Paper Example on Gamification in Higher Education: Enhancing Engagement and Motivation

Introduction

In the higher education, learning takes place in many forms, e-learning and class discussions being one of the common techniques that students use. Therefore, in this analysis, the major point of concern will be collecting information regarding gamification. In definition, gamification is simply introducing gaming elements to non-gaming context, especially in learning. Gamification increases the motivation of the students and also improves on their engagement in class discussions. Therefore, the research is going to be majorly concerned with conducting a survey on the impact gamification has on students' learning behavior in higher education. In this research, an empirical study is conducted to explore how gamification can affect the student learning engagement and interactivity with e-learning technologies and whether it can potentially be considered as a driving factor for sustained and long-term learning. The study will use primary data collected by the survey conducted among the students of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology Campus in Cyberjaya, in Malaysia.

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Research Aims and Objectives

• To determine if gamification has an impact on students' learning behavior
• To determine if gamification acts as a moderator to influence students' learning behavior by enhancing intrinsic motivation
• To determine if gamification acts as a moderator to influence students' learning behavior by enhancing extrinsic motivation
• To determine if gamification acts as a moderator to influence student'slearning behavior by enhancing engagement.

Research Questions

The following were the research questions that the survey was conducting;

• Does gamification have an impact on students' learning behavior?
• Does gamification act as a moderator to influence students' learning behavior by enhancing intrinsic motivation?
• Does gamification act as a moderator to influence students' learning behavior by enhancing extrinsic motivation?
• Does gamification act as a moderator to influence students' learning behavior by enhancing engagement?

Research Hypotheses

H1: Gamification acts as a positive moderator in the relationship between students' learning behavior and motivation.

H1a: Gamification acts as a positive moderator in the relationship between students' learning behavior and intrinsic motivation.

H1b: Gamification acts as a positive moderator in the relationship between students' learning behavior and extrinsic motivation.

H2: Gamification acts as a positive moderator in the relationship between students' learning behavior and engagement

Research Design

The survey contained four sections. The first section featured a series ofmultiple-choice questions about the participants' demographic background, such asgender, age, educational background, and nationality. The remaining three sections were segmented for the current variables: motivation, intrinsic rewards and engagementtowards gamification using checkboxes and likert-scale.Selection Criteria

The survey targeted individuals that are currently pursuing higher education:bachelor's degree in FICT programs studying in LUCT campus in cyberjaya. This is because the targeted individual makes up the population in the higher education sector in the country. Similarly, this population has been exposed to using games in their learning activities and this process has impacted their learning.

Population

The current study focused on students from the Limkokwing University of CreativeTechnology (LUCT) campus in Cyberjaya, Malaysia. The participating students pursue a bachelor's degree for various programs of study in the Faculty of information technology. For the sake of this study, students participants were considered for by the researcher to give their responses. Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT) in one of the institutions of higher learning in Malaysia and having students from the institution serves the right purpose considering the purpose of the study. The study targets students of higher learning in the sense that it investigates and gives feedback on how gamification impacts their learning behaviors. Of the total population, students were divided based on the programs of study they undertake at the university.

Sample

A sample represents a portion of the entire population with the features that reflect the population. The sample size selected computes the outcome of the data to be analyzed in the study. For the current study, the sample size was 248 students from Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT) in Malaysia. The 248 students were drawn from different programs of the study which defined the sample distribution.

Sample Distribution

Students were distributed based on their programs of study as follows:

• 20 students were doing a course in Business Information System
• 40 students doing Business Information Technology
• 50 students doing Information Technology
• 38 students doing Information Communication Technology
• 65 students doing Software Engineering
• 35 students studying Games Technology.

Sampling Technique

Sampling technique is critical for the researcher to select the right sample for the study. For the current study, the sampling techniques involved were both convenience and multi-stage sampling techniques. In the convenience sampling, this deemed best in this case considering that the researcher was carrying out investigation on the learning behavior for students in higher institutions of learning, thus, the use of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT). The university is one of the institutions of higher learning in Malaysia and involving its population was convenient for the study. Thus, convenience sampling aimed at having a sample that was most convenient and relevant to the researcher in terms of cost, availability, and time effectiveness. Similarly, the researcher resorted to using multi-stage sampling whereby the selected sample should make relevance to the rest of the population by representing the perspectives of the whole. In this case, the outcome showing the behavior of students when exposed to gamification should reflect the impact across higher institutional learning. Purposive sampling was also critical in this case considering the desire of the researcher to have a sample with characteristics that most reflect on the entire population. Similarly, the sample to be selected needed to allow the researcher answer the questions of the study as outlined in the introduction hence the use of purposive sampling was suitable. Thus, the researcher purposely used the students with the sample of 248 in order to have the best understanding of how students at the higher learning institutions are affected by gamification.

Data Collection Methods

According to (M. Kumar et.al, 2013) Data collection methods are generally classified into qualitative and quantitative methods and both of them can be applied concurrently in the study. Each of these methods has its potential in research which significantly differentiated them. Basically they differ in data involved and nature of the study. This study will adopt only quantitative technique during data collection.

The data collected in this study was primary which encompassed both quantitative and qualitative data. A survey was carried out on the selected sample of 248 students with the help of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to students both through online and in classes. For those students whose survey was carried through online, the questionnaires were sent through their email addresses. The major survey involved administration of the questionnaires in their classes after the researcher was granted the permission from the administration of the university. The survey took about 40 minutes where the students responded to questions with the help of the researcher. The survey was divided into four sections. The first section featured a series of multiple-choice questions about the participants' demographic background, such as gender, age, educational background, and nationality. The remaining three sections were segmented for the current variables: motivation, intrinsic rewards and engagementtowards gamification tables and likert-scale.

Data Analysis Methods

For the purpose of this study Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS)will be used to analyze the data. The internal consistency of the data which is referredto as reliability will be tested from SPSS to ensure the significance of the survey througha pilot test, and to measure the strength of a relationship between two, numericallymeasured variables the adoption of correlation, descriptive and regression analysis willbe tested on SPSS as well...