Gamification in Management Education: A Systematic Literature Review.

Autorda Silva, Rui Jorge Rodrigues

Introduction

Like any organization that wants to improve the quality of its services and products, educational institutions have the responsibility to ensure that their students get quality education at all levels (Yildiz, 2014). Educational institutions as well as instructors are expected to fulfill their obligations with the utmost quality so that future generations can be well prepared to go into the labor market (Hill, 1995). It is generally accepted that the quality of teaching is essential for the success of an institution and of its students; therefore, it is important to assess and monitor the quality of teachers' work (C.-Y. Chen, Chen, & Chen, 2014). Experts on education and, more specifically, on the quality of education, have been working hard to improve the quality of the teaching-learning process at all levels and in various aspects of the curriculum (Langstrand, Cronemyr, & Poksinska, 2015).

It is vital that teachers motivate their students, making them aware of the fact that what seems difficult is not always necessarily so. At the same time, instructors have to know that traditionally established methods are not always the ones that attract students the most. In fact, although many instructors favor the use of innovative methodologies, there is a broad and empirically verified consensus that student motivation and interest for traditional teaching methods are scant because they are deemed ineffective (Lee & Hammer, 2011).

The use of educational games as learning tools constitutes an approach that can strengthen not only student knowledge but also their ability to communicate and cooperate with schoolmates in what concerns the understanding of learning content (Hamari, Koivisto, & Sarsa, 2014). The use of games in the classroom may help students acquire new study methods, making them feel more motivated than when they are exposed to more traditional teaching-learning processes (Kapp, 2012b). Yet, only recently have instructors begun to explore the possibility of turning the classroom into a place where educational games are not only possible but also feasible, effective and academically enticing (Glover, 2013).

Although several studies have tested gamification in general, and, in particular, the use of educational games in the classroom, from primary education to higher education (Deterding, 2012; Hamari et al., 2014; Hamari & Koivisto, 2015), more empirical studies are necessary to actually demonstrate the effectiveness of such approach. Studies should be based on well-designed methodologies, robust comparison groups, longitudinal treatments and empirically validated assessments (Hamari et al., 2014). In the field of management, studies that show how game-based learning may have a positive influence in education are still scarce. Moreover, despite its motivating power in making students get involved, gamification faces serious problems that have to do with designing and applying games to teaching (Conway, 2014). As a matter of fact, it is both difficult and expensive to use games in the classroom, since it implies having suitable technical infrastructures and pedagogic integration at one's disposal.

This article presents a number of results about game-based learning in order to highlight more adequate and effective trends and practices. As this is a recently developed subject, there is still the possibility to expand already available knowledge through literature reviews (Hamari et al., 2014; Marti-Parreno, Mendez-Ibanez, & Alonso-Arroyo, 2016; Nah, Zeng, Telaprolu, Ayyappa, & Eschenbrenner, 2014; Surendeleg, Murwa, Yun, & Kim, 2014). The main goal of this article is to develop a conceptual research model of applying games to management education based on a systematic literature review that focuses on the most relevant literature regarding the application of gamification to educational contexts in order to grasp gamification's main themes and constructs.

As the use of games in the teaching-learning process is a promising tool to effectively motivate students and get them involved, and as most of the research conducted so far has failed to provide a compelling literature review on the subject and a conceptual research model, the present article may help researchers have a better understanding of how research pertaining to this field has been evolving. The analysis herein made it possible to identify and show how games are used in an educational context, as well as what their contribution is to increase motivation, flow, and attitude, besides proving its effectiveness in terms of the learning process. The scholarly literature on the use of games in the teaching-learning process was organized, and the most relevant constructs were identified along with how they relate to and interact with each other, thus allowing future research to use this study as a starting point.

