ASCILITE conference presentation. A practical workshop delivered using learning games to teach the use of game principles in higher education.

1. Playing the Education System
Download these apps onto your devices:
“Socrative” https://socrative.com
“Actionbound” https://en.actionbound.com
Determine your ‘Gamer Type’: https://goo.gl/VPrqS9
(gamer types are an measure of how you prefer to interact with systems)
Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
Join your ‘Gamer Type Team’ in the designated areas.
Facilitated by
Dan Laurence
@D4n_
This session is both a live game experiment and a serious enquiry.
During the session you will be asked to play as part of six teams.

2. latrobe.edu.au
Student engagement is a serious problem
and a serious opportunity
A mere 1% decrease in student retention a typical university costs around:
$6.17 million a year in lost fees
Double if you factor in the cost of acquisition1
Triple if QILT legislation is reintroduced/passed2
…and that is just in the first year.
Lost hopes and broken dreams are hard to put a cost on.
1 Adams et al, 2010 – Hobson’s Retention Project
2 If federal govt. funding contribution is reduced
by 2.5% (as proposed) for low QILT ratings.

3. Who are these students
and why do they leave?
Many risk factors and correlations:
 part-time
 mature-age
 studying online
 first year
 1st in family to attend tertiary study
 low socio-economic status
 Indigenous
 Regional
 student with a disability
Most factors beyond our control...
“Student attrition is a wicked problem. It could be
'solved' by excluding from university study everyone
except the previously educationally successful, rich,
healthy, unencumbered young people without children,
who live in cities and study full-time, on campus. But that
solution would create some other issues that would be
somewhat unpalatable to a developed economy and
egalitarian society.”
Marcia Devlin
DVC Learning and Quality at Federation University

4.  only 50% of students felt that staff were
available to discuss student work
 perception that staff are not accessible
 fewer than 30% of students felt that teaching
staff took an interest in their progress
 30% of students reported that they did not
receive helpful academic feedback
17.5% OF LA TROBE STUDENTS
QUIT THEIR DEGREE*
* last three years average – www.education.gov.au
Missed Opportunity
Why are students disengaging?
- Adams et al, 2010 – Hobson’s retention project

5. latrobe.edu.au
Top Ten Influences for Discontinuation
Engagement factors are addressable
- Adams et al, 2010 – Hobson’s retention project

6. Csikszentmihaliyi characterised ‘Flow’ thus:
 There are clear goals every step of the way.
 There is immediate feedback to one’s actions.
 There is a balance between challenges and skills.
 Action and awareness are merged.
 Distractions are excluded from consciousness.
 There is no worry of failure.
 Self-consciousness disappears.
 The activity becomes an end in itself.
(Mihaly Csikszentmihaliyi, 1990)
Flow is the state games aspire towards
Engagement: a state between anxiety and boredom

7. The impulse to be a causal agent.
To control outcomes and experience mastery.
To interact and be connected to others.
Giving students meaningful choices about participation,
assessment, topics, & how they present their work.
Provide students with regular constructive feedback,
rewards and grades as they gain mastery.
Letting students share successes, interact with peers,
collaborate in forums and compare understandings.
RelatednessAutonomy Competence
Increased Volition
Intrinsic Motivation
& Engagement
Self Determination Theory (SDT) -
Ryan & Deci, 2001.
The process of becoming engaged
Autonomy
Competence
Relatedness

8. Competence -
Autonomy -
Relatedness -
Salmon’s 5 Stage Model and Engagement
Salmon, 2010

9. Core Engagement Loop — Courtesy of Janaki Kumar and Mario Herger.
Copyright: CC-Att-ND (Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported)
Engagement Loops & Engagement Cycles
Relatedness - Autonomy - Competence
Engagement Cycle

10. latrobe.edu.au
Regular Feedback Also Aids Effective Recall of Facts
The Ebbinghaus
Forgetting Curve
has long
illustrated the
simple point that
repetition/revision
increases the
recall of facts.
10

11. Educational Parallels
Problem Based Learning
Challenge with
a problem
Students define
& brainstorm
Independent
study
Shared study
and collation
Students
present solution
Reflection
Inquiry Based Learning

12. Student Journeys
A tool to provide
insights into the
student experience
“Pain Points” →

13. Discipline specific examples:
Legal profession – adversarial model, win/loss
Business world – market competition, $ score
Politics – adversarial, score/votes/polls
Religion – levels/progression, titles/badges
and yes…
Education – points/marks,
certificates/levels
league tables GAME PRINCIPLES ARE LIKE A SET
OF ‘SPECIAL SAUCES' THAT EXIST
SEPARATELY FROM A DISCIPLINE.
Game principles already exist everywhere

14. Gamer Type Hexad Framework
Different students - different needs
Autonomy - Free Spirit/Change
Relatedness - Socialiser/Purpose
Competence - Mastery/Reward
Tondello, Wehbe, Diamond, Busch, Marczewski & Nacke, 2016

