The Benefits of Gamification in Learning

Learning isn’t actually learning until it is fun and creates excitement to acquire knowledge. We are aware of how students try to mug up things rather than understand the concept. Lack of practical knowledge is also a factor here that seems to abate their motivation and makes learning boring instead. This is where Gamification has proved to be a game-changer in the education industry. 

Gamification breathes life into learning. It’s an exciting trend which many education/eLearning businesses are adopting to revamp their training model. Before we delve into the benefits of gamification in learning, let’s understand what Gamification implies in Learning.

What is Gamification?

Gamification can be defined as a technique to add gaming elements or principles into a non-gaming context. Put simply, it refers to a set of activities that tend to increase user engagement by applying the characteristics of game elements. Gamification has been leveraged to engage, entertain and educate, and makes use of elements like points, leaderboard, or badges to evoke curiosity and interest in users.

• Points are rewarded when a user finishes a certain task.
• Badges display achievement as a user progresses from one level to another.
• Leaderboard displays the top players and encourages competitiveness.

Although the gamification technique/strategy is used across industries, its impact in the eLearning domain has been remarkable. E-learning platforms add gamification into their teaching model in the form of quizzes, educational video games, and more and award users upon completion of a particular task or when they accomplish a challenge.

Read our case study of Budbeed– an online learning platform that we designed for one of our clients.

Related: Mobile App Gamification: Techniques and Best Practices

Benefits of Gamification in Learning

Some of the major benefits of using gamification in learning are-

1. Makes learning fun

Gamification amalgamates education and entertainment, and helps create such content that makes learning fun and interactive besides being informative at the same time. Even the subjects that seem dull and complicated can be easily absorbed by the learners when game elements are added to them. Gamification isn’t meant to turn work into a game but rather make it more exciting by adding a touch of gaming to the content. It changes the psychology of learning and increases the interactivity between the system and user which in turn helps drive more user engagement. Rewards play a major role in this.

Although gamification encourages fun-learning, too much gamification can also distract learners and affect their concentration. Therefore, the elements must be set up well and in a manner that keeps the balance between fun and learning.

2. Enhances learning experience

Gamification is a creative way to help users learn or acquire new skills regardless of their age. It provides learners with the opportunity to engage themselves in an informal yet effective learning environment. There’s no denying that practical knowledge is more important than theoretical knowledge. The involvement of gamification in learning proves quite helpful to achieve that since it nurtures a learner’s skills by linking learning and gaming to practical scenarios. When learners get involved in the content that keeps them engaged through real-life examples and applications, it enhances their learning experience and they are more likely to retain that information or knowledge. This is also because when they have thoughts of achieving rewards at the back of their mind, they tend to pay a lot more attention to the content.

3. Boosts competitiveness and motivation among learners

One of the major benefits of implementing gamification in education is that it boosts learners’ motivation and creates a competitive environment. Badges and leaderboards play an important role here. These gamification elements encourage users to continue learning. Learners are rewarded with upgraded special badges as per their progress achieved. Not only do they give a sense of achievement and authority but make the users feel important and skilled. They are a sign of the learner’s accomplishments. Leaderboard, on the other hand, pushes users to compete and surpass the other learners to be among the top-ranking players or learners. If not for the competitiveness, there won’t be a zeal among the users.

4. Real-time feedback

Feedback is an important aspect of eLearning. It allows you to improve and find out how you can make things better for your learners and what sort of changes you need to make in your gamification strategies in order to be better, based on the users’ learning behavior. Not only it is helpful for the businesses but gamification provides instant feedback to the learners as well based on their understanding of the content. Learners can track their performance and progress in real-time and identify the areas where they are lacking or need to work upon. The best thing about gamification in education is that educational games allow learners to succeed, not by chance, but by having the right knowledge and giving correct responses to the questions. So, upon noticing their progress and realizing if in case they are lagging behind their peers, they might get motivated to move forward and complete the tasks successfully.

Challenges associated with Gamification in Learning

Although gamification possesses great advantages for eLearning, there are certain challenges associated with it during eLearning app development.

1. Design Challenges

Designers face a creativity challenge when designing a gamified learning interface as they have to create interfaces that are different from what they usually design. Besides, implementing gamification in eLearning tends to take a longer development time than traditional instructional design. This is because each phase of the design process right from explaining the concept to storyboarding, design, development, and testing, everything requires extra effort when gamified. The extra investment of time and effort leads to more development costs as well. We haven’t yet involved the cost of stock photos and videos, music and sound effects, and custom animations and graphics that enrich the educational content.

2. Value may dwindle over time

Gamification can be a costly affair not only in terms of development but maintenance as well. The gamification strategies that looked powerful and efficacious earlier might look outdated in a few years or so. Its value could probably decrease over time. Adding to this, learners who would want to go through the content in portions again may not wish to repeat the entire lesson or get involved in the game elements as they have already put their time and effort into it earlier.

3. Games that don’t evoke interest

Gamification is supposed to add fun to learning. If it isn’t doing that, all the efforts that have been put into it would likely go in vain. So, create games that are not only educational but truly enjoyable too. Learners don’t much entertain normal tests and quizzes. Think beyond them. Moreover, any game that you design should ideally connect to the learning objectives. Any rewards that you offer should hold some actual value to the learner.

Final Thoughts

There are ample benefits of gamification in learning, we have just put forward a few important ones. But we hope they gave you enough insights into how they can make an impact in your eLearning or education business. With time, we may come across some new gamification strategies that unlock a new world of gamification and provide us with new ways to capture learners’ attention and at the same time provide them with an enhanced learning experience.

Want to create an eLearning platform or app for your business? Connect with us here.