AN INVESTIGATION OF THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN GAMIFIED LEARNING IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Gamification is becoming part of daily life with growing use in the learning context. The research literature shows that gamified learning can have a positive impact on student motivation, and hence there is a need to reflect upon the pedagogic requirements of gamified learning. Furthermore, existing literature acknowledges the value of teachers’ input in game design processes; however, evidence also seems to suggest that the teacher’s role in gamification design remains undefined and underexplored. For this reason, an investigation was designed to examine primary school teachers' engagement in gamified learning design and categorise the gamification aspects in a learning context from the teacher’s perspective. A survey involving sixty-four Saudi Arabian primary school teachers identified gamification aspects which were perceived as teacher-driven tasks in the gamified learning design process. Building on the results of the survey, six in-depth interviews explored how teachers interacted with the gamified learning design process.

The results of the investigation showed that teachers, in general, have a high level grasp of gamification concepts in theory. Teachers positively identified gamification aspects such as the story of the game, rules, timing, and related elements as teacher-driven tasks. However, teachers demonstrated a lack of confidence in applying gamification aspects when asked to complete high level gamification design tasks. For instance, some teachers found the use of gamification input methods and elements such as adding a timing rule for bonus levels as challenging, although they had previously identified these as teacher-driven tasks. In addition, there was a misapplication of concepts, illustrated by the use of in-class rules as gamification rules, i.e. game-specific rules.

The research indicated a requirement for a pedagogic gamification framework to support a collaborative strategy between teachers and game developers. A collaborative approach will facilitate teacher involvement in the gamified learning design process, will support better design of the gamification process flow and will enable a better fit to pedagogic requirements. This paper proposes as future work, the development of a pedagogic gamification framework to bridge the gulf between teachers’ theoretical knowledge of gamification in education and the practical application of gamification in a school context.