The Knowing Doing Gap of Implementing Gamification to Engage Students in the Classroom
Authors: Smith Devon T. , Malmgren Lauren E. , Nguyen Sarah E. , Read Chloe C. , Wisco Jonathan J. 
Published: June 2021

Gamification, the practice of presenting or reinforcing classroom content through games, is an engaged learning tool to improve knowledge retention and morale among students. Complex games may require forethought to create, but once developed, game structures can be used as templates and modified for a variety of content. However, games can also be simple active learning exercises. Despite knowing the benefits of using games, many educators are resistant to implementing them in practice. Our goal in this study was to train, by demonstrating examples, near‐peer human anatomy teaching assistants (TA's) to include gamification in their learning experiences. We then ascertained and evaluated barriers to implementation. In this IRB approved study, all 124 first semester TA's in the BYU Human Anatomy program from January 2015–December 2017 were required to self‐evaluate progress in their teaching and learning skills throughout the semester. TA's answered 12 reflection questions, one each week for 12 weeks. In September 2017 we implemented a 6‐week training program in which TA's were trained on six different teaching strategies, one of which included gamification. In December 2017, we asked the current 86 TA's (all of whom also responded to the “pre‐training” reflection questions) to participate in a voluntary “post‐training” Qualtrics survey to assess their comfortability using the different pedagogical skills. The survey included Likert and free response question types. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze free response data by using word cloud generators to identify the most commonly used words in responses. The identified words assisted in developing themes for a qualitative analysis. This study reports on the results pertaining to gamification. Novice TA's identified formative quizzing in the classroom and/or study group learning experiences as providing the most effective form of feedback for students. Although having fun in the learning process was a dominant theme with regard to learning, only one of a total 124 responses identified games as an ideal teaching method, and only seven identified games as an ideal learning method. After being trained, 47 of 86 TA's responded to our survey, declaring that gamification was the most difficult pedagogy to implement. Identified barriers to implementation included inadequate time to prepare and implement gamification, lack of student preparedness, and general disinterest for using gamification as a teaching tool. TA's also perceived that students valued formative quizzing over games, even though TA's treated most quizzing sessions as simple games. In this study, we showed that despite having a desire to establish fun, formative learning experiences, trained TA's were reluctant to incorporate games into their pedagogy. Based on feedback, it appears that TA's may not realize that the gamification process and implementation can be simple. Future training will need to address the actual process of creating games, and how to change the students' cultural perception of learning.

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.