Abstract:

The forethought phase is the first step in self-regulated learning (SRL) in which learners analyze and plan their short- and long-term learning goals. Good strategic planning is crucial for further learning success, but it is also hard to maintain as it relies on one’s personal beliefs, self-efficacy, and especially motivation. Learners’ may skip or avoid the forethought phase because of a desire to start productively and not to ‘waste time’ for assessing and planning. Because of this close relationship of learners’ motivation and zeal to accomplish academic goals and their successful strategic planning, the literature suggests the application of gamification as an effective approach to engage learners and enhance their motivation towards the goal. Even though research on applying gamification in SRL environments is emerging, there is still a lack of gamification solutions concerning the forethought phase.

In this manner, this paper investigates how gamification can foster SRL and pre-sent the design of Learning Strategizer (LeStrat), a plugin for the Moodle Learning Management System (LMS), developed to support the forethought phase. With the usage of strategic game elements such as “Freedom to choose” and “Freedom to fail”, LeStrat suggests to learners the carefully tailored learning paths created by teachers and provides the opportunity to create their paths, based on the educator specified guidelines. Besides being essential support for students, this tool can also be beneficial for teachers and instructional designers, as they can use the provided metrics on learning paths to reflect on course design and explore room for its improvement. This paper presents the design, implementation, and early evaluation results of the LeStrat tool.

Keywords:

Self-regulated learning, forethought phase, gamification, strategic learning, learning goals.