-Nowadays the practice of introducing gamification into areas such as education became quite popular. In this paper, we are examining the effects of applying gamification into the process of teaching the Information System design using Unified Modelling Language. In gamified UML course, we focused on introducing such game elements as points, levels, badges, leaderboard, and bonuses into the teaching process. Students' activities during the course were logged and later analyzed. During analysis a positive influence on the student grades was observed. Moreover, a positive effect was noticed on the student intrinsic motivation.
Gamification is described as a practice of using game
elements in a context, which has no direct association with
games [
In this paper we are analyzing the process of applying
gamification into the process of teaching the information system
design using Unified Modelling Language (UML) [
UML provides a standard for visualizing and specifying the
design of software systems and is commonly used during the
software engineering process [
UML is a graphical notation which enables modelling software engineering concepts represented in structure and behavior diagrams. These diagrams are taught during the course for undergraduate students in Kaunas University of Technology Informatics faculty’s curated study programmes. Students are tasked in preparing specification and documentation for software projects.
Other higher education institutions also often use UML in
their software engineering courses’ curriculum [
[
In Kaunas University of Technology Information Systems Design course fourth year undergraduate students are extensively taught of using UML in object-oriented development of Information Systems. The course encompasses a broad range of UML diagrams and their uses in requirements engineering, design and implementation of Information Systems.
Unified Modelling Language provides only the notation for
describing visual models but does not define the process and
context of using these models. Many software engineering
processes exist, but the one used in this course is Rational
Unified Process (RUP) [
Student’s motivation and engagement play a huge role in the
teaching process, many of the students tend to lose their
motivation and thus the quality of teaching diminishes. To
combat this problem and to increase student engagement into the
learning process an idea of gamifying the Information System
Design course was proposed. When applied correctly,
gamification tends to increase motivation, helps to engage
students [
At the start of 2017 autumn semester student were invited to participate in the gamified course. Students’ activities during the course were logged and later analyzed. Results show that gamification had a positive effect on student grades. In addition to the logged data, students were surveyed measuring their intrinsic motivation. Surveys’ results indicate that students’ intrinsic motivation increased, provided they used the gamified system regularly.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The second section analyzes related work in the area of applying gamification in education. The third section presents the proposed methodology for gamifying Information System Design course, course structure and its implementation in Moodle learning management platform. The fourth section is dedicated to analyzing the results of application of the gamified course in practice. The last section overviews the paper, outlines the major outcomes and provides a glimpse into future research ideas and upcoming planned tasks.
Gamification in education helps to enhance courses in order
to increase user engagement, productivity and motivation [
The case study presented on Gamification for Engaging
Computer Science Students in Learning Activities [
The research by Buckley and Doyle [
The research on Gamification in Higher Education [
A case study on The Gamification Model for E-Learning
Participants Engagement [
Although no gamified courses for teaching UML were found, it is clear that the principles and methods used in the aforementioned case studies could successfully be applied to the gamification of Information System Design course.
In order to test the gamification effect on students
researchers tend to formulate hypotheses [
Reviewed case studies mostly consisted of applying such
game elements as badges [
Authors of [
After reviewing the relevant case studies, it was determined
that the most common and effective gamification elements are
points, levels and badges and these elements should be applied
in the proposed gamified Information System Design Course.
The gamified course should also include a leaderboard. During
the gamified course, at least two surveys should be executed. An
Intrinsic Motivation Inventory scale [
INFORMATION SYSTEM DESIGN COURSE
The goal of our research was to increase student motivation and engagement into the learning process in Information System Design course. A relevant way to attain the set goal is to gamify the course by implementing some game elements into the course curriculum and teaching process.
In gamified UML course, we focused on introducing such game elements as points, levels and badges into the teaching process. In order to encourage the competition among students, a leaderboard was introduced. However, we decided not to focus on grade bonuses for rewarding students, and instead to use the complete example UML models for the upcoming laboratory practical works as bonuses.
