Abstract:

The acquisition of specific vocabulary is essential for demonstrating command of industry-specific terminology and acquiring soft skills as efficient communication (1). In addition, it has been demonstrated that knowing the specific meaning of concepts is mandatory to raise the level of learning and turn a problem into an easy-to-understand solution (2). On the other hand, since we are in a digital and globalized world, rigorous research using scientific search tools can be only carried out by introducing specific concepts (or keywords) correctly (3). Nevertheless, students have difficulties in understanding and memorizing these concepts since they only focus on the specific contents of the subject (4). One of the ways to favor the pleasant learning of those concepts or topics that suppose a great intellectual challenge is through gamification (5). In this sense, "The alphabet game" in the British version, or “Pasapalabra” in the Spanish one, is a popular television show that consists of relating each letter of the alphabet with a definition. The aim of the present study was to determine if the use of gamification based on “The alphabet game” would serve to improve the mastery of concepts related to food processing in a motivating way for students. To this end, the study was carried out with 64 students of Food Science and Technology (3rd year) in the subject Food Processing I. After teaching each practical session associated to a specific theoretical lesson, a glossary of terms was requested from each student as a self-learning activity. At the end of all the lessons, an objective test following the same structure to that of the famous television game was carried out, that is, the students had to write the correct word associated with the given definition. Afterwards, the students had to complete a survey about implementation of gamification activities at university level: alternatives used for acquiring the vocabulary terms, degree of motivation and concepts retention, possibility of being implemented in other areas of study, and global satisfaction with the methodology. Finally, both the percentage of correct answers and the data collected by the survey were statistically treated anonymously. Results show that despite there was no correlation between the score and the degree of satisfaction with the methodology, a high percentage of students agree that the way of assessing the concepts motivated them when preparing the activity, think that the methodology favors the concepts learning, and desire that these activities were implemented in other subjects.

Keywords:

Gamification, concepts, self-learning, knowledge, learning.