Abstract:

Gamification started to be spread in Education in the last decade, and it starts to be a “trendy” method. It is most widely used in higher education via technology, as online learning management system or videogames. This paper presents an experiment of using a paper based gamification during a Mathematics course for second year Primary and Preschool Pedagogy specialization students with the purpose of evaluation. A pyramidal four-level point acquisition system was developed. The base of the pyramid was level 1 with 6 points to collect, then level 2 with 4 points, level 3 with 2 points, and level 4 with 1 point. The difficulty of the tasks increased with the level. Students could jump from a level to the next one only if they earned all the necessary points on the level they were situated.
A questionnaire with 14 items were developed: two closed questions (a multiple choice question, 10 affirmations measured on a 5-level Likert scale) and three open questions (advantage and disadvantages they observed and suggestions for modifications in the given gamification). 27 students have filled in the questionnaire. The responses show that using gamification for evaluation students were present at more courses and they were more active in solving the problems. They considered the tasks interesting and variate. Students liked the idea of gamification and they are willing to use it in their teaching. As regarding advantages, students found gamification motivating for active participation and they considered these lessons more interesting and attractive than those without gamification. As regarding the disadvantages respondents observed that some of the course-mates concentrated only on the acquisition of the points through any means and the gamification developed the extrinsic motivation. The recommendation of the students refers changing the rules of obtaining points and decreasing the stake of the gamification in the final mark.

Keywords:

Gamification, mathematics course, pre-service primary school teachers, pre-service preschool teachers.