Does gamification work for supporting research skills training?

What is it about?

This paper is about the Creative Thinking Quest - a gamified tool that helps people design research or creative projects from initial brainstorming all the way through to writing a project brief.  The study looks at user data to assess the impact of non-linear navigation, narrative, and digital badges on learning. Results show that the quest worked extremely well - but the majority of 'perusers' did not make meaningful use of the quest. It also showed that the ability to personalise learning of research design skills through a quest format was  extremely effective, but that the narrative and badges gamification elements were less successful. Overall the paper provides valuable empirical  data on an understudied area within gamification for learning.

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Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash

Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Research skills are known to be really hard to teach, and there is some evidence that 'quest' based approaches can help with personalising learning and learner autonomy.