Doctoral Thesis Offers Ideas for Gamification in Higher Education

On 15 December, Martin Sillaots from the School of Educational Sciences defended his thesis about using gamification – gaming elements – in non-gaming environments. The thesis suggests that gamification can increase the students’ motivation to be more active in their studies.

“The thesis stems from the fact that today’s students are used to an informative and varied environment. Traditional study methods struggle to achieve full attention from students,” Sillaots comments on the need for varying methods. “Gamification, or creating a game-like experience is a method of active learning, which aims to increase active participation and study motivation. In an ideal situation, participation should become a “Flow” – a situation, in which students focus on their tasks so intensely they lose track of time and stop worrying about irrelevant things,” he added.

The thesis found that by adding elements from games (e.g. roles, chance, feedback, teamwork and competition) to studies, students are willing to participate more actively. “The participants in ‘gamified’ courses found the activities gripping, but not so intense that they would lose track of time or themselves. The end result was a good flow on a sufficiently high level,” the author said and added that even though gamification is a popular method in kindergartens and elementary schools, the thesis focused on its potential in higher education and measuring it using devices created to measure flow.

The author said the results of the thesis can be applied in both pedagogy and game design. “The goal of both course and game designers is to find a most gripping result. This thesis offers ideas for the design process and about which elements to add to achieve flow,” Sillaots said. In addition, the thesis suggests methods for measuring activity and participation.

The Doctoral Thesis “Creating the Flow: the Gamification of Higher Education Courses” was supervised by Professor Mauri Kaipainen from Södertörn University and senior researcher Kai Pata from Tallinn University. His opponents were Professor Jože Rugelj from Ljubljana University and senior lecturer Ernest Adams from Uppsala University. The full thesis is available at the TU Academic Library e-vault ETERA.

Additional information:
Kerli Onno