SpaceRaceEdu: Development of a Gamified Educational Tool for Self-Study and Evaluation

Abstract

This Bachelor Thesis is an investigation into the field of new technologies in education with regards to the gamification of learning and examinations. The software created in this investigation is designed to increase student participation, foment teamwork, improve educational outlook, and serve as a psychologically less invasive way to examine a student’s knowledge when compared to a typical written exam. This investigation considers the experiences of teachers with varying years of experience in the educational field as well as a multitude of age ranges, to demonstrate how effective gamified education is at primary, secondary, and university level. The software developed in this thesis creates a limited virtual environment, inspired by contemporary multiplayer games, in which students work in teams to resolve tasks set out by the teacher. The game incorporates elements of limited competition as well as elements of cooperation. The cooperative aspects encourage teamwork and good sportsmanship while the competitive aspects increase the entertainment factor of typical class assignments. The aforementioned tasks involve visually appealing, gamified versions of multiple-choice questions, mathematical solutions, categorization, ordering and identification. These tasks are designed in such a way as to not negatively affect a student’s desire to learn, wherein they allow for unlimited, monitored retries and can be exited and returned to at a later point in the game. This means that the students are not discouraged through typical examination tactics like negative scoring on incorrect responses, rather, they are encouraged in a safe, diverting environment to make the mistakes that will help them grow as problem solvers and human beings. This software is designed to keep track of the number of tries a student takes to complete a task and the number of tasks completed by the student, as a way for the teacher to gauge the learning curve of each student individually. These statistics will be available for future revisions, allowing the teacher to, using their own discretion, evaluate the performance of their students. The testing process was completed through a series of opinionative surveys regarding limited gamplay videos. These initial tests have shown a positive response to the gamification of subject matter mostly in primary and secondary institutions, and university level studies which require higher levels of memorization rather than independent thought experiments and idea development. The student response was also positive, in that most students opted for revisions (if the subject matter permits) done using this software because of the entertainment value and the competitive aspects.