Towards Reinforcing Generic Competences in Higher Education Students Using Gamification

Deficiencies in generic competences (e.g. critical reading and quantitative reasoning) have been identified in Colombian undergraduate students. Tackling this problem, a gamified system for motivating students to reinforce generic competences has been developed by Universidad del Valle using a player centred design methodology. The gamification strategy is composed by four mechanics: First, a training zone where students can improve generic competences (e.g., quantitative reasoning and reading comprehension). Second, an improvement shop where students exchange earned points for power-ups. Third, a badge system, which presents different tasks that students must perform to win a set of medals. Lastly, an abilities diagram that measures students' performance. A web prototype was built to support the gamification strategy. The prototype was iteratively tested using functional and nonfunctional testing, to guide the development process. Also, the gamification strategy was validated using a heuristic evaluation, confirming that the content to be used in the gamification strategy should be designed according to student's preferences, otherwise, the strategy may fail. The main limitation of this research is that the sample of users is not representative of Universidad del Valle student population and some evaluated features and graphical resources of the application are still being developed.