Community Through Technology: An Online ESL Instructor Toolkit

Making Connections with Gamification

Gamification has been shown to be a powerful pedagogical tool that can help build connections and collaboration. Stephens de Jonge et al. defined gamification as “the use of game thinking and mechanics in a non-game context to inspire employees and students to get engaged in the learning process,” noting that the term ‘gamification’ was first coined by game designer Nick Pelling in 2002, when he saw the potential for game mechanics applications outside of the video gaming industry (2019, p. 159). Le (2020) cited Deterding et al. (2011) and Sheldon (2011), who designated gamification in simpler terms as “the implementation of game-like mechanics (points, leaderboards, and badges) into non-game contexts,” and Kapp (2012), who referred to gamification as the use of “game-based mechanics, aesthetics and game thinking to engage people, motivate action, promote learning, and solve problems,” (199) and noted Dickey’s discussion includes progression and other types of rewards as common gamification elements (Dickey, 2011). Bellés-Calvera emphasized that gamification used in educational settings involves clear objectives and is designed to engage learners in the learning process (2022), while Manzano-León, et al. termed gamification in education as “the use of techniques to engage people, motivate their action, and promote learning and problem solving [to] generate in the students a feeling of empowerment in their way of working to achieve tasks, making them more attractive and promoting cooperative work, effort, and other positive values typical of games” (2021, 1). Dickey (2011) stated “the purpose of game-based learning is to leverage the motivational and design affordances of games and play with pedagogy” (459). Taken together, we can distill the definition of gamification in education as game-like or game-inspired mechanics, aesthetics, and problem-solving environments that call upon targeted student skills or knowledge with the goal of creating deeper motivation, engagement, and learning.

In his critical look into video games during the first years of at-home consoles, with a focus on Nintendo, which held most of the market from the early 1980s through the early 1990s, Provenzo (1991) discussed the potential impact of video games in areas such as cognitive development, social development including gender perceptions, and aggression. In answering the question of what video games are, Provenzo in part stated that video games “can act as portals to connect us to vast and powerful networks of information and entertainment,” are “instruments of information,” and allow for the entry into a passive medium (referring to television) to “control and act” within the world of the video game (138-139). The author suggests a large part of the appeal of video games is this ability of the player to shape the electronic medium they are interacting with, which, Provenzo suggests, “may in fact be the means by which users step into a new type of electronic dialogue and, in turn, literacy” (48), acknowledging that, unlike the boundless possibilities of a person with a pen, the player’s ability to shape the electronic medium are limited by the affordances of the game itself as pre-determined by the game designers.

Malone (1980) was one of the first to investigate these new video games in terms of what applications their design elements might have for computer mediated educational environments, looking specifically into motivation by researching the questions, “Why are computer games so captivating” and “How can the features that make computer games captivating be used to make learning – especially learning with computers – interesting?” (1). The author provided a literature review and detailed the results of three studies designed to focus on what makes computer games fun and then put forth what he called a “rudimentary theory” of intrinsically motivating instruction.

The theory is made up of three categories: (1) challenge (when users are confronted with goals with uncertain outcomes; can be realized through design with techniques such as “variable difficulty level, multiple level goals, hidden information, and randomness”); (2) fantasy (differentiated between extrinsic, where the successful execution of the target skill moves the action of the fantasy forward but is independent of the fantasy, such as students competing in a game on a racetrack where, when they provide the correct verb form for a word, they advance a certain distance around the track), and intrinsic, where “not only does the fantasy depend on the skill, but the skill also depends on the fantasy,” meaning the problems are presented in terms of the fantasy world and the answers affect the fantasy world. Malone provides the example of a simple computer darts game where several balloons are lined up with some measurements provided, the player guesses how much higher or lower they need to throw a dart to hit a certain balloon (using the target measurement, such as inches), and the balloon pops if they get it correct (58); and (3) curiosity (differentiated between sensory curiosity, which can draw and hold attention to the learning environment, and cognitive curiosity, which can be created through design by “making learners believe their knowledge structures are incomplete, inconsistent, or unparsimonious” (iv). Malone offers that:

One relatively easy way to try to increase the fun of learning is to take an existing curriculum and overlay it with a game in which the player progresses toward some fantasy goal, or avoids some fantasy catastrophe, depending only on whether the player’s answers are right or wrong. (31)

