=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1667/CtrlE_2016_AC_paper_11
|storemode=property
|title=Integrating Aspects of Gamification in the Classroom: Takeaways from a Tentative Experience with Undergraduates
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1667/CtrlE_2016_AC_paper_11.pdf
|volume=Vol-1667
|authors=Taciana Pontual Falcão
}}
==Integrating Aspects of Gamification in the Classroom: Takeaways from a Tentative Experience with Undergraduates==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1667/CtrlE_2016_AC_paper_11.pdf
Integrating Aspects of Gamification in the Classroom:
Takeaways from a Tentative Experience with Undergraduates
Taciana Pontual Falcão
Departamento de Estatística e Informática (DEINFO)
Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco (UFRPE)
Rua Dom Manoel de Medeiros, s/n, Dois Irmãos - 52171-900 - Recife/PE - Brasil
taciana.pontual@ufrpe.br
Abstract. The growing interest for gamification in education is undeniable.
However, the pedagogy behind it is overshadowed by promises of seducing
students through the appeal of games. Despite the rather optimistic accounts in
the literature, integrating gamification into learning processes is in fact much
more complex than it may seem. This paper reflects on a tentative experience at
undergraduate level, with aspects of gamification integrated to the face-to-face
classroom using a methodology that tried to escape from traditional format of
lectures and exams.
1. Introduction
The learning process at the university has undergone radical changes with the
popularisation of digital technologies and the world wide web. Access to information,
previously restricted to libraries and to the words of the teacher, is now ubiquitous.
Students have access to any subject, at any time, through the smartphones in their pockets,
and consequently the motivation to attend classes has dropped considerably. Contributing
to this lack of interest is the fact that teaching methods have not kept up with the changes
in society and learning styles, remaining heavily-based on exposition of content through
lectures [Weller and Gould 2015].
A number of initiatives emerge as efforts to reshape teaching and increase
students' motivation and interest. Gamification is a technique that is gaining a lot of
attention in education for integrating aspects of games into learning processes [Kapp
2012]. Digital games are among the favourite hobbies of children and young people
nowadays, triggering an intrinsic motivation sought by educators. The idea is that
bringing learning contexts closer to the gaming world will make learning fun and
engaging for the current generation of students, and have a positive impact on their
achievement and knowledge construction. A lot has been reported about isolated
initiatives using gamification at different levels of depth [Borges et al. 2013] [Dicheva et
al. 2015] [Klock et al. 2015], but the discussion about the actual learning benefits of the
technique is still little (e.g. [Nogueira Neto et al. 2015]). Furthermore, most authors
discuss gamification implemented in virtual environments [Brazil and Baruque 2015] and
few in face-to-face classroom activities [Laster 2010]. The 'hype' over gamification urges
for deeper investigations about its pedagogical basis, how and in which contexts it should
be implemented, and the pros and cons of the technique. This paper aims to contribute to
this discussion by presenting students' opinions and teacher's reflections on a face-to-face
course with integrated elements of gamification.
34
2. Context and Methodology
The initiative described in this paper took place in the course of Technologies for
Learning, in a Computer Science department of a Brazilian public university. The 32
students who initially enrolled to the course were taking three different degrees: Bachelor
in Computer Science (20), Bachelor in Information Systems (6), and Educational degree
in Computer Science1 (6). As the course is optional and has no pre-requisites for
attendance, students were from varied university years. There were 9 females and 23
males, mainly around 20 years-old. Classes took place twice a week, in the evening, and
lasted for 1 hour and 40 minutes. The course was planned and mediated by the author of
this paper.
The idea to 'gamify' the course on Technologies for Learning was driven by a
permanent personal pursuit to innovate in teaching - with a special focus on students'
motivation - and by the belief that lectures are each year less effective as a teaching
method. At the same time, the course itself aims to discuss how technologies can improve
the learning process, making it almost 'compulsory', from a pedagogical point of view, to
experiment new methods, showing students in practice some of the techniques discussed
during the course. As the teacher, I performed a small piece of interpretivist action
research, with a qualitative, flexible design, where I analysed my own work and my
students' feedback. According to interpretivism, apprehension of the world goes through
selection and interpretation, linked to people’s values, context and cultural background
[Rubin and Rubin 2005]. More specifically, this means that researchers’ previous
knowledge, even if subconsciously, affect and inform the research, and research findings
represent a combination of the understanding of the researcher and of those being
researched. The present work is a descriptive and exploratory kind of research that aims
to investigate the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of phenomena (here, gamification in the classroom).
