Abstract
This study examines the effect of gamifying and adding problem-solving aspects to discussion prompts in online courses with the goal of increasing the quantity and quality of student work. It was also a goal to foster motivation, engagement, and critical thinking skills. Results show an increase in the number of posts, the quality of posts as evaluated by the instructor, and student satisfaction with the overall course judged by responses to a survey administered at the end of the course. A number of recommendations are made, including furthering the use of student choice in how coursework is completed, promoting teamwork, and using incentives to increase student engagement.
TopIntroduction
As Developing an online course that is well organized, engages students, and is equivalent to face-to-face counterparts in terms of rigor and learning outcomes can be challenging. Specifically, the challenge to create sustainable, appealing, motivating, and well-structured discussion forums that involve students in active learning can be particularly difficult. This may be true, in particular, for early career faculty members or those who are making a transition from face-to-face to online teaching.
One of the authors of the current paper (referred to as “Dr. Jones” to maintain anonymity) updated a course to improve the level of student engagement with the material in an effort to enhance the quality student work and, ultimately, student learning. In 2015, Dr. Jones wanted to determine if adding game-based elements to an online Social Psychology course at State University would incentivize students to improve the quality and quantity of their discussion posts. The course originally entailed many features of a face-to-face course, including online quizzes and exams, several brief written assignments, discussion forums, and a research paper. The discussion forums were intended to provide opportunities for student-to-student interaction as students were required to respond individually to the instructor’s initial prompt and then to classmates’ posts. As the semester progressed, both the quality and quantity of student participation, as determined by the number of posts, declined. It became clear that most students were not dedicating the desired time and effort to further the discussion but instead were simply mimicking the thoughts and ideas of classmates who had posted earlier. Given that the forums were not leading students to actively engage with the course material, it was evident that a change was desired in order to facilitate the students’ engagement with the course material.
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of transforming the typically formatted discussion forum activity into a gamified version that included problem-solving aspects. The research questions were:
- 1.
Does gamifying discussion forums increase the quantity of students’ discussion posts?
- 2.
Does gamifying discussion forums improve the quality of students’ discussion posts?
- 3.
Does gamifying discussion forums improve student satisfaction with the course?
Key Terms in this Chapter
Gamification: The act of introducing gaming elements, liked scoring and leadership boards, to serve as incentives and motivators to students to participate and participate fully.
Active Learning: This refers to any instructional material or activity that encourages students to interact with the content, their instructor(s), or each other to learn new information.
Charter: In this case, a charter is a document signed by all parties within a formed team that defines the team’s purpose, roles and responsibilities, scope of their task(s), and timeline.
Critical Thinking: A higher-order thinking skill, one uses critical thinking to objectively analyze information and make a judgement on the validity of the given information while drawing reasonable conclusions that are not explicitly provided in the material.
Engagement: In this case, “engagement” describes a student’s interaction, or engagement, with active learning components.
Netiquette: A portmanteau for the words “etiquette” and “internet,” it describes cores rules for engaging online.
Facilitator: In this case, a “facilitator” moderates and directs the activity within a discussion forum.
Incentivization: The act of building incentives into an activity to increase student motivation to participate and participate fully.