# Introducing Personal Teaching Environment for Nontraditional Teaching Methods
## 5 Findings: Research Questions 2 and 3
### Gamification  
Gamification is a nontraditional teaching approach that facilitates learning, encourages motivation and engagement, improves learner participation and lesson interactivity, and stimulates learners. Proper implementation can lead to the development of students' knowledge and increase their engagement and motivation through competition. For teachers, it is a powerful tool for teaching and assessing students in the educational system [56; 57; 58; 59]. Gamification definitely became popular shortly after it initially started simply because most learners love gaming [60], it makes learning enjoyable through competitions, challenges, and rewards [61], and it helps in developing critical thinking and multitasking skills [62]. It makes immediate feedback to students' formative purposes possible through the involvement of features such as scores, badges, ranking, and rewards [58]. Using gamification as a formative assessment tool allows the teacher to acquire initial information regarding each student's learning processes [58]. However, to benefit enough from gamification, teachers must design the games carefully to enhance interaction and active participation, rather than only providing entertainment [63].  
In 2018, the authors of [64] provided a gamification design cycle that is shown in Figure 6. The process has six general rules applicable to successfully implement a gamified approach in teaching. In the first step, analysis is required to understand the characteristics and features relative to the setting in which gamification is intended to be employed. The second step highlights defining the problem and designing or building the tool for solving the problem and the means to measure the effects of the involvement. In the third step, the theoretical framework is related to the problem to be solved, and it describes the study-supporting theories. The fourth step involves selecting game elements from a huge available number of games. In the fifth step, the chosen game elements highlight the need for study the problem to be designed and implemented to support the purpose of the involvements, the user experience, the application scenario, and the logic stated in the theoretical framework. The last step evaluates and measures the effectiveness of the involvement.  
Many studies have been conducted to examine the benefits and effectiveness of implementing gamification. In 2019, the authors of [57] investigated students' academic achievement and engagement through Kahoot and Quizz  
Figure 6: The process of gamification design.  
to examine the use of gamification tools that led to any differences in the achievement or the engagement. As a quantitative study result, the authors found an improvement in the students' achievement and engagement. However, Kahoot's impact was significantly better than Quizizz's in visual feedback capacity. Similarly, the authors of [58] investigated students' performance and perceived engagement using Socrative, Quizizz, and iSpring. Two pedagogical interventions were used (paper-based quizzes and gamified e-quizzes) as formative assessments. As a result, both pedagogical methods were effective in assessing students' learning performance. Nonetheless, students were more engaged and competitive in the gamified e-quizzes. Following the pre- and post-tests, the authors of [65] found that students were interested in gamification as a learning tool more than in the traditional classroom, especially regarding the badges element. However, some drawbacks were found due to the internet speed and the condition of the IT equipment.