Throughout the course, data was constructed to enable me to reflect on the experience in
the light of learning theories and innovative teaching methods.
2.1. Starting Off: Planning and Expectations
The methodology was presented to the students at the beginning of the course. They were
told the course would follow a constructivist approach (statement which I myself later
questioned, see section 4.1), with a lot of practical activities and very few (or maybe none)
lectures. They were expected to work in groups to design and prototype a system (mobile
application, digital game, web site, or other) to support the learning of a content of their
choice, aligned with a learning theory (of their choice). They were given flexibility in
their choices, as long as they were able to convince me with reasonable and theory-
grounded arguments.
Gamification was initially presented as follows: the course would be divided in
phases, unknown to all until each group unblocked them by completing the previous
phase. So, groups could progress independently and compete for the lead. Both groups
and individuals could collect points throughout the course according to some criteria
(Table 1). These points would be then transformed into students' grades (somehow). The
decision of giving points separately to groups and individuals was due to difficulties, in
1
In Brazil, this is a degree for those aiming at teaching Computer Science in schools
35
previous classes, in evaluating work of individuals within groups. Repeatedly, problems
arise involving students who do no work at all and those who feel unfairly evaluated.
Individual points, thus, were used as an opportunity for good students to stand out,
'despite' their group, if this was the case.
Table 1. Initial criteria for distributing points
Individual criteria Group criteria
Creativity Creativity
Interesting question asked Adherence to deadlines
Initiative Quality of deliverables
Participation
Peer collaboration
Students were summoned to build the course with me, giving suggestions, being
autonomous, surprising me, going beyond expectations. However, they were also aware
that this was my first attempt at gamification, and therefore not everything was defined
at the outset, decisions would be made on-the-go, and changes were to be expected.
Initially, the course was loosely planned into phases that fit the user-centred design
process, i.e. research, ideation, prototyping and evaluation. However, more fine-grained
phases emerged during the course, as presented in the next section.
2.2. From Theory to Practice: Definitions Along the Way
2.2.1. Phases
Within the user-centred design overarching process, phases were defined according to the
teacher's insights as the groups progressed (Figure 1). Formal techniques were introduced
in the process incrementally, so that students had theoretical constructs they could adopt.
Figure 1. Phases of the course
Some phases had deliverables to help students organise their ideas and make them
more concrete. Besides the final presentation, students were asked to present their on-
36
going work at checkpoints, as moments of sharing with all groups. As part of the
gamification techniques, groups only knew of the following phase once they had
completed the previous one.
2.2.2. Visualisation of Progress
A 'ranking-like' method was needed for publicising students' progress through the phases,
feedback on deliverables and activities, and points earned. Rankings are common
elements of games that engage through competition and therefore are expected to
motivate students to pursue better achievement. With this aim, a spreadsheet was created
online and shared with all students (with read-only permission). The spreadsheet had the
following information:
• Progress sheet: the progress of all groups through the phases;
• Group points sheet: points earned by each group, per criterion;
• Individual points sheet: points earned by each student, per criterion;
• Feedback sheet: an evaluative feedback per group, per activity and deliverable.
The spreadsheet was updated by myself after each class (twice a week), and
students were encouraged to access it as often as possible.
2.2.3. Additional Assessment Criteria
As the course progressed, I perceived that other assessment criteria could be included for
a more comprehensive student evaluation, besides those in Table 1. Table 2 shows the
additional criteria that emerged from my observation in class.
Table 2. Additional criteria for distributing points
Individual points Group points
Motivation Effort
Suggestions given Fun
Content knowledge Team work spirit
Attendance to class Challenge
2.2.4. Grading
The university system where this work is contextualised demands that the teacher
formally evaluates students through grades at mid-term and end of term. For this reason,
the first grades were calculated after Phase 5, using all group and individual criteria, in
the following manner:
1. Weighed averages were calculated for group points of adherence to deadline and
quality of deliverables, for each phase.
2. All other group points were summed per criterion, and a normalised grade was
given, i.e. the greatest number of points for each criterion became the maximum
grade (the group obtained grade 10) and the other groups were graded
proportionally.
