Isolating the Effect of Gamification - Design and Analysis of a Learning Engagement App Tailored to Course Content

Gamification is a pedagogical strategy that uses the principles and mechanics of game play to facilitate student learning. Despite increased adoption over the last decade, the question of how effective gamification is as a pedagogical strategy remains controversial. Here we report on the impact of a custom developed mobile app that incorporates multiple dynamic elements associated with game-based learning, and that was specifically tailored to the course content and learning objectives of an upper year university class in anatomy and physiology, comprised of 118 students with 3rd and 4th year standing and a background in Health Science and Biology. To assess whether gamification does indeed work, we isolated its effects by introducing our app in an unbiased fashion, allowing students to engage as often as they wished across weeks 2-12 of the semester, with no specific grade component attached, and compared their engagement with the app with their performance in class. These data revealed that despite the absence of any direct grade-item related motivation, increased use of the app was positively correlated with improved course outcomes, however this beneficial effect was most evident in high-achieving students, whereby those who both played the app and had greater academic strength, as measured by cumulative grade point average, performed better than predicted. This effect is likely attributable to higher-achieving students being more engaged with learning resources, and their pre-existing greater academic strength providing a better foundation on which to apply the learning benefits of the app. Importantly, the design of this app utilizes transferable principles that mean it can be adapted and implemented by any instructor to reflect their course content and delivery mode, regardless of discipline.