An empirical study inspecting the benefits of gamification applied to university classes

Abstract

One of the major challenges for educators is maintaining focus on the learnt subject and engagement of students. Introducing game elements into the learning process can be an excellent assistance. However, this requires an empirical study to verify the actual outcomes and benefits. This paper presents preliminary results from such a study organized in context of university classes which were specially prepared for this purpose. In addition, an automatic verification platform was designed in order to monitor progress of students and reward them with points for correct solutions. Preliminary results obtained, clearly show that incorporating gamification into didactic process can lead to better results and, which is also important, better reception of the classes by the students.