3. A final weighed average was calculated considering the three averages described
above, to define the group average grade.
37
4. An individual average grade was calculated following the same procedure as (2),
considering the individual criteria.
5. Finally, the grade of the student was the arithmetic average between the group
average grade and the individual average grade.
For the grades at the end of the term, a different process was adopted:
• A weighed average was calculated for group points of adherence to deadline, for
each phase.
• Quality of deliverables was an arithmetic average between the teacher's evaluation
and peer evaluation. Peer evaluation was performed through an online form
prepared by the teacher and accessed by the students during group presentations.
The whole class had to evaluate the group's prototype (quality, interactivity and
visual interface); user evaluation (quantity of participants, method and results);
and the presentation itself (collaboration within the group, clarity and ability to
hold the class attention). All answers were collected through a 1-5 Likert scale.
The teacher used the same form for evaluation.
• Other group points were calculated in the same way described in item (2) above,
and the final group average was calculated as described in (3).
• The individual average consisted of a weighed average between a guided self-
assessment and the participation in the evaluation of groups' presentation. The
guided self-assessment was performed through an online form distributed by the
teacher (results in section 3.1).
• Finally, the grade of the student was calculated as in (5).
The modification in the assessment process is discussed in section 4.
3. The Journey
Six groups were formed according to students' preferences. All groups successfully
completed the course, producing prototypes in varied levels of quality and fidelity. Two
male students from the Bachelor in Computer Science degree quit: one moved cities and
the other decided to take a different degree. Three other male students, one from each
degree, needed extra activities in the end (according to the university regulations) to reach
the passing grade (7/10), due to low individual achievement during the course. Figure 2
shows that one third of the class (10 students) was below the passing grade at mid-term,
while the end of term grades were generally higher. This mainly reflects the two
procedures used for assessment and grade calculation, discussed in section 4.
38
Figure 2. Students' performance
3.1. Students' Voices
Students were encouraged to give me feedback at any time, but during the course this
only happened with two students, one male and one female, from the Educational degree
in Computer Science, who felt their mid-term grade (below 7) was unfair. The female
student came to me in person, while the male student made a complaint via e-mail. I
answered both in the same way, asking them to justify with concrete arguments (related
to the assessment criteria and the work they had done) why their grade was not fair. Both
had their grades adjusted, although I did not accept all arguments presented. The male
student, in particular, argued that a lot of his work had been done extra-class (for example
in organising group work using repositories and management software tools), and was
not considered in the evaluation. At the end of the course, an online form was shared with
all students to evaluate the course. The students did not have to identify themselves (but
could do), and were encouraged to give their sincere opinions to help me improve the
methodology. The form contained: Likert scale (1-5) questions; yes/no questions; other
closed questions with three options; and open fields for justifications, suggestions and
opinions. Results are presented next.
3.1.1. Information Spreadsheet
Regarding the form of visualisation of progress and feedback, 13 students declared they
accessed the information spreadsheet a few times only. The same number of students
accessed it several times, while only 2 students declared having accessed it many times.
Only one student said the spreadsheet did not contain all necessary information, but this
answer (as justified by the student) was based on the fact that all grades at the end of the
term were only made available after the last group made their presentation. Two students
used the open field to praise the organisation and level of detail of the spreadsheet. One
of them declared: "the individual grades for each aspect demonstrates care and concern
with the development of each student". Only 3 students declared they felt embarrassed
with the fact that all peers could see their grades in the spreadsheet, which was a personal
concern of mine.
3.1.2. Assessment and Grading
Twelve students thought their assessment (and consequent grades) was very fair, and the
same number thought it was fair. Four students opted for the middle Likert scale (1-5)
regarding the fairness of their assessment. The same male student who formally
complained via e-mail reinstated that the assessment did not take into account extra-class
work. This student gave a couple of suggestions to adjust this methodological issue: use
online Google drive tools to evaluate group work, including using the 'History' tool to
39
identify which students contributed and how much; interview group members about their
peers work (this was also suggested by another student, who said that "maybe informal
questions to the group members would help to know what is really going on"). Another
problem pointed out was the fact that a group had a low grade for adherence to deadline
because some members of the group did not finish their work in time. A student also
asked for more detailed individual assessment.
