Personality Based Gamification – Educational Gamification for Extroverts and Introverts

Gamification in education is being used as a way to increase the student's engagement and learning. While carrying a big promise, little is known about the influence of game elements and mechanics on different personalities, specifically extrovert and introverts, knowledge that is essential to ensure implementations that will not disengage part of the students. In a study performed in an academic course, students (n=102) were faced with several feedback related game mechanics. Immediate feedback mechanics such as points, rewards, badges and comparative feedback mechanics such leaderboards, and progress were used to examines the relations between these elements and the way they increase the perceived playfulness of a semester long project. A Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis of the results based on personality trait of extroversion was performed to examine how extroverts and introverts perceive a specific implementation. Our results show there are significant differences in how these two types of personalities achieve the playfulness of the system and specifically the lack of playfulness of leaderboards. These results are significant for educators who plan to include game elements in their courses.