Gamification in formal educational settings 1 Games and Learning: Gamification in formal educational settings

The purpose of this exploratory literature review on games and education is trifold: First, it serves as the final project report for Social Informatics 668 and presents research which indicates a social dimension of learning (while being engaged with a game), which in consequence directly relates to this class and requirements of this report. Second, it introduces gaming and Gamification within an educational context, both formal and informal. Third, it will present particular examples and applications of contemporary research in informal and formal learning environments. Among others, the discussion and conclusions will state that traditional education is in its early steps of a transition from an institutionalized, formal and static model of education towards an innovative, informal, dynamic and more social learning environment using using elements and mechanics of games to enhance student success, motivation and ultimately, to foster a better learning. The conceptual structure of this paper as follows: Section 1 summarizes the two main topics of this paper, games and learning (in formal and informal contexts). Section 1.1 proposes a central hypothesis which states that games and Gamification mechanisms are potentially useful for educational contexts. Picking up on that, section 1.2 summarizes a discussion of current challenges in formal education, accordingly section 1.3 outlines both, the learning possibilities games include, and skills gamers can bring into, learning. Section 2 outlines a concise history of games and learning (section 2.1), defines key terms and concepts (section 2.2) and presents a “directionality dilemma” education and games are somewhat gridlocked into at present (section 2.3 and 2.4). Section 3 highlights two selected studies (section 3.1) and a certain examples Gamification mechanics have been implemented (section 3.2). Section 4 consists of the summary Gamification in formal educational settings 3 and conclusion (section 4.1) concluding with various focal points of current research and possible future work. Gamification in formal educational settings 4