Abstract:

Data analytics is a required competence for students in almost all knowledge areas, however, undergraduates find the learning of this ability quite difficult and tedious. Although they usually do not seem to have any trouble doing a graphical representation of a set of points, frequently they are not able to conclude anything apart from the possibility of a relation between the represented quantities. Consequently, they are not able to make a quantitative analysis of the results and, conclusions based on the graphical analysis lack important information.

This problem is particularly decisive in experimental work, where measured data must be thoroughly analyzed in order to achieve valid conclusions. It has been shown that specific introductory laboratory sessions designed to introduce these basic concepts and abilities are very useful, but, nevertheless, this topic is not appealing for the students, and the training results are not as good as they should ideally be.

Gamification of lessons takes advantage of the predisposition of students for the game, and therefore a gamification of the introductory session devoted to graphical analysis could overcome this situation. In this work, a gamification design is described and the students valuation of the activity is reported. The basis of this proposal is the transformation of the introductory lab-session into a quest where a mystery must be resolved by means, among others, of graphical analysis. In addition, students compete in groups to find the answer, and they achieve different scores according to the chronological order of the finding of the solution.

Keywords:

Serious Games, Gamification, Data analytics.