Analysing gamification elements in educational environments using an existing Gamification taxonomy

• Published in: Smart learning environments Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 1 - 14
• Main Authors: Toda, Armando M., Klock, Ana C. T., Oliveira, Wilk, Palomino, Paula T., Rodrigues, Luiz, Shi, Lei, Bittencourt, Ig, Gasparini, Isabela, Isotani, Seiji, Cristea, Alexandra I.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore Springer Singapore 04.12.2019; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Computers and Education; Design analysis; Education; Educational Environment; Educational Practices; Electronic Learning; Game Based Learning; Game theory; Gamification; Learner Engagement; Learning; Literature Reviews; Student Motivation; Taxonomy; Vertical Organization
• ISSN: 2196-7091; 2196-7091
• DOI: 10.1186/s40561-019-0106-1

Gamification has been widely employed in the educational domain over the past eight years when the term became a trend. However, the literature states that gamification still lacks formal definitions to support the design and analysis of gamified strategies. This paper analysed the game elements employed in gamified learning environments through a previously proposed and evaluated taxonomy while detailing and expanding this taxonomy. In the current paper, we describe our taxonomy in-depth as well as expand it. Our new structured results demonstrate an extension of the proposed taxonomy which results from this process, is divided into five dimensions, related to the learner and the learning environment. Our main contribution is the detailed taxonomy that can be used to design and evaluate gamification design in learning environments.