Gamification in Science Education. A Systematic Review of the Literature

Abstract

The implementation of gamification in education has attracted many researchers to increase engagement and achieve learning more effectively. Implementing technology in science curricula has seen a massive influx over the past years to stop the decline in students’ motivation towards science learning and promote scientific thinking. This study’s objective is to present the empirical findings of the state-of-the-art literature on the use of gamification in science education. Therefore, we performed a systematic literature review of 24 empirical research papers published in various electronic databases and the web search engine for scholarly literature and academic resources, Google Scholar, between 2012 and 2020. This review reveals the latest emerging trends of gamification in science education while revealing the literature gap, challenges, impediments, and extending the possibilities for future research directions. It examines the conflicting findings of other studies and provides a framework and insight for future researchers regarding content areas, educational levels, theoretical models, outcomes, methodologies, game elements, and assessment tools.

Gamification Design Elements to Enhance Adolescent Motivation in Diagnosing Depression

“…The findings were used to form a depression diagnosis model based on a gamification technique to ensure continuous adolescent engagement. It is consistent with a previous study [51] that the use of the gamification method boosts students' motivation and engagement and contributes positively to the growth of adolescents' interest and attitudes at schools [18].…”

“…Challenges are the critical element in improving adolescent intrinsic motivation, while rewards and feedback elements can satisfy the adolescents' intrinsic feelings. These marks are also consistent with another study, suggesting that a well-designed gamification application, integrating emerging game mechanics and game components, helped increase motivational outcomes [51].…”

“…Gamified applications have mainly been used due to their theoretical ability in creating game motivational power [51]. Motivational theory [52] involves intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.…”

A Study of the Impact of Arduino and Visual Programming In Self-Efficacy, Motivation, Computational Thinking and 5th Grade Students’ Perceptions on Electricity

“…As motive we consider anything that encourages a person to act and it is believed that it affects the reasons and the way of human behavior, learning and achievement (Kalogiannakis, Papadakis & Zourmpakis, 2021). Motivation is distinguished in intrinsic and extrinsic; intrinsic motivation urges a person to engage in a task, the completion of which is an end in itself and it aims at the personal satisfaction and development and is related to academic achievement and self-efficacy, while extrinsic motivation is the positive or negative reinforcement which is created by the students' background and puts them into action (Bye, Pushkar & Conway, 2007;Kalogiannakis, Papadakis & Zourmpakis, 2021). It is imperative for the teacher to know which kind of motivation to use so that the students perform better (Kalogiannakis, Papadakis, & Zourmpakis, 2021).…”

The Effect of Integrating an Educational Robot with Hypermedia on Students’ Acquisition of Scientific Concepts: The Case of Fifth-Grade Students

“…Science education is considered an essential portion of 21st-century education [15]; despite this, some issues need to be considered, such as students' motivation toward science and their difficulty comprehending scientific concepts, especially abstract ones. Some studies have demonstrated that students' misconceptions can affect their understanding and learning achievements [16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Moreover, some countries have revealed a weakness among their students in science outcomes following the Program for International Student Assessment and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) [20][21].…”