The assessment criteria were considered very adequate by 12 students, while 15
considered them adequate, and one student opted for the middle Likert scale regarding
the adequacy of criteria. Students argued that several criteria were subjective, and it was
hard for them to know how the teacher reached the evaluation and why (e.g. students
disagreed that their work was not creative). Criteria related to participation were criticised
for penalising shy students, who are not keen on taking part in debates or asking questions
in presentations. One student declared that the assessment helped him/her to improve their
performance and most of them would not exclude any of the criteria. Very few
suggestions were given for including criteria; they were: development (related to efforts
made to improve as the course progressed); and more criteria related to initiative and
motivation.
3.1.3. Learning
Fourteen students said they learned a lot in the course, and 11 declared they learned
reasonably well. Three students classified their learning as average. Eighteen students
said they learn more doing practical activities, 3 said they learn more attending lectures,
and 8 said their learning is similar for both methods. Four students declared they missed
having lectures in the course.
3.1.4. Motivation
Twenty-four students classified the methodology as good, and said they were keen to take
another course using gamification. Two students found it interesting, but in need of
improvements, and two others said they did not adapt to the methodology. Nine students
classified their motivation in the course as very high, 17 as high, and 2 as average. These
two students justified their choice by tiredness caused by evening classes and problems
with the group.
3.1.5. Overall Evaluation
Twenty-one students classified the course as great, and 6 as good. One student classified
it as average. Comments in the open field included suggestions ("integration with other
courses"; "include some lectures, to present theoretical concepts, and decrease the number
of practical activities"; "have lectures followed by debates") and praising ("this course
lived up to the expectations. Thank you for the effort, dedication and organisation (very
important). I want to be a teacher, and I have learned valuable lessons in this course";
"dynamic classes, different from the routine of lectures, very interesting"; "the course was
very well structured, with a special concern to give students feedback, in general and
individually"; "classes were fun and motivating, with excellent feedback from the teacher.
I looked forward to the classes"; "loved it. It wasn't tiresome, and the teacher knew how
to stimulate students to get involved"; "great methodology, with incremental prototype
building").
40
4. Reflections and Takeaways
The main aim of this experience was to try gamification out at the undergraduate level in
face-to-face classes, particularly as a way of engaging students. This final session
summarises the lessons learned and my impressions as a teacher.
4.1. Gamification: Behaviourism Disguised?
Being an enthusiast of constructivism and students' autonomy, and having established to
the students that the course would follow a constructivist approach, I found myself in
contradiction as I began to identify the similarities between gamification and
behaviourism [Skinner 1976]. I was using gamification to: give students rewards in the
form of points (positive reinforcement) for every aspect I considered important, or
penalise students when failing to achieve in any of these aspects (punishment) - which
ultimately translated into their grades; and to encourage competition through rankings,
which showed students' progress and achievement to all, enabling comparison. This
realisation made me go beyond the hype of gamification to get to its pedagogical basics.
Truth be told, I have used a very basic form of gamification, which lacked more
sophisticated elements like avatars with different powers and capabilities, a themed
general background to the activities, and the use of specific software tools for
gamification [Dicheva et al. 2015]. Furthermore, it could be argued that I fell into what
Challco et al. (2015) call "pointsification", a simplistic type of gamification that relies a
lot on using some form of coercion, even if 'disguised'. The authors suggest that well-
thought-out gamified scenarios should apply game elements to model learners’ attitudes
and behaviours through persuasion and social influence. Nevertheless, most applications
of gamification remain at the basic level, using points, rewards, levels, rankings and
feedback, as shown by two recent systematic literature reviews [Borges et al. 2013]
[Klock et al. 2015]. The PBL approach (Points, Badges and Leaderboards) [Werbach and
Hunter 2012] is considered to present the basic elements of gamification, said to compose
the most usual approach in education [Brazil and Baruque 2015]. Klock et al.'s (2015)
systematic literature review only found two in seven papers analysed that implemented
personalisation, and one that implemented narrative and challenges. In addition, even in
sophisticated forms of gamification (often within virtual collaborative environments on
digital platforms with customised tools and sometimes based on ontologies [Challco et
al. 2015] [Dicheva et al. 2015]), the core concepts of gamification remain strongly linked
to behaviourism, as can be noted when Skinner's reinforcement theory [Skinner 1976] is
quoted by Challco et al. (2015, p. 502): "(...) the change in the learners’ attitudes and
behaviors is learned by operant conditioning, where the consequences of humans’ actions
modify the tendency to repeat a behavior. (...) The game actions taken by these game
components follow the learners’ actions to reinforce the intended learning behavior
defined by the script.". Borges et al.'s (2013) systematic literature review identified the
goal of "promoting some kind of behavioural change in students" (p. 237, our translation)
in 19 out of 26 selected publications on gamification in education. Other expressions used
in papers on this theme reinforce the association between behaviourism and gamification
(our translation and stress): "users engage more in developing some activity when they
perceive that they are rewarded for that" [Ferreira et al. 2015, p. 512]; "(...) we can
remember a typical case of gamification that many of us have lived as children, when we
were rewarded with objects like stars for good performance or good behaviour."
