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Karl Kapp will be among the featured Keynote Speakers at the USDLA Annual Conference, May 10-12 in St. Louis, MO.  (For more information, visit usdla.org) 

While it might be tempting to jump into games and gamification for learning, it makes sense to take a step backwards first and to establish some ground rules for course development before beginning. Here are ten things to keep in mind when gamifying a distance learning course:

1) Identify Success Criteria First.
Before you begin to gamify your course, make sure you know what constitutes success. Is it 100 percent participation? Is it an increase in assignment completions? Is it an increase on test scores? Is it more A’s? If success is not defined before the course is gamified, it is hard to know if or when success is achieved, it is hard to nail down success, and it is even more difficult to get students, faculty, and administration to agree that success was achieved. So beforehand, write down your success criteria to see if your gamification efforts achieve your standard of success. After the course is offered, revisit your criteria to see if you achieved success and examine why or why not.

2) Create a Story/Context.
A particularly powerful way to motivate students is to give actions and ideas meaning by framing them within an appropriate context. Explain why the students are earning points, who they are trying to save, and why they are searching for a treasure. Gamification works well when it is within a context – create a reason why students should interact with the content you have created. They should not just be earning points for the sake of earning points. Rather, they should understand that “leveling up” means they have learned new information and that the information can be used in contexts that are meaningful to them. For example, pursuing career opportunities.

3) Tie the Game and Gamification Outcomes to Learning Outcomes.
Points, badges, and even game play should all be tied to learning. Progress, special badges, and other game elements should be directly related to learning. Ensure that learning is occurring with the gamification and game framework you create in your course.

4) Use Science to Advance Learning.
There are two powerful mechanisms that are embedded in many gamification efforts. These are Spaced Retrieval and Retrieval Practice. Retrieval Practice requires students to recall information rather than simply re-reading or re-listening to it. A review of scientific literature reveals that the benefits of retrieval practice have been known for at least 100 years and the results have been demonstrated with many diverse groups. Retrieval Practice alone can provide improved recall performance by as much as 10-20 percent (1, 2).  Look for gamification and game platforms that ask the students to recall content and act on that recall – having a system that asks questions about content is a great way to have retrieval practice for your students.

Spaced Retrieval involves providing students with a quiz or course content spaced over time. It, too, is among the most robust findings in educational psychology research. It turns out that the greater the amount of spacing between retrieval events, the greater the potential benefit to retention – 24 hours is optimal (3). Spaced Retrieval helps students retain access to memorized information over long periods of time because the spacing promotes deeper processing of the learned material. Spaced Retrieval avoids two inherent problems with mass practice (learning all the information at once); the problems of learner fatigue and the likelihood of interference with preceding and succeeding learning.

5) Make Scoring and Winning Transparent.
First, make the scoring easy. Avoid complicated algorithms or formulas. The students should be able to directly link their actions and activities to a score so they know what they need to do to be successful. Second, determine what happens in various scoring scenarios ahead of time. Run various scenarios to see what happens – what if a student gets every question wrong or right, or skips every question? Yes, it might be a scenario that will never happen but if you can imagine it, the students will do it. You want to know of any potential problems ahead of time, not during the process.

6) Keep the Rules Simple.
Complexity is not an ally in creating gamification. When developing gamified solutions, a tendency of some faculty is to add complexity, avoid that tendency. Also, provide a tutorial level or experiences so that the students are able to learn the rules in the beginning with little to lose early in the course. You don’t want the experience to be about who knows the rules the best, you want it to be about who learns the most.

7) Keep Leaderboards Small.
No one wants to compete against the world’s best. Except, of course, if they are the world’s best. Otherwise keep leaderboards small. If possible, allow the students to choose their own friend to place on a personalized leaderboard or structure the leaderboard by department or territory to allow individuals to contribute to a larger goal. Consider only showing a relative position on the leaderboard. This might mean showing the five scores above and below a student’s score. But remember, regardless of what you show the students on a regular basis always allow access to the top scores (don’t hide anything from students). Also check into the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) rules at your institution before doing anything. You’ll want to make sure that what you set up works within your school’s guidelines.

8) Use Levels and Badges Appropriately.
Use levels to guide students through linear content and tie each level to a specific learning objective (usually a terminal objective). Let the student know how many levels they are going to need to complete before the learning is over. Badges, on the other hand, are good for showing non-linear progress. Badges can be tied to either terminal or enabling objectives. Also, if possible provide a place where learners can “show off” badges to leverage the social effectiveness of gamification.

9) Playtest the Gamification Experience.
Before releasing the gamification program to all 50 students in your class, playtest it with a small pilot group. You will find flaws, cheats, and shortcuts you never imagined. Students are among the most creative creatures on the planet, they will find things you didn’t anticipate. Learn about those elements beforehand, conduct a playtest (or two or three). Use part of a class or ask for volunteers at the end of a semester to check things out.

10) Monitor Student Progress.
Once the gamification or game event is made available to your distant students, you cannot sit back and let it unfold without monitoring. Most gamification and game distance learning platforms provide rich backend dashboards that allow for a close inspection of the process. Take advantage of these dashboards. Look for students moving unusually fast or slow through the content and then find out why. Look for students earning more points than you thought possible. Look to see if interest is waning or if all the students are getting something wrong. Also, check to see if too much or too little time is being expended. One advantage of gamification and game platforms is that they provide rich, real-time data – leverage that data.

Gamification can be a great addition to your distance learning courses if you follow these ten guidelines.

References
(1) Larsen DP, Butler AC, Roediger HL (2009) “epeated testing improves long-term retention relative to repeated study: a randomized controlled trial.” Medical Education 43: 1174–1181.
[2] Dobson, J. L. (2013) “Retrieval practice is an efficient method of enhancing the retention of anatomy and physiology information.” Advances in Physiology Education. 37: 184–191, 2013; doi:10.1152/advan.00174.2012.
[3] [4] Carpenter SK, DeLosh EL. (2005) “Application of the testing and spacing effects to name learning.” Applied Cognitive Psychology 19: 619–636, 2005. And Cull W. “Untangling the Benefits of Multiple Study Opportunities and Repeated Testing for Cued Recall.” Applied Cognitive Psychology 14: 215–235, 2000. And Cull W, Shaughnessy JJ, Zechmeister EB. “Expanding Understanding of the Expanding-Pattern-of-Retrieval Mnemonic: Toward Confidence in Applicability.” Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied 2: 365–378, 1996.

For more information about gamification, see Karl’s two books The Gamification of Learning and Instruction and the Gamification Fieldbook or Karl’s Lynda.com course The Gamification of Learning.