Employing gamification strategies to prepare school students for journalism competitions

Abstract

This paper aims to conduct a thorough analysis of the effectiveness of incorporating gamification elements in the preparation of school students for journalism competitions. The authors have examined eighteen competitions facilitated by prominent institutions including the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov (MSU), and Saint Petersburg State University (SPbSU). Drawing from openly available sources, a classification of seven gamification formats for student preparation has been proposed: quizzes, interactive storytelling, games employing virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), process tracking, role-playing games, textual expansions, and games that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. Furthermore, the authors have delineated the primary stages of the journalism competitions, which are categorized into theoretical and practice-oriented segments. The theoretical segment encompasses tasks in a test format that assess basic factual knowledge, while the practice-oriented segment comprises written tasks. These tasks are designed to evaluate the students’ proficiency in creating and writing informational materials, encompassing mastery of text style, literacy, and structured logical narration. The results indicate that gamification not only enriches the educational landscape, rendering learning more engaging and interactive, but also significantly enhances students’ proficiency in refining complex journalistic skills.