Abstract:

Motivating and engaging students are undoubtedly great challenges for lecturers at tertiary level. Nowadays, Information and communication technologies (ICT) offer an enormous range of resources and tools that can be used in the classroom in order to engage and motivate students. Consequently, new teaching trends and strategies are constantly emerging in higher education classrooms. One of these trends is gamification, which has become very popular during the last years as it has been proved to be a great tool to increase students' motivation, participation and engagement and, as a result, it favors teaching-learning processes and academic performance. However, although new technologies and trends should not be ignored by instructors, they should be aware that it could turn out to be a double-edged sword that, if used inappropriately, may lead to distractions, having a negative impact on the teaching-learning process and student performance. Therefore, their implementation should be carefully planned and designed according to the students’ needs in order to impact positively on their motivation, engagement and academic achievement.

In the case of gamification, several aspects should be taken into consideration before implementing it. First, gamification is a means and not an end in itself, therefore, there should be clear teaching objectives behind a gamification proposal. Secondly, the three main elements of gamification−dynamics, mechanics and components−should be well defined as this is an essential aspect for the organization and structure of the gamification experience. Finally, in order to guarantee the implementation success, special attention should be paid to students' willingness to participate as well as to their expectations and attitudes towards the gamification experience.

The purpose of this study is to analyze students' expectations, attitudes and perceptions about gamification as a prior step to design a gamification proposal which will be implemented in university Foreign Language (FL) courses in two state universities from Southern Spain. To this end, an open questionnaire was distributed among the undergraduate students enrolled in two different FL courses from the Schools of Philology and Translation of the participating institutions.

The first part of the questionnaire included students' demographic details and the second part was formed by a series of open questions related to:
(1) their previous knowledge about gamification, resources and tools,
(2) their expectations and attitudes concerning a future gamification experience, and
(3) their perceptions concerning the advantages and disadvantages of gamification in terms of FL improvement, academic accomplishment, engagement and motivation, among others.

The questionnaires were analyzed using qualitative software NVivo 12 and results were used as a base to design a gamification experience to be implemented in FL courses at university. This research is part of a teaching innovation project granted and funded by the University of Almeria (Spain). The contents of this chapter may be potentially useful for researchers and practitioners in the field of ICT use and gamification in FL learning at university level.

Keywords:

Gamification, student perception, universtiy, tertiary education, qualitative, needs analysis.