Are They Learning or Playing? Moderator Conditions of Gamification’s Success in Programming Classrooms

Abstract

Students face several difficulties in introductory programming courses (CS1), often leading to high dropout rates, student demotivation, and lack of interest. The literature has indicated that the adequate use of gamification might improve learning in several domains, including CS1. However, the understanding of which (and how) factors influence gamification’s success, especially for CS1 education, is lacking. Thus, there is a clear need to shed light on pre-determinants of gamification’s impact . To tackle this gap, we investigate how user and contextual factors influence gamification’s effect on CS1 students through a quasi-experimental retrospective study ( N = 399), based on a between-subject design (conditions: gamified or non-gamified) in terms of final grade (academic achievement) and the number of programming assignments completed in an educational system (i.e., how much they practised). Then, we evaluate whether and how user and contextual characteristics (such as age, gender, major, programming experience, working situation, internet access, and computer access/sharing) moderate that effect. Our findings indicate that gamification amplified to some extent the impact of practising. Overall, students practising in the gamified version presented higher academic achievement than those practising the same amount in the non-gamified version. Intriguingly, those in the gamified version that practised much more extensively than the average showed lower academic achievements than those who practised comparable amounts in the non-gamified version. Furthermore, our results reveal gender as the only statistically significant moderator of gamification’s effect: in our data, it was positive for females, but nonsignificant for males. These findings suggest which (and how) personal and contextual factors moderate gamification’s effects, indicate the need to further understand and examine context’s role, and show gamification must be cautiously designed to prevent students from playing instead of learning.

Towards Supporting Cs1 Instructors and Learners With Fine-Grained Topic Detection in Online Judges

“…Recent studies suggested that the MSP approach can help students feel less stressed, more confident, and make them achieve higher levels of satisfaction and greater performance [5,3]. Indeed, based on recent MSP results, an increasing number of computer science departments have adopted this approach in CS1 classes [5,44,15,28,16,48].…”

Affective Memory in Gamified Learning: A Usability Study

“…To achieve that goal, gamification must be well-designed, or it can be ineffective or lead to performance loss and indifference, among other negative effects [Toda et al 2018b]. That happens because poor designs can, for instance, decrease motivation and, consequently, lead to negative behavioral effects, such as careless completion of educational activities [Landers et al 2018, Rodrigues et al 2022. Using design frameworks and personalization strategies, among other alternatives, can maximize gamification effectiveness [Toda et al 2018a, Rodrigues et al 2020].…”

XPCodeHub: Um modelo de sistema gamificado para o aprendizado de programação através de trilhas de conhecimento

“…O estudo foi realizado com 101 estudantes e apesar de ter sido identificado um aumento do desempenho dos alunos no ambiente de aprendizado online, não se observou diferenc ¸a significativa entre os tipos de jogadores nos resultados de aprendizado dos alunos. Rodrigues et al (2022) realizaram um estudo onde elementos de gamificac ¸ão foram adicionados a uma ferramenta de juiz online. Uma ferramenta de juiz online tem foco em competic ¸ão e resoluc ¸ão de desafios de programac ¸ão.…”

“…"Code" representa a prática contínua de codificac ¸ão. Ao expor o aluno a prática constante, o aluno se sente cada vez mais seguro ao programar [Rodrigues et al 2022]. Além disso, o modelo utiliza ferramentas que permitem o aluno executar e avaliar o código implementado antes de submetê-lo para a avaliac ¸ão pelo instrutor.…”

“…Diante deste cenário, esse artigo apresenta um modelo de sistema gamificado, o XPCodeHub, cujo propósito é auxiliar no aprendizado de programac ¸ão através de trilhas de conhecimento. Aprender programac ¸ão exige um esforc ¸o significativo dos aprendizes, visto que demanda um tempo considerável de prática para o aprendizado [Rodrigues et al 2022]. Desta forma, o modelo propõe trilhas de conhecimento, construídas através da combinac ¸ão de elementos de gamificac ¸ão considerados essenciais para o engajamento e motivac ¸ão dos estudantes [Toda et al 2019], como: objetivos, níveis e progressão.…”