In recent studies it has been shown that students can be guided towards educational goals like collaboration by using gamification (Glover, 2013), which is the application of game-like elements to non-game environments (Deterding et al., 2011). Huotari and Hamari (2012) provide an alternative definition from a service marketing perspective, where they define gamification as a process of enhancing a service with affordances for gameful experiences in order to support the user’s overall value creation.
Approaches that use some elements of gamification have been shown to increase
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3 The state of computer-supported collaborative learning in software engineering education
student collaboration (Moccozet et al., 2013) and the motivation towards achieving course goals (Sheth et al., 2012) in educational settings. However, effective gamification is about using the game elements along three important principles, in order to satisfy users’ three innate needs for intrinsic motivation (Groh, 2012), originally adapted by Deterding (2011) and Schell (2011) from Deci and Ryan’s (1985) self-determination theory. The three principles are (Groh, 2012):
• Relatedness: the universal need to interact and be connected with others.
• Competence: the universal need to be effective and master a problem in a given environment.
• Autonomy: the universal need to control one’s own life.
These elements have been shown to be satisfied by gamification elements by Rigby and Ryan (2011), who also demonstrate the connection between the self-determination theory and gamification.
3.4.1 Using gamification in software engineering education
Gamification is an upcoming method in learning, with ongoing research in its use as a motivation or engagement method (Sheth et al., 2012; Barata et al., 2013;
Glover, 2013), for fostering collaboration (Romero et al., 2012; Moccozet et al., 2013; Singer and Schneider, 2011, 2012), or engaging by competition (Dubois and Tamburrelli, 2013; Yamawaki, 2013; Herranz et al., 2015). It has also been used as a engagement method in the increasingly popular Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) (Romero and Usart, 2013; Tan, 2013). However, successful application to gamification methods is not necessarily a straightforward affair, as the application of these methods can sometimes negatively have a negative effect on the course (Berkling and Thomas, 2013). Table 3.1 summarizes the gamification methods applied in each of the studies mentioned above.
de Sousa Borges et al. (2014) have also performed a more broad systematic mapping study on the use of gamification in education in general. According to their study most studies concentrate on fostering the engagement of students through learning activities that build on gamification concepts. They also note that there is a lack of approaches that combine gamification and computer-supported collaborative learning, having identified only one study that mentions gamification in the context of CSCL.
Table 3.1: Summary of recent approaches in education gamification studies
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3 The state of computer-supported collaborative learning in software engineering education
3.4.2 Fostering collaboration with gamification
Studies in the field indicate that gamification methods are successful in fostering collaboration. This applies when some gamification aspects are related to the internal motivational elements of relatedness, competence or autonomy. This was especially evident in the studies by Moccozet et al. (2013) and Dubois and Tamburrelli (2013), where activities in the system increased online reputation and the course participants were able to publish their competence and compare the results to those of their peers. Herranz et al. (2015) propose that when gamifying collaboration it is essential to have supporting teamwork structures in place in order to have a positive impact on motivation. The elements of success in these studies connect the users’ achievements to a meaningful community who shares some of the user’s personal goals. Additionally, by providing variance the approaches in these studies will allow the users to retain their personal autonomy, by allowing them to choose how exactly to achieve their goal. At the same time, individual elements of gamification have been studied, and recent research concludes that simply applying a single outward aspect of gamification, like badges (Falkner and Falkner, 2014), does not work, and instead gamification has to consider the motivation and goals of the course as a complete system.
Research into more flexible and targeted gamification systems is ongoing. Recent articles have published research results on adaptive gamification systems (Codish and Ravid, 2014), which have the potential to adapt to user preferences, instead of using a rigid set of gamification. Monterrat et al. (2015a; 2015b) have developed a player model and a design for a generic, pluggable gamification system design for learning environments. They use predefined player types and present a player adaptation model, where player preferences and elements are evaluated in a matrix to target gamification elements for more accurate matching of gamification systems with user preferences.
3.4.3 Research gaps
While gamification has been applied to the field of education in several studies, it requires care in the implementation (Berkling and Thomas, 2013), and just adding basic elements to a course is not an effective approach (Falkner and Falkner, 2014).
Game design is an established field of design and research, and gamification has a lot to learn from it in terms of engaging users. For example, online games take into consideration that players prefer different roles and have several activity types available for different types of players (Bartle, 1996). These player types have been studied and defined Bartle (2004), with Yee (2006) extending the analysis by defining different motivations for play.
To summarize, various studies have established the basic principles of gamification and some of the most commonly detected benefits. Future research directions
that could improve the current gamification approaches are more advanced, adaptive methods to customize gamification approaches individually to consider the motivation of each user, and comparing individual elements to discover the best methods to apply each gamification element.
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4 System for increasing computer-supported collaboration in engineering teamwork
4 System for increasing computer-supported collaboration in engineering teamwork
A system to increase student collaboration was created by using the design science research process. There were two main design cycle iterations, the first of which concentrated on collaboration between individuals and is described in detail in Publication IV. The second design cycle iteration expanded the design to consider team collaboration aspects, collaboration between teams and shared goal setting, and it is described in this chapter. The following subchapters also introduce the stakeholders and requirements, the design process itself, and the test cases for both iterations.
The chapter starts by presenting system requirements, and proceeds into design and test case -based evaluation. Then it reviews related publications and finally discusses design implications and evaluates project results against the initial requirements. This chapter answers research question RQ2 of“How can mutually beneficial activities and communication be increased in software engineering courses with a computer-supported collaborative environment?” and RQ3 of
“How does a computer-supported collaborative learning environment, with design based on the results of RQ1 and RQ2, affect intra- and inter-team student communication and collaboration?”