Introduction
We’ve all seen it. Online courses with points, badges, leaderboards, and prizes. It is gamification all with the promise of making learning fun, engaging, and more successful.
But the question you have to consider is whether or not this is really the magic bullet for boosting learner motivation and completion.
Yes, gamification is a powerful tool, but like the adults in our life taught us, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Simply adding gamification tools and techniques will not save a course that is poorly organized, lacks the depth necessary for student success, or a course that doesn’t meet a student’s true needs.
It can, however, enhance an already well-designed course.
In this episode we are going to explore different types of gamification techniques, talk about the importance of understanding intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and how all of these fit together to create a beneficial gamification approach to engineering student success.
Gamification
Gamification is popular these days. In fact, I have course creators reaching out to me about gamifying things all the time. They want to gamify their courses, their emails, their promotions. Really, any part of their business that they can.
Before we jump into the potential issue with gamifying everything, let’s touch on what gamification is, if this term is new to you.
Gamification is the process of using game design elements to make learning fun, more of a game than learning. We see this all the time when a teacher in primary school offers stickers for completed work and those stickers, when added together, gain you access to the treasure chest of treats in the classroom.
We see it in a college classroom when a professor states that if a student had enough points going into the final exam, they would be exempt from taking the exam.
Across the board, gamification has come to the forefront because of the rise in video games in our culture. If people can be enticed to play video games like World of Warcraft for hours a day all to get points, extra powers, unlocking levels, then what would happen if we applied that to learning opportunities?
It seems like a no-brainer, especially because there are different types of gamification that are available to us. We can incorporate gamification along the lines of boosting a student’s status within our course. You can have badges and leaderboards. Think about Facebook groups that you are in and you can accept badges as a rising or top contributor. This is gamification designed to keep you engaged and in the group.
You can incorporate progress-based gamification opportunities such as having checklists to complete and progress bars. Think about the last time you completed a video online and it said you were 100% complete. Or when you met your daily step goal on your smart watch. It might have shown fireworks, a completed circle, or buzzed with completion. These are all gamification examples in our daily lives.
We experience gamification at every turn. In fact, gamification can also take the format of a challenge. It could be puzzles, quizzes, or actual challenges that have been assigned. Have you ever done an escape room? You completed the challenges in each space in order to win the game. Have you ever taken a course where you had to solve something in order to unlock a feature? I remember a course that I took where there were hidden words throughout that would unlock bonuses.
The Allure of Gamification
Let’s face it, gamified learning is fun, which is exactly what it is designed for. We get excited to complete the learning task that might have felt boring, onerous, or like a burden. Especially in the USA where we are an individualist culture and like to win at things, gamification feeds this need.
And gamification can really be a plus in a course. I personally enjoy when I can see my progress on a course or module. It lets me know that I’m getting somewhere. In one portal where I have access to many different courses and workshops from the same creator I can see which courses I’ve gotten the whole way through and which ones I still need to tackle.
I’ve seen courses that award badges for completing tasks. Everyone is eligible so it doesn’t feel punitive if a student needs to work more slowly through the content because they are still eligible.
I’ve also seen courses and programs where if you complete a challenge you will be entered into a drawing for a high level support program for free, or you get a free gift. As someone who likes to win things, these always get my attention, and they work. They keep you accountable to the program and the work that needs to be done. This is great when you are a solopreneur and course creator without any help, or maybe just the help of a Virtual Assistant (VA).
In fact, there is one program that I’m in where there was a challenge to implement the content over the course of 90 days. You could set parameters for implementation that fit your schedule, but you had to stick to it and report each week that you had either met the goal or not. At the end of the 90 days, if you had met each checkpoint successfully then you got a prize in the mail. The prize was a coffee mug. I don’t drink coffee and rarely use an open cup for my hot tea, but I worked my behind off for that mug and it is lovingly displayed in my office as a reminder of what I can accomplish with a bit of hard work.
Gamification can really make a difference in our student’s engagement, their progress through our courses, and their implementation of the content and approach we are teaching, but it is not all sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns.
The Dark Side of Gamification
When we are thinking about how to help our students achieve the course objectives we’ve set out, we have to take into account motivation. Motivation, like ice cream, comes in many different varieties. Now hold onto your seats while I give you the quick rundown on motivation.
I promise not to go into psychology lecture level detail, but just enough to get the point across so that we can have a meaningful conversation.
Motivation can easily be thought of as the force that directs how we think, feel, and behave. Think about the kindergartener who is motivated to stay seated in their square on the carpet for all of story time by the Hershey Kiss they’ve been promised. Something, the Hershey Kiss, was a force influencing their behavior.
Motivation can be extrinsic, like that Hershey Kiss, or intrinsic. Extrinsic motivators come from outside of us and influence our behavior, thoughts, and feelings. Other examples of extrinsic motivators in the digital course world are that mug I was telling you about, the 6 months of free membership in a high level program, a badge in a Facebook group for participating at a high level, and so many other things. In fact, if you were to look around over the next few days you’ll probably find extrinsic motivators all around.
Intrinsic motivation comes from within, it is internal to us. It is the satisfaction we feel from doing something well. It is the knowledge that we followed through on a promise. The motivation, or force on our behavior, thoughts, and feelings, comes from within us.
