Identifying Common Pitfalls and Issues With Gamification and My newest reading.

I have been reading Brenda Enders, Gamification, Games, and Learning: What Managers and Practitioners Need to Know. This text explains details methods that can be used to gamify any situation where learning or training is required.

For what I have read so far I would like to cover some of the issues and pitfalls that can befall anybody looking to use gamification. Firstly, where as it is possible to create a game entirely from scratch to attain a learning outcome, it is extremely difficult and will cost a LOT of money to create and implement effectively. This is what McDonald's Japan did and they reportedly spent an initial outlay of approximately $2.2 Million on the games development alone.(Enders, Kapp, and The eLearning Guild Research, 2013)
Instead existing content can be taken and modified or added upon to include elements of games that facilitate motivation towards learning.

McDonald's training game in action on Nintendo DS
(Enders, Kapp, and The eLearning Guild Research, 2013)

Another issue with the gamification of learning (seen most prominently, in my opinion, in educational games) is that they are seen as Skinner Boxes designed to trick and manipulate us into doing something we don't really want to do (Enders, Kapp, and The eLearning Guild Research, 2013).

There are two types of gamification when we look at the existing content method. Firstly there is 'structural gamification' which is were you take the existing content and add a structure of gaming elements around it. The other type is 'content gamification' where the existing content is modified to include deeper elements of gaming such as story, freedom to fail and challenge.(Enders, Kapp, and The eLearning Guild Research, 2013)

According to Karl Kapp (2013) 'the trick with learning games is to craft the game to meet the needs of learning while making it highly interactive.' This, in my recent experience as a STEM School Ambassador, I have found to be especially true with young males. They truly seem to engage with the subject when they are allowed to interact with any related materials on a playful level. For instance when isolating their own DNA from cheek cells, if faced with theory at the front of the class they would shut down, misbehave or just ignore what was going on. However when they were let loose to use the implements around them to actually perform the experiment under minimal guidance and supervision, they showed strong indications of taking in the subjects content. When quizzed at the end they even surprised themselves as to how much they had learnt.

Another pitfall with gamification (one I am ashamed to say I fell into) is people failing to grasp the concept of gamification. 'Simply put, gamification is taking the elements of games that lead to learning and using them individually.' 'One good way to begin to explore gamification is to read examples of how it is properly and improperly deployed, study the elements of games that are effective' (Enders, Kapp, and The eLearning Guild Research, 2013) This will be a major focus of my research for my project. For instance how effective would adding a points system to homework be, or adding elements of competition into lessons. I have already added direct competition into a lesson which I planned and delivered recently on robotics programming. What I found was while smaller, self driven competition is a minor motivator, larger more structured competitions like the one I attempted seem to do little for motivation. This of course may have just been down to the cohort so I wont discard it as an option yet.

A table to show a contrast between Games and Gamification
(Enders, Kapp, and The eLearning Guild Research, 2013)

One final take away from the text I have read so far is that a well implemented example of gamification is found in larger airlines. These airlines offer frequent flier miles or points to be accumulated when using their services. From these points you can gain various status levels to reward your achievements along with perks such as free checked luggage, free flights, priority boarding and free upgrades. These are not seen as gamified elements by the general public as they have been implemented at an abstract level to facilitate the task of customer retention but are however, game mechanics and elements all the same. (Enders, Kapp, and The eLearning Guild Research, 2013) 

An example of game elements implemented by airlines
(Enders, Kapp, and The eLearning Guild Research, 2013)

References

Enders, B., Kapp, K. and The eLearning Guild Research (2013) ‘Gamification, Games, And Learning: What Managers and Prtactitioners Need to Know’, Hot Topics, , pp. 1–7.