The chapter examines the effect of integrating gamification in the activity system of an undergraduate course. Activity theory is used as a framework in order to investigate the anchoring of gamification as a second-order mediation for improving student engagement in the course Wiki. The chapter examines the main gamification patterns that emerged, documents how gamification mitigated persistent problems of student participation in the Wiki, and analyzes how the activity system was reconfigured through the study of new tensions. The work is concluded with a discussion of how gamification can be integrated in an activity system so as to capitalize on its potential.
TopGamification
As the interest in digital games soared, the academic community began to consider the potential of games for learning. This interest led to various research trends such as Game-Based Learning, Serious Games, and Gamification. Largely inspired by digital games, gamification essentially started out as business trend. The idea was to leverage the potential of digital games by reverse engineering game design principles and apply them to educational contexts. As a concept, gamification was coined circa 2008 and gained momentum after 2011, attracting the attention of educators and researchers.
There is no universally accepted definition of what gamification actually is. However, the general consensus is that gamification involves the use of game design elements and principles in non-game contexts (Deterding et al., 2011; Kapp, 2012). Implementing gamification in learning commonly involves game elements such as badges (visual representations of achievement), points (numerical values that represent achievement), leaderboards (ranking of participants according to achievement), and levels (stages that represent progression from relatively easy to more challenging) (Kapp, 2012). Other game design elements include challenges, progress bars, likes, missions, and narratives (Kim, Song, Lockee & Burton, 2018). Gamification is supposed to address one of the fundamental educational problems: lack of motivation. Its success has been attributed to several factors (Dichev & Dicheva, 2017). Essentially, gamification is typically considered to be a mediator, indirectly influencing performance. In particular, gamification is assumed to increase engagement, which is translated into more time on task, which in turn leads to improved performance.
Due to the explosion of interest in gamification as a means of addressing educational problems, it has been widely used in many different areas such as education, health, business, and management (Bozkurt & Durak, 2018). It appears that the majority of gamification studies (45%) are related to education (Bozkurt & Durak, 2018). Interestingly enough, most gamification studies are conducted at the university level (ibid).
Despite the increased interest in gamification over the past decade, its reception has been quite diverse. At one end of the spectrum, gamification is dismissed as a purely marketing-driven strategy of limited value. For example, Bogost (2014) did not mince words when analyzing the concept, pointing out that it is actually the gamification consultants that have more to gain compared to the businesses that wish to go down the gamification route. At the other end of the extreme, the educational and research communities have wholeheartedly embraced gamification, hoping that it would help address current educational problems. More specifically, former research has examined different combinations of game elements in gamification studies (Dichev & Dicheva, 2017; Antonaci, Klemke & Specht (2019)). Some studies test the effect of a single game element (e.g. points) while others combine more than one. According to the review of Dichev and Dicheva (2017), 60% of the gamification studies utilized 3 or more elements. Points, badges, levels, leaderboards and progress bars appear to be the most commonly used game design elements (Dichev & Dicheva, 2017; Antonaci, Klemke & Specht, 2019; Subhash & Cudney, 2018).