The present article contributes to the advancement of the literature about the application of gamification to the teaching of the various areas of Management. We did a systematic review of the literature based on rigorous criteria presented in the methodology section, followed by a review of the literature of the main topics in this area, such as gamification in general, gamification applied to general education and in teaching of Management. There is also a section addressing the main constructs of gamification. We conclude that motivation, flow, attitudes and perceived learning are the most relevant constructs, and we verify the type of causal relations between them. Finally, we discuss the conceptual research model resulting from the literature review.

Research Methodology

Research applied to game-based learning in management education is a very interesting area that motivated systematic literature reviews (e.g., Connolly, Boyle, MacArthur, Hainey, & Boyle, 2012; Darejeh & Salim, 2016; Johnson et al., 2016; Sardi, Idri, & Fernandez-Aleman, 2017). Thus, the present study and the methodology underlying it are based in other studies that ensured systematizing the literature (Armitage, Webb, & Glynn, 2016; Kitchenham et al., 2009; Patel et al., 2008; Tranfield, Denyer, & Smart, 2003). Only articles in journals indexed by ISI Web of Science (WOS) and SCOPUS databases were used, since they are the most acknowledged and used for such purposes (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Bachrach, & Podsakoff, 2005).

Data gathering took place in December 2017, without any chronological filter, and it resorted to Web of Science TM Core Collection (WOS) and Scopus (SCO) databases. The keywords used for the three separate searches were Gamification, Gamification and Education, Gamification and Management. The reason was to gather as many articles as possible on the field and sub-areas of management, making sure the articles that were selected covered the topic as extensively as possible. The outputs were successively filtered, until we had only peer-reviewed articles. Books, proceedings and non-scholarly documents were excluded.

In terms of areas covered by the databases, they are organized in different ways, with WOS having Management, Economics and Business, and SCO having two large groups: Economics, Econometrics and Finance, and Business, Management and Accounting. In the first methodological stage, the present study focused on gamification in general (Gamification), cross-referencing it with game-based learning (Gamification and Education) and management (Gamification and Management). The result were 565 articles in WOS and 701 in SCO. The outputs of the two databases were then cross-referenced, and duplicates were excluded, resulting in 841 articles. Then, the following inclusion criteria were established: (a) articles on game-based learning, and (b) review articles and literature roadmaps on the use of gamification. After perusing abstracts and/or complete articles, 597 of the latter were excluded and 244 included. The 244 articles that were selected in WOS and SCOPUS were published between 2012 and 2017. We then proceed to content analysis in three stages.

In the first stage, all abstracts, literature review, and final considerations were read and a document was created to contain the most relevant information extracted from those sections of each article. Subsequently, a chart was developed to present all subjects approached and the main conclusions (Beelmann, 2006). Finally, the contents were divided according to the main constructs in order to create a text that could provide an explanation of the main theoretical approaches for each subject related to gamification applied to the teaching-learning process, and the conclusions that had been drawn. Figure 1 presents the research layout that led to the final set of articles.

Systematic Literature Review

Gamification

Since 2010, gamification has arisen to increase an individual's involvement, motivation and attitude by using games in non-game contexts (Deterding, Sicart, Nacke, O'Hara, & Dixon, 2011). Gamification was first used in marketing and later implemented in other areas like health (Schoech, Boyas, Black, & Elias-Lambert, 2013), environment (Filsecker & Hickey, 2014), sports (Koivisto & Hamari, 2014), engineering (Huotari & Hamari, 2017), mathematics (Attali & Arieli-Attali, 2015), computer science (Dominguez et al., 2013), biology (Su & Cheng, 2015), communication (Hanus & Fox, 2015), and psychology (Landers & Landers, 2014). Gamification is typically described as the use of elements of game design in non-game contexts (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011; Koivisto & Hamari, 2014; Werbach & Hunter, 2012). Still, research must continue to happen on the theoretical bases, broader goals and more consistent empirical practices on the subject (Deterding, Dixon, et al., 2011), as well as on the impact of application on other areas (Zichermann & Cunningham, 2011).

The aim of gamification is to support and motivate users to perform a given task (Deterding, Sicart, et al., 2011...

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