Abstract:

Gamification refers to the use of elements related to game design in non-game contexts. The use of gamification in teaching-learning processes has several benefits that promote the educational process of students. Gamification seeks to increase the level of motivation, participation and commitment of learners, generating a positive impact on learning, through the use of mechanisms of interest, emotion and fun. In the area of computer programming, studies have been conducted that highlight the use of gamification to promote motivation, participation and support the learning of topics related to the area. However, more empirical studies are needed to understand the impact of gamification on several educational aspects. For this reason, the objective of this paper is to present an experience in which a gamification tool was selected and integrated into an introductory computer programming course. From a literature review and a comparative analysis using criteria matrices, the CodeGym tool was selected. This tool supports the learning process of basic computer programming concepts using the Java programming language. This gamified tool integrates elements related to the game such as points, badges, progress bars, levels, leaderboards, unlimited attempts, among others. The participants were 17 students from the undergraduate program in Systems Engineering, who were given the opportunity to spend part of their class time developing the modules included in the gamified tool.

The data collected in this learning experience with CodeGym is related to two aspects: participation and students' perception. The participation was characterized by the number of interventions made by the students in the gamified environment, extracting quantitative data of the number of attempts in the solution of the exercises, levels completed, achievements reached, badges obtained, among others. Secondly, a survey was carried out to find out the students' perceptions and the results were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Results show that the experience using gamification promotes students' level of participation and confidence in learning. As for the participation that the students showed, a high level of persistence could be observed during the development of the exercises; when the level of difficulty of the exercise increased, generally the students continued trying until the objective was achieved. The students expressed in the survey that they perceived a more playful and recreational learning environment, which generated a greater interest in the topics of the course. Also, CodeGym was rated by the students as a good complement to the traditional classes. Results of this experience contribute to a better understanding of the benefits and challenges that exist using computer-assisted gamified environments to support the teaching-learning processes of computer programming.

Keywords:

Gamification, Learning, Computer programming, Experience report.