Abstract:

In this research, we look at the process that was developed to conduct two national infocomm competitions in Singapore where more than a thousand students from over fifty schools participated. Students completed online, game-based challenges to qualify for and then attend live events where they were required to demonstrate their newly acquired skills in a proctored and competitive environment. Game-based learning was used exclusively to teach the participants new skills and then various gamification features such as school rankings, leaderboards, and completion metrics were used to provide additional motivation and encouragement. The top online qualifiers from each school were invited to more exclusive live events where they had an opportunity to interact with their fellow qualifiers from other schools. At these live events, students were provided with new game-based challenges that required the students to work with a partner to apply the skills acquired while playing through the educational levels of the online game to create new solutions which were competitive with the solutions developed by their peers. We discuss the lessons learned from conducting these events, the skills that were acquired by students in a self-directed manner while playing the online game, and the varying levels of time and effort students expended to support their schools and attempt to qualify for the live events. We also pay particular attention to the intrinsically motivated learning that appears to have taken place by the majority of students who were not competing for the top spots to represent their schools but still went on to complete many more online challenges than were required to support their schools and their fellow students.