It is well documented that intrinsic motivation is the strongest way to long-term commitment, engagement, and success. Extrinsic motivation tends to create short and immediate bursts of progress but when the external motivator dies out, so does that behavior to take action in the course.
In fact, when we rely too heavily on extrinsic motivation, it can actually erode the intrinsic motivation we have for something.
Gamification is an extrinsic motivator.
This is why, when course creators reach out to me asking about gamification, I caution them to use it sparingly and only in a way that will allow the intrinsic motivation to thrive.
The last thing we want for our digital course students is to lose interest in the course that we have created and designed with the goal of making their life better.
It is a delicate balance. We want to spur that progress, commitment, and engagement, but without completely snuffing out the intrinsic motivation that got our students excited about our course in the first place. We need to look for ways to enhance that intrinsic motivation.
Too much gamification can decrease creativity, increase a willingness to cut corners and even lie about progress to get a reward, and to focus on winning over a deep understanding. And before you say that people aren’t going to lie about their progress, it happens. I saw it just this year in a program where the winner of a challenge was disqualified because they didn’t do what they had said they did. Too much gamification can also clutter the process of learning the core content and implementing it. If we become too focused or distracted by badges, points, and status the learning takes a backseat.
I’ll never forget a weekend online conference that I attended one time. There were some pretty big gamification elements and one was a leaderboard. If you were at the top of the leaderboard you got a 1:1 meeting with the course creator. These kinds of opportunities simply weren’t offered. The person had moved far beyond offering 1:1 help at this point in their career. It was coveted. The way to earn points was to comment, to click into different parts of the platform, and to show up live. This sounds great right? But many figured out that by logging out and back in they could get points for returning. Clicking into the same things over and over would also get them points. Adding lots of random comments would also gain them points. Are you seeing how the extrinsic motivator became a distraction from the intrinsic motivation to learn all that they could from the conference speakers?
So how do we find the sweet spot?
Finding the Sweet Spot
Finding the sweet spot of how to implement gamification into our online courses is, sadly, not something we can apply a simple algorithm to and have the right answer. The answer to how much gamification and the right kind of gamification will be dependent on you, your course, and your students.
As a whole, however, we have to approach this really strategically. We want to make sure that we are aligning any gamification elements to our course objectives. If commenting a lot on the course platform doesn’t actually help students to make progress, don’t include this in your gamification.
We want gamification to amplify, not replace the intrinsic motivation that a student comes to our course with. For example, if you are teaching SEO for websites, we can safely assume that our students want to be found in internet searches so that they can help more people. They want to do it well, effectively, and efficiently. This is pretty powerful motivation. Build on that. Give students the chance to get live feedback if they complete a module they get an invitation to receive feedback on that module’s work. That is a challenge, however, it is designed to keep students focused on their purpose and even helps them get better.
Gamification opportunities can also be designed to encourage collaboration and cooperation instead of competition. When we collaborate instead of compete we will get further every single time. We will keep our purpose in mind and others will help us keep that in mind as we work as well. This is the kind of balance we are looking for.
We can also create rewards that cater to different student styles and preferences. I loved getting that mug for staying consistent in my progress, but that is not everyone’s cup of tea.
We also want to celebrate and work toward building that intrinsic motivation that our students experience as they come into our course. One of the easiest ways to do this is to share with them what that intrinsic motivation might look like at the beginning of each module. Model why they should care about the topic and the work. What impact will it have if they do the work and if they don’t. This will heighten their intrinsic motivation.
Another way to boost intrinsic motivation is to make sure our learning objectives and chances for practicing are clear and accessible to our students. When they understand what is expected, what they can learn, and how they can get better it becomes easier to stay focused and committed to the work, even without a special badge or prize at the end of our course.
Finally, we can give our course students ways to interact and build each other up as they work on the course. This will inherently boost that intrinsic motivation.
Action Item
Hopefully today’s conversation is getting you thinking about the pros and cons of gamification in your online course. Now is the time to take action. I don’t have any prizes for you if you take action, but hopefully that intrinsic motivation will lead you to dig into the idea of gamification and explore the answers for your course.
This week I encourage you to decide whether you’d like to incorporate gamification into your course or if you want to first find ways to heighten intrinsic motivation.
If you want to incorporate gamification into your course, what will that look like? What will be in that sweet spot of motivation progress while safeguarding and even growing intrinsic motivation?
Sixty-Second Solution
And if you are wanting to say yes to gamification, but are feeling overwhelmed by the idea of designing a full-blown gamified learning experience, start small with a quick win. Identify a single, straightforward task within your course and add a simple gamification element. For example, if you have a tricky concept that you want to make sure students understand, create a quick quiz. We all love to get some feedback on whether or not we understand something. This small change can boost engagement and motivation without requiring a major overhaul of your course design.
Where to Go Next?
There you have it. Gamification can be a powerful tool to enhance learning experiences, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. Used wisely, it can boost engagement and motivation. However, overreliance on extrinsic motivators can diminish intrinsic motivation and ultimately bring down engagement, completion, and student success.
If you want to understand more about what components are needed for a successful digital course, check out Episode 158: The 5 Key Components to a Profitable Course.
And if all of these decisions and concepts are leaving you feeling a little like a fish out of water, listen to Episode 201: Digital Course Creation Toughness (Mental Toughness) for tips on staying the course when your course feels exhausting to finish and launch.
Until next time, happy creating!
