One Solution Does Not Fit All: Reward-Based and Meaningful Gamification in Higher Education

From Games To Gamification

Games characteristically involve rules, goals, interactivity requiring player effort, measures of progress, and an attachment to the outcome (Juul, 2005; Becker & Nicholson, 2016). According to Juul (2005), games have six distinct characteristics. 1) Rules – games inherently operate within a framework of established rules. 2) Measurable and diverse outcomes – each game is characterized by outcomes that not only vary but can also be explicitly measured or quantified. 3) Values of outcomes – the different potential outcomes of games are assigned distinct values, ranging from positive to negative. 4) Player effort – players are required to exert an effort to influence the game’s outcome, and this contributes to the game’s challenge. 5) Emotional attachment in outcomes – players develop an emotional connection to the game’s outcomes, feeling satisfaction and happiness when the outcome is positive, and disappointment or unhappiness when it is negative. 6) Negotiable consequences – games can be structured to have real-life consequences or none at all, allowing the same set of rules to be applied in different contexts.