Developing and Implementing GAPc, a Gamification Project in Chemistry, toward a Remote Active Student-Centered Chemistry Course Bridging the Gap between Precollege and Undergraduate Education

Abstract

This paper describes the development and implementation of GAPc, a gamification project in chemistry. GAPc is an online active student-centered remedial teaching tool allowing prospective and enrolled students to electronically assess their knowledge of basic and advanced chemistry concepts via different game levels of expertise. This provides them with ways to correct potential shortcomings in view of academic education. A large number of exercises with different degrees of difficulty, links to additional sources of information, automated feedback, and the integrated grading center are key features of GAPc. Notwithstanding that GAPc is conceived as a distance learning and self-learning tool, it works equally well in a classroom setting. Indeed, GAPc was initially meant as a trajectory for precollege students to remediate their acquainted knowledge of chemistry by easy remote access. Today, on the Hasselt University Campus, GAPc is used in the chemistry summer school for senior high school students, and in chemistry courses for freshmen and sophomores enrolled in curricula with a major chemistry component.