These types of fantasies, which are largely “interchangeable across subject matters,” such as baseball or hangman, are extrinsic fantasies. As an example of an intrinsic fantasy, Malone describes an adventure game with underground caverns where intrinsic motivation is found by directing the action through the player’s skills in reading (the cave descriptions) and writing (the commands). Malone describes any “fantasy inducing environment” with a definition from the American Heritage Dictionary as an environment that evokes “mental images . . . not present to the sense or within the actual experience of the person involved, such as physical objects or social situations” (56). In addition, Malone contends that intrinsic fantasies are inherently more motivating and hold the advantage of being able to be designed such that the skill being tested could be used in the real world to accomplish a specific goal (58). Other advantages of using fantasy that the author notes are the symbolic representation in fantasies enhance the learner’s ability to connect existing knowledge with new knowledge, and the use of vivid images can enhance memory of new concepts. Malone underscores the important point that people like goals and challenges because success in the face of a challenge makes one feel good and boosts their self-esteem. Self-esteem can boost self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and learning achievement, so in a learning environment, success in the face of challenges can have a very positive impact on student learning. Alongside this, however, the inverse is also true, meaning failing to overcome challenges in an educational environment can have a negative impact on student learning. For this reason, games with challenges for use in educational settings must be designed very carefully as the goal in this setting is to have the students be challenged but also to ultimately overcome those challenges and be successful to receive that self-esteem boost. One technique for ensuring all students are successful in terms of a gamified quest is for them to work collaboratively in small groups and to have clues available if they get stuck, where they can call upon the instructor or some element designed within the game itself to get a clue to help them move forward.

This podcast from the University XP explores key principles and strategies for creating meaningful learning experiences using gamification.

Eng, D. (Host). (February 23, 2025). Rob Alvarez on getting started with gamification [Audio podcast episode]. In Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/podcast/132

podcast - gamiifcation - alvarez.mp3

Rob Alvarez on

Getting Started

with Gamification

Le (2020) notes that “the most commonly grounded theory related to gamification” is Ryan & Deci’s self-determination theory (SDT) (2000), which explores intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and how these influence behavior, stating that their “theory of intrinsic motivation does not concern what causes intrinsic motivation (which we view as an evolved propensity) . . . rather, it examines the conditions that elicit and sustain, versus subdue and diminish, this innate propensity” (70). SDT puts forth that individuals are inherently motivated to grow, learn, and integrate themselves into social systems, but that their motivation can be undermined by social and contextual factors, creating a “vulnerability to passivity” (Ryan and Deci, 2000, 76). The authors point to three key psychological needs that, when satisfied, lead to higher levels of self-motivation (and, when absent, lead to lower states of self-motivation). These three needs are (1) competence, defined as the need to feel effective in one’s activities; (2) autonomy, defined as the need to feel in control of one’s actions; and (3) relatedness, defined as the need to feel connected to others. In their study, the authors found conditions that supported autonomy and competence “reliably facilitated” intrinsic motivation, whereas conditions that controlled behaviors and “undermined perceived effectance” had an inverse effect on intrinsic motivation (76). Likewise, looking at extrinsic motivation, or what the authors term “nonintrinsically motivated behaviors,” the authors found that conditions where autonomy, competence, and relatedness were well supported enhanced those behaviors whereas environments that were not supportive of these had the opposite effect.

Gamification can be used to create conditions where those psychological needs are supported in an educational environment by the instructor’s lesson design: autonomy through games where the students make decisions and feel like they are in control of the direction of the game, competence through levels or points system, gathering interim clues to solve an ultimate puzzle, and real-time feedback, and relatedness with group challenges or quests and/or competition, leaderboards (social recognition), and challenge discussion boards or other communication channels such as a WhatsApp group to ask for and share tips. Motivation, autonomy, and relatedness are all important drivers of classroom community. Students who are more motivated engage more socially in the class through participation and peer support, enhancing the building of community in the classroom; likewise, students who are more autonomous feel more competent and are more likely to contribute their perspectives, further enhancing sense of community.

In investigating ESL learner engagement using gamification, Le noted that “the positive effects of gamification have been widely stated in a large body of literature, both conceptually and empirically” (2020, 9) and found that gamification can have positive impacts on intrinsic motivation, learner engagement, and collaborative learning. Collaborative learning can have a big impact on fostering connections and relationships in online classes, where instructors can group students to solve problems in gamified environments, and it can be a key tool in course design to contribute to sense of community. Le highlights many gamification features that have been associated with higher intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, including levels, points, and badges (extrinsic) and “sense of autonomy, mastery, and connectedness” (intrinsic). Specific to ESL classes, Le cites several studies linking gamification’s positive impact on lowering language anxiety, increasing student attention, and, particularly important for ESL learner success, increasing students’ willingness to communicate.