[Nogueira Neto et al. 2015, p. 667]; "The narratives make the user present the expected
41
behavior in a context" [Klock et al. 2015, p. 544]; "(...) insignias of conquests can be used
to control students behaviour." [Brazil and Baruque 2015, p. 679].
Behaviour control through elements of gamification did not work well in the
context where this work took place. Students presented a low level of competition against
peers, which was shown by the lack of interest in following closely and frequently the
information spreadsheet. The idea of having 'blocked' phases (i.e. unknown to the
students) that could be reached at different times by each group did not work either. On
the one hand, students were not comfortable with not knowing how the course would
progress, mainly as they felt the need to plan their university timetable and activities in
the near future considering other courses they were taking. Although this is not shown in
the data collected, I was constantly asked about the next activities and the demands for
passing during the course. The 'surprise' factor was thus more a source of anxiety than of
mystery and fun for the students. On the other hand, groups usually reached the phases at
the same class, or, if they did not, the next phase ended up being revealed to all anyway,
due to the dynamics of the classes and the information spreadsheet.
So, although the course went well and I received encouraging feedback, the most
positive students' reactions and impressions were not related to the aspects of gamification
per se, but to other methodological aspects used, namely: practical activities and detailed
and constant feedback (for groups and individuals) through the written evaluations
provided in the spreadsheet. The combination of these two seemed to be much more
important for students than gamification. On the other hand, this finding also reinforces
the need to take into account students’ preferences and psychological, anthropological
and pedagogical factors involved, as described by theories of motivation, human
behaviour and game design, all of which matter for the educational outcomes of
gamification [Werbach and Hunter 2012].
4.2. The Quest for Ideal Student Assessment
The goal of the assessment criteria established for this course was to cover the broadest
possible range of aspects that play a part in learning processes, going beyond traditional
evaluation through written exams, merely based on correct answers about the content,
many times memorised to be then forgotten but not understood. However, four issues
arose. Firstly, the subjectivity of some criteria (e.g. creativity and motivation) led to
students' dissatisfaction and frustration for not understanding the reason for receiving few
or no points. In some cases, for example, they truly believed they were being creative,
while I did not think so - but judging creativity objectively proved to be quite hard.
Secondly, assessment was based on class activities (and deliverables), but did not
take into consideration the extra-class group dynamics. As pointed by students, this
proved to be a serious flaw in the assessment, as some students did a lot of 'backstage'
work that was not of my knowledge. This also penalised shy / introspect students who did
not participate very actively in class. I now realise that the criteria chosen reflected my
expectations of my favourite student profile, the type who shows their motivation by
active, loud and joyful participation, initiative, creative ideas and provocative questions.
In this small piece of research, introvert and quiet hard-working students reminded me
that the set of evaluation criteria absolutely must contemplate all learning styles. In this
regard, literature on gamification suggests models to help instructional designers
choosing adequate game elements based on learners' preference and individual
42
characteristics [Domínguez et al. 2013] [Simões et al. 2013]. However, this is still very
hard to implement. Klock et al.'s (2015) systematic literature review recently found that
characteristics most taken into consideration are gender, age and type of gamer, which
would not account for the difficulties reported here.
Thirdly, there were 9 individual criteria and 7 group criteria. Most of them were
to be evaluated during class activities. This meant I had to observe the behaviour of 30
students every class and distribute points accordingly. It was as overwhelming as it
sounds, exhausting and most probably, not fair. At mid-term, transforming the points
distributed through the quite large set of assessment criteria into grades was extremely
challenging, as can be told from the complicated procedure describe in section 2.2.4. In
addition, subjectivity of criteria and bias towards a particular student profile led to many
grades below 7 at mid-term. Students' feedback and my own reflections made me adopt
a different approach for the second half of the course, giving the chance for students to
take part in their own evaluation and their peers', while also keeping the group assessment
criteria. This approach was better received by the class.
