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Online learning is an educational instruction that enables educators to perform completely asynchronous or partly synchronous pedagogical procedures based on online technologies (Broadbent, 2017). Online learning allows learners to participate in pedagogical practice beyond the limitations of face-to-face time and location (Luo, Lin, & Yang, 2021). Especially after the breakout of COVID-19, educators have been increasingly implementing online learning (Schneller & Holmberg, 2014; Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018). Based on the accessible and flexible designs in online learning, educators and learners can enjoy more inclusive experiences, customized procedures, and student-centered activities (Huang, Liu, Tlili, Yang, & Wang, 2020; Zuo, Ma, Hu, & Luo, 2020).
Online learning has created various activities compatible with the accessible and flexible online techniques. For instance, online discussion forums, with their interactive functions, are the extensively-utilized activities in blended online learning (Payne, 2020; Saeed & Ghazali, 2017). Influenced by the reciprocal community involving text-based communications, learners could achieve timely self-reflection, critical thinking, self-awareness (Saeed & Ghazali, 2017), knowledge construction at the social level, and constant contributions of input and output (Bailey, Almisharraf, & Hatcher, 2021). In other words, immersive and interactive experiences could encourage learners to achieve particular goals and reinforce expected outcomes.
Compatible with the flexible and interactive features of online learning, games involve a series of interesting and meaningful choice designs allowing participants to achieve precise and compelling goals based on specific mechanism (Kim, Song, Lockee, & Burton, 2018). Games in the education context could be implemented in the form of digital games with the intention of learning, training, or health care (Loh, Sheng, & Ifenthaler, 2015). Defined by rules, participants in the game systems would engage themselves in an artificial conflict for quantifiable outcomes (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). The increasingly accessible and flexible online learning techniques enabled educators to implement game or game-related elements in pedagogical practices (Chans & Castro, 2021; Hassan, Habbiba, & Majeed, 2021; Kim et al., 2018).
These implementations have contributed to numerous game-related pedagogies aiming to enhance learners’ enjoyment and effectiveness of instruction (Kim et al., 2018; Yamani, 2021). Ludicization is one of the game-related pedagogies in the online learning context and it involves game elements integrated with online learning. The concept “ludicization” is mainly mentioned and discussed from the study Sanchez, Young, & Jouneau-Sion, 2016. Ludicization stands for the process of transforming the original reference contexts into enjoyable, ludic, and playful situations rather than just making a game (Sanchez, Young, & Jouneau-Sion, 2016). We defined and summarized the features of ludicization in the section 2.1.