Abstract:

Emotion is involved in humans’ memory, attention or creativity. By addressing affective components, the teaching and learning process can be enhanced [1] and the students’ motivation and engagement increased. Games are clearly emotion triggers, as they offer players enjoyment, stress and other emotional experiences [2]. Consequently, the involvement of students in their academic learning can emerge as a result of a gamified experience.

A gamified teaching and learning experience integrates the process of game-thinking and game mechanics to engage students and solve problems in a non-game context [3]. Game elements such as points, levels, leaderboards or challenges can be included in a gamified experience in education) and this methodology has proved to be an effective and useful teaching-learning tool at all educational levels [4].

Further, self-assessment is beneficial both for the lecturers and students. Encouraging students to examine their own learning and levels of understanding can promote intrinsic motivation, help them to set realistic goals, track their own progress or signal a 'wake-up call' identifying areas that require improvement. Further, lecturers learn about the students' real comprehension and help them to identify gaps in students' knowledge [5].

Reasons are not too clear, but there is a high dropout rate in the first year of the Degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Balearic Islands (UIB). Studies carried out by the Higher Polytechnic School are analyzing factors such as the entry grade of the students to the degree or the priority in the list of selected degrees. Parallelly, initiatives to motivate and engage the 1st year students are welcomed and supported by the board of directors.

In this work we present the results of a project presented to the “Call for projects for innovation and improvement of the quality of teaching” funded by the Research and Educational Innovation Institute (IRIE) of the UIB. First, we review works aiming at gamifying 1st year Programming courses at university level and works about the importance of self-assessment. Second, we present a case study of our own experience at the University of Balearic Islands which uses gamification and self-assessment activities aiming at students to work and evaluate themselves constantly during the whole course. We describe tasks for working particular learning goals and rewarding students with ProgCoins for their competency in that subject. As the course advances the challenges get more difficult and require a higher level of knowledge. Later, ProgCoins can be redeemed for extra questions in the written exam or extra days to hand-in the practical assignments. Further, we included self-assessment tests in the e-learning platform. The gamified and self-assesment activities were completely voluntary, and still 54% of the students participated in one or more tasks.

References:
[1] Z.A. Green, S. Batool. Emotionalized learning experiences: Tapping into the affective domain. Eval Program Plann, 2019
[2] K. Salen, E. Zimmerman. Rules of play: game design fundamentals. MIT Press, 2003.
[3] S. Deterding, D. Dixon, R. Khaled, L. Nacke. From game design elements to gamefulness: defining gamification. Proc. MindTrek '11. ACM, 2011
[4] J. Majuri, J. Koivisto, J. Hamari. Gamification of education and learning: A review of empirical literatura. Proc. GamiFIN 2018, 2018
[5] H.L. Andrade. A Critical Review of Research on Student Self-Assessment. Front Educ 27, 2019

Keywords:

Gamification, Programming course, Self-assessment.