# Development of Students' Skills through Gamification and Serious Games: An Exploratory Study
## 3 Methodology  
Given the heterogeneity and large number of digital resources currently available, in order to carry out our analysis in which we intend to relate a series of solutions to the different digital competences defined in the European Framework DigCompEdu, a systematic and delimited search of different serious games and gamification tools has been carried out. To do this, we used the Google Academic document search engine and based our search on different terms such as \"gamification\", \"gamification tools\", and \"serious games\". The inclusion and exclusion criteria of the different solutions that we located were based on aspects such as their popularity and rating (cases such as Kahoot, Minecraft, or Zoom), due to their repeated appearance in the different related works analysed in this \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline
**Area** & **Competence** & **Definition** \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{Evaluation and feedback} & A4 C1 & Assessment strategies & To conduct formative and summative assessment, improving assessment formats and perspectives through technology. \\ \cline{2-4}  & A4 C2 & Learning analytics & To generate and critically analyse digital statistics on students’activity, performance, and progress to improve teaching and learning. \\ \cline{2-4}  & A4 C3 & Feedback, scheduling and decision making & To provide feedback, adapt pedagogical strategies, and offer specific reinforcement to students through technology. Use them in decision making. \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{Student empowerment} & A5 C1 & Accessibility and inclusion & To ensure access to learning resources and activities for all types of students and needs. \\ \cline{2-4}  & A5 C2 & Personalization & To offer different levels, paces, and objectives to students depending on their individual learning needs. \\ \cline{2-4}  & A5 C3 & Active engagement of students with their own learning & To encourage cross-cutting competencies, complex thinking, and creative expression of students; innovate in learning and real contexts through activities in research or complex problem solving. \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{Development of students’ digital competence} & A6 C1 & Information and media literacy & To offer activities that cover students’ information needs; find information and resources in digital environments, analyse and interpret information, critically evaluating its reliability and credibility and its sources. \\ \cline{2-4}  & A6 C2 & Digital communication and collaboration & To encourage students to use technology effectively and responsibly for communication, collaboration, and civic participation. \\ \cline{2-4}  & A6 C3 & Digital content creation & To carry out activities for modifying and creating digital content. Instruct on copyright, licensing in content, and referencing sources. \\ \cline{2-4}  & A6 C4 & Responsible use & To guarantee the well-being of Students and risk management in the use of technology; safe and responsible use. \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{A6 C5} & \multirow{2}{*}{Digital problem solving} & To include learning activities and assessment where technical problems are solved, or knowledge is extrapolated to other situations. \\ \cline{2-4}  & & & \\ \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: _Cont._study, and the source they come from, such as technological experts, for example Google and Microsoft (Interland and Microsoft Teams applications, respectively), as well as their availability at the time of the search. Subsequently, with each of the located solutions, a classification has been made from the point of view of the use that they can provide educators and the potential that each one offers in the process of knowledge transmission. To carry out the proposed analysis, this work proposes an initial classification into two categories. A first type has been defined, which we have called \"serious games\". This includes those games that offer specific training in a predetermined field or theme.