During the analysis of the teaching material of existing
course, it became clear that some restructuring of the material
itself was required in order to facilitate the gamifying process. A
new course structure was proposed to include levels and points,
which would help to guide students through the learning process.
We based the structure of the course on the Rational Unified
Process disciplines and diagrams used in this process. Rational
Unified Process disciplines like business modeling,
requirements, requirement analysis and design, implementation
and deployment provide developers a clear platform on which to
build their project [
Levels and points would not only provide structure, but also engage students, by giving them an instantaneous feedback on the result of the tasks. Levels and points serve two purposes – guiding student behavior and giving student feedback at any point in time, signaling the students’ progress. At any point when the student completes a task, he would be rewarded with points. Achieving the base level of completion additionally would reward a student as well.
With levels and points, badges were also introduced into the course. Students would receive a badge at any point when they would level up in the course.
Lastly, we decided that students should also be able to receive some useful rewards, like example UML models. Such items would be used for increasing student motivation as external motivators.
During the base course curriculum, students were taught of eight UML diagrams out of total fourteen, and their various application in software engineering process based on Rational Unified Process (RUP).
The set of UML diagrams used in this course includes class diagram, use case diagram, state machine diagram, activity diagram, package diagram, robustness diagram (specific for RUP), sequence diagram, component diagram and deployment diagram.
Class diagram is used to describe domain entities, their structure and relations. State machine is used to represent entity lifecycle’s states and transitions between them. Use case diagram is used to represent system functional requirements, system users as actors and their relations with designed systems use cases. Activity diagram is used to specify use case scenarios, by defining system and user interaction in the most abstract way possible. Package diagram presents the initial logical architecture of the system under development. Robustness diagram is a stereotyped communication diagram used for robustness analysis. It is used to fill the gap between system requirement analysis and design steps. After the class definition in robustness diagram, sequence diagram is used to specify the interaction between system objects and the external actors. The basic logic of sequence diagram is supposed to correspond to the use case scenarios in the previously defined use case activity diagrams. Component diagram is used to define system components that are later realized by previously defined class objects. This diagram also represents component manifestation by artifacts. And lastly deployment diagram is used to define the system physical architecture and its artifacts’ distribution inside various nodes, such as devices, execution environments and so on.
The course curriculum is based not only on the UML diagram notation, but also on the Rational Unified Process disciplines and their respective requirements. Business modelling is used to define goals. Business analysis provides opportunities to determine possible enterprise process improvements. Requirements discipline provides framework for identifying and describing application functional requirements (such as use cases). Design discipline encapsulates all aspects of design, including but not limited to architecture, objects, classes, databases. Other disciplines such as implementation, test and deployment are only partly covered the curriculum scope by several diagrams, as these disciplines deal more with actual programming, building and realization of the application and is not the focus of the course curriculum.
Based on the course curriculum, ten levels were introduced into a course. Five for teaching the basics of UML diagrams’ syntax and five for teaching the semantics, and their usage in RUP. The course progression was locked behind the levels and structured in such a way that the student would not be overwhelmed with vast amount of information from the get-go. Student at the start only had access to a few resources and only after achieving some levels the course would open up.
Syntax levels in the gamified course were divided by diagrams and for each diagram a task was designed. Use case and activity diagrams were described in the first syntax level, in the second syntax level class and state machine diagram were introduced. Third syntax level consisted only of robustness diagram. Fourth syntax level introduced class diagram elements, previously not explored in second level and sequence diagram. And lastly fifth syntax level consisted of component and deployment diagrams. A total of 97 questions were created to test student knowledge on the UML diagram syntax.
Other five levels for teaching the semantics of UML diagrams were based on the Rational Unified Process engineering disciplines. Business modelling for the first semantics level, requirements for the second, analysis and design for the third, implementation for the fourth and lastly fifth for deployment. The course did not include test discipline as it falls outside the course curriculum scope.
