Study (and work) with Your Joystick

STIMULATING INTEREST AND ENGAGEMENT USING GAMING TECHNIQUES IS A GROWING PHENOMENON: IN THE EDUCATION SECTOR ALONE THE MARKET TODAY IS WORTH ABOUT 800 MILLION DOLLARS AND IN 2028 IT IS EXPECTED TO HAVE A VALUE OF ABOUT 6.5 BILLION. BUT THE DEBATE ON ITS EFFECTIVENESS IN LEARNING IS STILL OPEN AND DEPENDS ON THE REAL ABILITY TO REVIEW TEACHING METHODS AND TO KEEP UP WITH CHANGES

by Leonardo Caporarello, Director of BUILT

Engage and stimulate are likely two of the most discussed words in the last 24 months: "how to engage and stimulate my students? how to engage the collaborators of a virtual team?".

Of course, having a class of students, or the members of a work team, who are sufficiently involved has always been one of the basic elements that determine the ability of the social entity itself (class, work group ...) to "feel good together, work well" and therefore to be more likely to achieve the assigned objectives.

Level of engagement,  naturally,  is not a static concept but evolves continuously, even more quickly and with greater intensity in situations characterized by uncertainty, real or perceived.

In the latter cases, being able to stimulate interest so that it leads to being more engaged becomes an important skill for teachers as much as for managers.

Which levers can we pull to work, continuously, on both fronts, that is, to stimulate interest and keep the level of engagement high? One of the most effective areas and one to which we are all in some way exposed since childhood is the game.

The game will be considered successful when it manages both to attract players, that is, to stimulate their interest in playing, and to keep them engaged during the game itself.
Speaking of successful games, think for example of PUBG, played by about 7 million users in the last 30 days, or Minecraft, which had about 3 million players only last February, or Candy Crash which has about 270 million players per month and generated, only in 2020,  revenues of more than 1 billion dollars.

If these games are so successful they are evidently designed to stimulate players and keep them engaged. So why not study these levers and understand how to borrow them and adapt them to contexts other than gaming?  This is the question on which the phenomenon of gamification is based.

Therefore, using the methods of game design we try to create experiences that can stimulate interest in issues such as Sustainable Development Goals or Managing conflicts in the global landscape or International Negotiations, so that participants are stimulated to study them deeply, activate the comparison with other students or companies and - why not? - try to develop their critical thinking.

There are many experiments and so-called gamification solutions  in  the education sector, whose market today is worth about 800 million dollars and in 2028 it is expected to have a value of about 6.5 billion.

However, there is wide debate about their actual influence on learning processes. In fact, at least two dimensions of influence should be taken into account: a) the continuous evolution of the phenomenon itself, thanks for example to the interaction with other phenomena such as VR, b) the ability to (re)design learning  experiences that natively adopt teaching methods based on gamification and that in some way contribute to modeling content, or more generally elements, of the subsequent phases of the teaching experience.
The higher the level of motivation of the interlocutors, the more the gamified system will be able to measure the behaviors performed and to return continuous, structured and well-argued feedback.

In addition, the system must be designed entirely on the person, who must have an active role, must act and must make decisions, after which the system must return the feedback necessary to understand the usefulness and effects of the action or decision made, so as to review future behaviors.
 
Gamified method designed around the person; fresh and mobile user experience; procedure that requires active and frequent interaction by the person / user; method capable of measuring the effectiveness of the actions or decisions taken and, consequently, capable of returning feedback that can direct subsequent behaviors: these are the basic elements that will stimulate students' interest and increase their level of engagement.