- Gamification has become much more popular in recent years, not only in business models but also in academic research articles. 
- Empirical support on the effectiveness of gamification is much needed in order to dispel the confusion on how positive or negative gamification really is.
- This paper aims to review pre-existing empirical studies on gamification in order to contribute to our understanding of the topic.
- Due to the lack of clarity around which studies truly focus on gamification, the authors of this paper also aim to explore what papers who seemingly focus on gamification are actually studying as motivational affordances and psychological and behavioral outcomes.

Introduction (Hamari et al. 2014)

- search terms: "gamification," "gamif*," "gameful," “motivational affordance” 
- search engines: Scopus, ScienceDirect, EBSCOHost, Web of Science, ACM Digital library, AISel, Google Scholar, Proquest
- table 1 shows all search results, not filtering for academic content
- after the initial search, the researchers narrowed down the results to: 
     - peer-reviewed, 
     - empirical study, 
     - research methods were explained, 
     - motivational affordances were clearly identifiable, 
     - studied gamification, not games
- the scientists then checked through the references of the papers to catch any key papers they may have missed. They found 1 additional relevant paper.
- ended with 24 peer-reviewed academic study articles

Literature review methods (Hamari et al. 2014)

- 1 the motivational affordances (object traits that provide users with the experience of fulfilling their psychological needs, often used to facilitate extrinsic and intrinsic motivation) established as dependent variables by each study
- 2 any psychological outcomes that have been recorded (as independent or dependent variables) in the studies
- 3 the behavioral outcomes that were recorded as dependent variables in each study
- 4 discover which services gamification has been used with
- 5 which methods have been implemented to analyze the effects of the gamifications

Aims of the peer-review (Hamari et al. 2014)

- all articles addressed the question of "does gamification work?" but the 24 papers still had varying implementations of motivational affordances, measurements of effectiveness (measuring different types of outcomes), results (negative or positive), and contexts

Results (Hamari et al. 2014)

- the reviewed articles suggest that yes, gamification does work, but there are some caveats 
- there are many layers to the effects of gamification that need to be studied 
- the reviewed papers contained two key aspects: 1) the role of the context, 2) user qualities
- for future research on gamification, studies are strongly recommended to include more complex and far-reaching methodologies 

Discussion (Hamari et al. 2014)

This is a paper that peer-reviewed research articles on gamification.

Chapman University

The application of engagement-based design ideas found in games, specifically focusing on how games can engage and motivate participants to return to the medium.

Gamification

Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., & Sarsa, H. (2014). Does gamification work? -- A literature review of empirical studies on gamification. In 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 3025-3034). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/hicss.2014.377

Does Gamification Work? -- A Literature Review of Empirical Studies on Gamification

1Cademy allows users to contribute and curate content, in the form of nodes. While the system is open and easily changeable, would there be any benefits to require the user to curate first, then create (or vice versa), similar to the "time banking" system found in i2istudy?

Integration of a "virtual economy"

i2istudy allows users to spend and gain time by learning and teaching on the platform, respectively. The goal of this system is to (extrinsically) motivate users to contribute to the platform, in addition to using it.

"Time-banking" system

Users are given lesson plans with specific goals in teaching to help structure their sessions. These lessons plans are created and moderated by the i2istudy team, allowing the usage platform to be more directed, and less like other similar online language learning methods.

Guided Content Usage

Timely and/or immediate feedback in response to user input can motivate users to continue interacting with said material.

Immediacy of Response

Enabling self-expression through the customization of personal profile images / avatars, other descriptors/qualifications, or achievements.

Creating space for self-expression

Each user has their own goals when interacting with a platform. When incorporating gamified mechanics, we need to consider which subset of users we may be (inadvertently) catering/empowering to.
Bartle's Taxonomy provides us a graph of potential user interests:
- Emphasizing Acting vs Emphasizing Interacting
- Emphasizing Users vs Emphasizing Content

Bartle's Taxonomy

Sequential benefits, time-to-completion, or cascading information arranged in such a way that extrinsically shows user improvement over a period of time.

Progression Mechanics

Design elements borrowed from games and entertainment media—such as badges, points, and leaderboards—are effective in their native, non-educational context, but applying them directly to education can undermine the intended learning goals. For example, extrinsic reward structures like badges and points can undermine learners' intrinsic motivation rather than support it.

Gamification - Criticisms

Images, both still and moving, can be used to assist in learning and teaching. Compared to conventional lecturing / oral expository, visualizations can greatly improve the learning experience, but only if said visualization is well made, clear, and robust enough.

Dynamic / Static Visualizations

Dicheva, D., Dichev, C., Agre, G., Angelova, G. Gamification in Education: A Systematic Mapping Study. (2014). Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 18(3), 75-88.


Gamification in Education: A Systematic Mapping Study

- Does gamification work?--a literature review of empirical studies on gamification. by Juho Hamari, Jonna Koivisto, Harri Sarsa in 2014

Gamification References

An overview of the most used game elements in online learning (including MOOCs) and the current valid effects of gamification on user behavior.

The Effects of Gamification in Online Learning Environments: A Systematic Literature Review

An overview of the factors for the rise of gamification since the beginning of the century and how to improve users’ learning motivation in games in the future. 

Gamification: Designing for motivation

Most Common Gamification Elements
- Badges and Rewards
- Leaderboards
- Points
- Behavior
- Levels
- Social Influences
- Goals

Gamification Elements' Effects

Gamification has been used in mobile applications to encourage users to modify their behavior. Gameification in mobile apps typically includes the use of game elements like points, levels, leaderboards, social interaction, and goal setting.

Gameification in Mobile Applications

Gamified systems have been shown to increase engagement with the learning material, specifically within an educational setting, and retain motivation when given the ability to have autonomy in the gamification system

Gamification and Motivation

Alsawaier, R. S. (2017). The effect of gamification on motivation and engagement. The International Journal of Information and Learning Technology, 35(1), 55–79.

Alsawaier (2017)

Osipov, I. V., Nikulchev, E., Volinksy, A. A., & Prasikova, A. Y. (2015). Study of Gamification Effectiveness in Online e-Learning Systems. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 6(2), 71-77. https://doi.org/10.14569/ijacsa.2015.060211

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