Level order was chosen based on the curriculum material as well as introducing diagrams based on their role and usage in the RUP lifecycle and its respective system model. Each level is composed of at least one test and lecture material for the corresponding topic.
The very first level was business modeling which had one test, which introduced business modeling and RUP business profile stereotypes and their usage. After achieving, the passable result students could access the example UML models. Second level presented tasks for the most common UML diagrams, class (attributes, classes and relations) and use case diagram (actors, use cases and relations). The third level was composed of state machine diagram and its elements states, pseudo states and transitions, as well as activity diagram and its elements – actions, objects, flows, nodes and partitions. The fourth level had tasks, which outlined the use of previously introduced diagrams and their adoption in RUP requirements discipline model. Completing this level unlocked access to the second example of UML model. The fifth level introduced robustness diagram for class syntax with specific stereotypes. The sixth level dealt with object-oriented analysis and design step in RUP discipline process. The seventh level introduced sequence diagram and its elements – lifelines, fragments and messages, as well as class diagrams with previously not analyzed elements such as operations, interfaces and specific relations between them. The eight level introduced implementation discipline and its place in the UML system model. The ninth level introduced component and deployment elements – components, artifacts, nodes and relations between them. Once the ninth level was completed, students gained access to the complete example UML models. Lastly, the tenth level described deployment discipline and diagrams used in this discipline and their semantics.
Learning management platform Moodle [
A Moodle course (Fig. 1) was created where the designed model of levels was implemented, and 230 test questions were created to check student knowledge on the UML diagrams syntax or semantics.
In syntax levels, nine tasks were created for each diagram type. Each diagram task consisted of test. Each time while attempting the task, student received a grade, which if passed awarded student 100 points only once. Under no circumstances, students’ failure was meant withholding the award. In case of failure, students were awarded only for attempting the task. The example of the Moodle test, used in the course is presented in Fig. 2.
In addition to the nine tasks for syntax, five tasks were created for semantics levels. Each semantics task was worth 200 points. Like in the syntax levels, students were only awarded full points once, when meeting the passable requirements for the task.
Additionally, students who were able to reach passable grade in semantics levels 1, 2 and 4 were rewarded with example UML models.
As basic Moodle environment does not have the
functionality for awarding points based on task results, and
levels. A plugin [
A plugin Level UP! [
The proposed course structure was implemented by locking contents based on student level. The maximum attainable points of the levels tasks’ determined each level point requirements.
Overall, the syntax levels had a set of 129 questions. Respectively each diagram task had the set of ten questions, except for the robustness diagram as it had five.
Likewise, the semantics levels were composed of 97 questions over all five tasks. Business modeling task had ten questions of the available 23. Requirement task had 16 questions out of the 34 available questions set. Requirement analysis task had 5 questions out of 10 available. Implementation/ Design task had 8 questions out of 15 available. Lastly, the deployment task had 6 displayed question in a task, out of the 15 questions set.
The implemented course consisted of 10 levels, in total of 2300 (Fig. 4) required points to achieve the maximum level, leaderboard, badges, structured curriculum content and additional rewards like example UML models.
The proposed changes to the course were successfully implemented into a local Moodle platform used by Kaunas University of Technology Informatics faculty. A question bank of 230 questions was created, ten levels for structuring the material, a leaderboard, example UML model rewards and 13 tasks were effectively put into practice.
IV. RESULTS OF EXPERIMENT PERFORMED USING THE GAMIFIED
COURSE A.
At the start of semester in autumn 2017 students were invited to partake in a gamified course for the duration of the whole semester. A total of 27 students were added to the Moodle course on September 21st.
Students were also asked to provide responses to the
questionnaire based on the IMI scale [
The first questionnaire was available from the September 28, a week after the student introduction into the course. 22 students completed the first questionnaire.