15. Gamer Type Hexad Framework
Different students - different needs
Autonomy - Free Spirit/Change
Relatedness - Socialiser/Purpose
Competence - Mastery/Reward
BIG 5 Personality Types
Tondello, Wehbe, Diamond, Busch, Marczewski & Nacke, 2016

16. Winning is great, unless it isn’t
Many psychological theories align with the broad contention that:
Extrinsic rewards can decrease intrinsic motivation & performance!
Only certain types of extrinsic rewards
(such as praise) can increase intrinsic
motivation.
For complex or creative tasks using
extrinsic rewards can lead to poorer
performance.
If/then rewards tend to narrow our
focus and limit cognitive capacity.
(Ledford, Gerhart, & Fang, 2013)

17. www.gamified.uk – Andrew Marczewski, 2014
Roleplay Scenarios

18. Where Does Simple Gamification Fit?
Simple games (usually Quizzes) are ideal for testing recall of simple concepts.
Best thought of as an engaging gateway to more complex pedagogy.
recall of foundational knowledge
threshold knowledge or creative tasks
– maybe not…
core concepts facts and figures
Complex concepts in dynamic quizzes are likely to decrease student engagement.
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, 2001

19. What are some simple options?
Kahoot Quizlet ProProfs GoConqr
Khan Academy Duolingo Socrative That Quiz
TestMoz Gnowledge QuizStar QuestionPro
Hot Potatoes Quizinator Edpuzzle
Question Types: Multiple Choice Questions, Fill in the Blank, Short Answer, Equations, Flashcards
Media Types: Audio, Images and/or Video
Mechanics: Points, Badges, Leaderboard, Levels
Analytics: Dashboard, Data & Privacy
Content Authoring: is it your platform/copyright or someone else’s?
Content Bank: OER’s? Personalisation/Branding
Low cost of production, scalable and reusable.

20. What are some more advanced options?
Twine branchtrack Insight Maker ITyStudio Gomo Learning
Captivate Articulate Camtasia H5P YouTube
Unity 3D Unreal Engine Construct 2 Actionbound Smart Sparrow
Media Types: HTML, Audio, Images/Video, VR/AR, GPS
Mechanics: Branching interactive scenarios, simulations, adaptive, strategic resource management
Analytics: SCORM etc. Often qualitative analysis more useful.
Is the higher cost of production/implementation worth it?

21. What are the Results?
Student retention
increased by 12%
Average grades rose by 7%
Validated by strong correlation between
app use & academic performance (r .40).
"I love the competitiveness,
ease of access & simple to use."
"The app questions were great I really
appreciated the daily reminders."
"So much easier to access
than the online quiz.”
Positive qualitative feedback:
(Pechenkina et al, 2017)
Student retention rates for accounting and science cohort, before and after the
mobile app was introduced in Semester 2, 2015 (N = 6939)

22. In summary
The research shows that:
When game principles are employed appropriately, everyone wins
Well done to all teams – if you found the experience engaging, then you won.
The merging disciplines involved in research around games are pushing the boundaries of what we know about
patterns of interaction in education.
The affordances of technology and game systems are changing what is possible.
More research is needed to explore these questions further.
The Mobile And Gameful Education Initiative (MAGE Initiative) is seeking collaborative partnerships.
To ask questions or express your interest in taking a part in future research projects please reach out.
Thankyou - Dan Laurence @D4n d.laurence@latrobe.edu.au

23. Key References
T. Adams, M. Banks, D. Davis & J. Dickson 2010. The Hobsons retention project. Melbourne, Australia:
Tony Adams and Associates. Google Scholar
L. W., Anderson, & D. R. Krathwohl 2001. A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of
Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman.
E.L. Deci, R. Koestner, R.M. Ryan. Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation in Education: Reconsidered
Once Again, Review of Educational Research, Spring 2001, Vol. 71, pp 1-27
M. Csíkszentmihályi 1990. Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper and Row.
D. Ariely, U. Gneezy, G. Lowenstein, & N. Mazar. Large Stakes and Big Mistakes. Federal Reserve Bank of
Boston Working Paper No. 05-11, July 2005; NY Times, 20 Nov 2008.
G. E. Ledford, B. Gerhart, & M. Fang 2013. Negative effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation:
More smoke than fire.
F. G. Tondello, R. R. Wehbe, L. Diamond, M. Busch, A. Marczewski and L. E. Nacke 2016 The Gamification
User Types Hexad Scale. http://doi.org/10.1145/2967934.2968082
E. Pechenkina, D. Laurence, G. Oates & D. Hunter 2017 Using a gamified mobile app to increase student
engagement, retention and academic achievement, International Journal of Educational Technology in
Higher Education VL - 14:31 http://rdcu.be/vrbZ