Finally, I have continued to struggle to find optimal ways to fairly assess group
work. As in previous classes, there were groups of good friends who divided the work of
the several courses they were taking and were very corporative; there were groups of
people who had just met in the course and could barely establish proper extra-class
communication - they got upset with peers that did not work and told them off to me,
especially when they received low group grades as a consequence; and finally there were
groups in which some did the work and just ignored those who did not, but I was never
explicitly told about it. I made the choice, in the present course, not to interfere in group
work, i.e. I avoided the role of 'investigator' who discovers and punishes students who do
not contribute, and assumed the position of blindly trusting everyone. Not all students
were satisfied with such approach. The idea that individual assessment criteria would
compensate for deficiencies in evaluating the work of group members did not hold, as
revealed by peers telling others off, and suggestions of "interviewing" group members to
find out who did the work, or what was "really going on". Such 'investigative role' is not
what I look for as a teacher, although this experience seems to indicate that a combination
of peer assessment and guided self-assessment might be a good way forward.
4.3. Lectures: to Keep or Not to Keep?
Giving lectures has been increasingly frustrating in the courses I teach, in the context I
work. Teaching in the evening means having tired students, who in many cases spent the
day at work and fall asleep during lectures, the content of which more often than not will
be heard and forgotten by the students. In addition, a lot of what one can put into lectures
on educational technologies and human-computer interaction is one or two clicks away
in the Internet, and thus I truly believe that the teacher must go beyond. Although planning
practical activities that enable learning for all meetings with the students is hard and time-
consuming, it is rewarding, from my point of view. Surprisingly, however, several
students missed having lectures in the course, and suggested a more balanced approach
between lectures and practical activities. Their feedback showed that they feel more
confident when they hear some content delivered by the teacher, than when they are
exclusively given instruments to construct this knowledge themselves. Even though this
is probably a reflect of the format of the educational system they are used to, and could
43
be changed to a more constructivist approach, such students' feelings should not be
ignored presently.
4.4. Where to Go from Here
The experience described in this paper was a - maybe naïve - attempt at gamifying the
classroom within a constructivist philosophy, and reaching an innovative course format
where students would feel motivated and empowered. It is probably fair to say that the
(behaviourist) aspects of gamification integrated into this specific course did not increase
students' motivation, but more constructivist methods like practical activities and
constructive feedback were taken in high account by the students and mentioned as the
main highlights of the course. Gamification would have to be applied in a richer and more
elaborated manner, but, more importantly, more adherent to the particular context and
students' profile. More questions than answers arose from the experience, but which lead
to an exciting starting point for reflections and methodological refinements:
• Re-introduce a few lectures with the main theoretical concepts and balance them
with closely related practical activities;
• Include peer assessment and guided self-assessment in students' evaluation;
• Have assessment criteria that contemplate extra-class work and the diversity of
learning styles;
• Reduce the subjectivity of assessment criteria and plan assessment in a feasible
and scalable way;
• Give students personalised, constructive feedback as often as possible.
Last but not least, the great challenge that arises is: can gamification and
constructivism dialogue at all? And, more specifically, is it possible to combine
gamification with learners' empowerment and autonomy? Seixas et al. (2016) go in this
direction when they argue that the "use of gamification in education should not be
restricted to giving points (...) the use of other gaming strategies, allows the student to
awaken creativity (...) and build learning situations in which they are free to make
choices" (p. 50) and "it is necessary to think about the student not only as a “player” who
will receive a reward for his effort, but he should be responsible for building his
knowledge and gamification is an opportunity to make this process funnier and more
challenging according to his skills" (p. 59). However, Seixas et al. have also employed a
a method heavily based on behaviour rewarding and it is not clear how freedom and
empowerment fit into the model. Such combination, if possible, will probably lead to a
different model for learning, where motivation from games would somehow be reached
in learning environments without so much emphasis on competition and on behaviour
control and manipulation, but instead valuing empowerment and autonomy.
Acknowledgements
I deeply thank all students of the 2015.2 class, who had to bear with my experimental
ideas, helped me with their feedback, and motivated me with their good humour.
44
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