The second questionnaire became available after the final exam of the course, on the 15 of January, 2018. 18 students completed the second questionnaire. Respectively each question in the second questionnaire directly corresponded to the question from the first questionnaire (e.g. “I enjoy studying” in the first questionnaire and “I enjoyed doing activities in the gamified course” in the second questionnaire). Both questionnaires were anonymous, and the collected results were calculated based on the averages.
Students participated in the gamified course activities mostly from October 2017 to January 2018, as of writing this paper the last visit by a student was made on 22nd of January.
For determining the experiment results, an exploratory data analysis was performed for the data compiled during the experiment. The data from Moodle platform was used, as it provides extensive reports for user participation in the courses.
In addition to the exploratory data analysis, two questionaries’ results were compiled to measure the intrinsic motivation of the student group. The questionnaire was anonymous, and results are based on the averages. Each question is grouped by a type which the question measures. These types can be used to determine not only the intrinsic motivation but also aspects that have effect on motivation in general. IMI scale supplies seven question group types. Any survey can be tailored to meet the specific needs of the study. For the experiment four group types were selected – interest/enjoyment, perceived competence, effort/importance and value/usefulness.
An additional question was introduced into the questionnaire, where gamified course was evaluated. The question asked to specify the frequency of students activity in the gamified course.
By comparing the data, we can see that students who did not use the gamified course, had much lower intrinsic motivation results except for the interest/enjoyment group (Fig. 5). This could mean that students were interested in the idea of gamification, but were not attracted enough to participate in the course.
For the students, who used the gamified course less than once a month, results indicate that student motivation increased in all levels comparing to the base student level, except for the third question type, which measures perceived competence (Fig. 6). This could mean that students feel that the questions were too difficult and should be simplified for the gamified course.
In addition, the last response group, which say that they used the gamified UML course at least once per month or more frequently, have even more favorable results (Fig. 7). The responses of students, which used the gamified course regularly, indicate that the motivation increased across all measured aspects.
Lastly comparing the overall results (Fig. 8), we can see that the students’ general intrinsic motivation increases with the frequency of activity in the gamified UML course.
Additionally, student results were compared to evaluate gamified UML course effect on students’ grades (Fig. 9). Two sets of data were compiled. The first set consisted of the students grades for the 2016 course, during which students did not use or had access to the gamified material. The second set encompassed students’ grades for 2017 course, where students were able to use gamified Information System Design course. The grades are represented as follows: for the test, which is the quiz evaluating student theory knowledge of UML; for the exam, which consists of the test and a practical task for creating an UML model with CASE tool; the suggested grade, which student earns during the semester; and the final grade, which is the final grade of the course.
Traditional and gamified courses were organized to take place in parallel. Student participation in gamified course was voluntary and students were not offered any other incentives except for rewards in the gamified course such as practical work examples. The complied data includes all students regardless of the fact whether they used gamified course or not. The averages are being compared to previous year of 2016 students’ grade averages, who did not have access to gamified course.
It is clear that students’ results in test portion increased drastically around 0.8 point on average, more than 10 percent. Other results do not show any dramatic change and therefore could not be attributed as the effect of gamified UML course. Although other three group results exhibit an overall small positive change.
Most of the studies that we have analyzed, place their focus mostly on gamifying the learning material to improve the understanding and student engagement. The case study described in this paper aims to engage students and attempts to increase student motivation. We have proposed the structure of the gamified course, the required gamification elements and implemented the proposed course in Moodle platform. The experiment was carried out during 2017 autumn semester, which had 27 participating students in the gamified course. While analyzing the results gathered during the experiment, a positive influence is observed on the student grades. A marginal difference is recognized in the student intrinsic motivation.
Though we have to admit, that the results are inconclusive, because of the small sample of participants. For that reason, we plan on having a second round of the experiment. The new experiment will have a larger sample size and would be using an improved version of the same course. In order to better understand the gamification effects on the student motivation, more gamification elements will be introduced into the second iteration of the course. According to the feedback from the first experiment, the reducing of requirements for passing the task and the larger sets of questions will be included as well.
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