Reaching Student Engagement by Balancing Gamification and Challenges in the Minor Serious Gaming

Abstract

This study originated from a Senior University Teaching Qualification on student engagement that withstanding many efforts on problem and challenge based education still is a concern. Within the minor Serious Gaming, third year students (n=35) where studied with mixed methods with the main question how to improve student engagement with challenges in serious gaming? First, a systematic literature study led to a new definition of student engagement: Student engagement is a multi-faceted concept that involves the interplay of various factors, including behavior, motivation, challenges, and autonomy. Then a pretest was done with last year’s teaching team, a motivational survey and general evaluation survey was done and a focus group with group representatives was created. This led to two main interventions, a gamified business modelling workshop and direct feedback loops. From a gamification point of view, rewards are the best intervention but we could not implement them in this year’s course. The value of this study is in understanding the complexity of student engagement. Improvement of engagement is possible with gamification, challenges and direct feedback. This study confirms that a high autonomy leads to a high engagement, future study has to be done with courses with low autonomy.