, Pergamon, 25 June 2018, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131518301659.
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