Abstract:

Gamification is one of many motivation techniques that might be useful when teaching engineering degrees. Engineering students are used to hard work, but they are keen on the engaging challenges games bring about. The proposal of this work is to show some ideas to convert a regular task into a challenge that students could find engaging.

In this work, we have combined the recognition of digital badges with some competitive challenges for our students. Digital badges make the acquisition of skills fun and recognizable. Additionally, digital badges can make visible the skills and achievements of students to their peers and to potential employers. The digital badges are used with two purposes. In the one hand, all the students that reach the maximum mark in certain parts of the assessment of the subject get a digital badge that can be shown in the Learning Management System and in any other form of personal advertisement (Curriculum Vitae, blogs or social networks as LinkedIn). In the other hand, some of the badges are competitive and only the best work or student will achieve it in each case. Some of them are decided by the teaching group and some others by their peers.

Another idea that we have combined with digital badges is the gamification of some of the tasks the students have to tackle in their learning process. In detail, every term we launch a programming competition. There are different tasks that students can choose freely, and they can also complement them with open exercises and their own ideas. The students get point for each task and the student that gets more points wins the competition. The competition is optional and complements the mandatory exercises that all students must do. Just for making it more fun, the students will submit a pseudonym and an avatar (a simple figure) to anonymize their participation in the challenge. Each week, the ranking of points is updated and made public in the learning platform, to let the students know where they sit in the pecking order. The winner gets one of our shiny digital badges and a few extra points for their final mark.

All in all, it has been an interesting experience and the results of the official survey of the course have improved since the implementation of the experimental proposal.

Keywords:

Digital badges, gamification, student engagement, student motivation.