On Gamification in Action Learning

Abstract

The advent of globalisation brought about by advances in information and communication technology has triggered major changes in the way people work, live and study. The modern teaching endeavour must meet the needs of a fundamentally changing learning environment and student cohorts, while preserving delivered knowledge quality in order to meet the required learning objectives. Flexible teaching (distance/online, intensive mode, afternoon classes etc.), online resources and tools, teachers with industry experience and especially new teaching models matching the new cohorts profile requirements can provide a solid platform for a new paradigm in the higher education domain.

This research has investigated how a customised application of 'gamification' (taking game-based elements and applying them in non-gaming contexts) to higher education can improve the learning and teaching experience and student engagement and thus help towards reducing student attrition. Gamification of the educational endeavour has been studied in the past; however, in this study it is applied within a novel iterative and combined Action Research, Experiential Action Learning, Plan, Implement, Review, Improve and Plan, Do, Study, Act approach that attempts to make contributions to both learning and teaching theory and practice.