If Learning Is a Game

In the late 1980s, a group of Bocconi students were involved in a simulation called Looking Glass. The role-playing game reproduced a day at the office. The students, who assumed about twenty roles within the company, had inbox and outbox folders so they could exchange paper mail. Thirty years later, gamification, which is already popular in marketing, human resources and other areas, is an important and potentially disruptive trend in e-learning.

"Business games and management simulations have a 20 year history, now. The modalities have changed, not the rules of engagement", says Ferdinando Pennarola. He focused on gamification in the educational field in Learning and Gamification: A Possible Relationship? (EAI Endorsed Transactions on e-Learning, 2017), a paper co-authored with Leonardo Caporarello and Massimo Magni. The authors discuss the existing studies on the effectiveness of the use of game design elements in non-game contexts or learning purposes, through experiments with students. "Learning is more effective when students are involved in gaming processes. Why? Games offer an engaging opportunity that enhance interactions and thus facilitate participants' learning". The authors also discuss what may be a significant addition to gaming and learning literature. Most of the empirical studies focused on evaluation during and after the experience. Only a few of them focused on the before-the-experience evaluation, studying the motivation to take part in such an experience and the expectations towards gamification.

Read more about this topic:
When Learning Becomes an Augmented Experience. Article by Leonardo Caporarello
Business Schools Should Learn from Netflix. Article by Gabriele Troilo
Massimo Magni. Technology Is Not Always Enough
Beatrice Manzoni. How Students Feel About Online Learning