Does gamification improve eLearning?

Gamification involves using game elements and techniques in a non-game context. Think of badges, high scores, progression bars, challenges, levels, achievements, and rewards. Running apps like Strava use these elements to get their users running and, more importantly, to keep them running.

All these concepts were initially designed to make video games more attractive, with the goal of selling more copies. Take the classic Space Invaders, for example. You control a spaceship defending Earth from descending waves of aliens. To ensure players are entertained for more than just fifteen minutes, several concepts were applied. Here are four examples:

  1. Story – A story about a war with extraterrestrial beings was added to the moving pixels on the screen. This gives meaning to what you are doing and assigns you an important role: you must defend Earth! This makes the game more interesting.
  2. Levels – Every time you clear the screen, you move to the next level with a new wave of aliens. This makes progress more visible and provides a sense of accomplishment each time.
  3. Challenge Curve – The levels are not repetitive but become increasingly challenging, with more or faster enemies, for example.
  4. High score – You earn points for shooting down aliens and completing levels. You can try to beat your own high score or see how you compare to others.

These game elements influence the participant’s motivation. For digital learning solutions, motivation is a hygiene factor: if it is lacking, the solution will have little to no effect. Without motivation, a participant will not engage seriously, will click through as quickly as possible, or even close the training. Therefore, it is crucial that participants are motivated. There are two types of motivation: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation occurs when the participant is interested, curious, or otherwise internally driven to learn. Extrinsic motivation comes from external factors, such as having to complete a safety eLearning course to be allowed to enter a building.

Intrinsic motivation is much more effective for the learning process than extrinsic motivation. As you can imagine, participants who are externally motivated will try to complete the eLearning as quickly as possible. They complete the eLearning but probably learn very little. If participants are intrinsically motivated, for example, because they are curious about the content or want to achieve a good score, they are much more likely to learn from the eLearning. With gamification, we aim to evoke intrinsic motivation in participants.

There are many elements we can borrow from video games to achieve this motivation, but more is not always better. Choose a few elements that resonate with your target audience. These might be different for doctors than for firefighters. And remember, gamification is a nice addition to your learning solution, but nothing more. Your content must still have appropriate didactic methods and a logical structure. The game elements ensure that participants engage with this content attentively.