THE STUDENT, THE PROFESSOR AND THE PLAYER: USAGE FOR GAMIFICATION AND SERIOUS GAMES IN ACADEMIC EDUCATION – A SURVEY

Introduction:
The two main ways to use gamification – which itself can be defined as the use of the mechanics, rules and techniques known from various kinds of games in non-gaming context to increase user’s engagement in performing various types of activities – is to use in a context of either educational games or gamified classroom. In this paper the former notion will be used in a broader context of serious games – games designed for other that entertaining purposes , as it should be noticed that they may not be aimed at “purely educational” purposes.

Survey and experiment:
The main goal of this paper is to determine how gamification and serious games are used in various contexts of an academic education.
Authors conducted a survey on a group of 100 academic teachers working in different European countries in which higher education is organised due to the Bologna process (this requirement was introduced for facilitation of data analysis and comparison). Teachers were surveyed on their use of and approach to gamification and serious games: how they use them, why they use them (or why they don’t) and when they use them.

The influence of gamification and serious games on students’ results was also analysed and discussed.