When building online courses using gamification or other approaches for ESL students, it is important to consider first that all students who have been accustomed to face-to-face instruction are met with a more learner-centered experience online, particularly with asynchronous online courses (Sailsman, 2020). For this reason, it is important to walk students through the experience of learning online and provide explicit instructions, as well as to make oneself readily available as much as possible for students to reach out to at their points of need. Second, many ESL classes have students students from diverse cultural backgrounds, each with their own unique cultural understanding of what happens inside the classroom and how one interacts with other students and the professor. For this reason, instructors should make efforts to equalize the learning environment as soon as possible early in the semester by communicating to the students in a welcoming way what kinds of activities the class will have, how students will complete those activities, and how they will be expected to work with other students and the instructor.

Manzano-León, et al. reinforces the positive impact gamification has been shown to have on student motivation and performance through a review of gamification articles in education, but notes those games that rely solely on extrinsic motivators such as points, badges and leaderboards may have only limited and/or fleetingly positive effects, whereas those that rely on intrinsic motivators, such as progressing through a series of challenging but doable challenges while gaining understanding of the course content, will likely have more lasting impact on student motivation, engagement, and achievement (2021). The authors conclude that optimal engagement and motivation can be achieved in those gamified environments where varied mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics are used and where the gamified activity has “clear objectives, challenging tasks and authentic stories” (10). Their research also supported findings of gamification’s direct positive impact on building community, finding that “students are more engaged and participatory [in classes with gamified elements] than in traditional classes” (10).

This TEDx talk from Dr. Christopher See explores gamification, including escape rooms, in higher education settings

TEDx Talks. (2016, April 22). Gamification in Higher Education | Christopher See [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= d8s3kZz1yQ4

One specific type of gamified environment that has shown great promise in online learning environments is a virtual escape room, which Stephens de Jonge, et al. highlight contrasts with solitary online games and represents “a pedagogical tool that shifts the focus from a narrow academic task to a more human-centered, and thereby holistic, experience” (2019, p.159). Digital escape rooms also offer opportunities to incorporate narrative, with escape rooms being particularly well-suited since students progress through a series of challenges to reach a final destination, and those challenges can be connected with an underlying narrative (Dickey, 2011). Bellés-Calvera, et al. highlighted the additional pedagogical value digital escape rooms bring by nature of their ability to foster teamwork and decision-making skills and by “breaking the monotony in the virtual classroom [and offering] students the chance to develop communicative skills in the target language, focusing on speaking” (2022, 3). The authors also bring to light several possible de-motivating factors of escape rooms as Malone discussed in talking about the potential negative impact on self-esteem that not being able to solve a problem can bring to a learner and the potential resulting negative impact on self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and learning achievement. If learners get stuck or otherwise cannot advance in a digital escape room, it can increase their stress and anxiety levels; however, these problems can be mitigated with careful design on the part of the instructor. In their study of students in a hybrid class participating in a digital escape room during a virtual week of instruction in an undergraduate content-and-language-integrated (history and English) course at a Spanish university, the authors found that many of the learners indicated they felt intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to participate in the escape room and the authors concluded that “most of them may feel calmer, leading to enriching and fun teaching practice” (17).

Gamification can also reduce language anxiety and increase students’ willingness to communicate in class using the target language (Bellés-Calvera , 2022, Stephens de Jonge, et al., 2019). Le found that gamification contributed “immensely” towards encouraging student participation and commitment to learning and found “strong evidence of learner interest and excitement,” along with strong feelings of social connectedness, team building, and cognitive engagement. Likewise English (2024) found that digital escape rooms had a strong impact on ESL students’ sense of collaboration and teamwork, that the escape rooms contributed to higher levels of students’ appreciating different perspectives, and that they enhanced students’ feelings of belonging to a classroom community. Jose (2021) also found that gamification enhanced social interaction and students’ sense of belonging to a group and highlighted that online gamified environments, such as digital escape rooms, allow for the incorporation of different types of media and text, which provides instructors the opportunity to incorporate digital formats to students such as hypertext articles. Jose states that students often connect more with these over paper texts because they view them as more relevant, noting that "students who spend most of their lives outside school hours connected to the internet via phones or other devices find classes that ignore the world wide web disconnected from the real world” (897). The author also found evidence to suggest that ESL learners, particularly those at lower levels, display higher levels of comprehension with hypertext articles, stating that these articles can scaffold comprehension by providing language, content, and background support via the hyperlinks. “Further, their multimodality and the ease of access to information facilitate comprehension in students with diverse cognitive styles, language competencies, and levels of content knowledge, and from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds” (897). These links, the author found, increased student interaction and engagement, which in turn lead to increased comprehension. In addition to traditional reading strategies such as using a dictionary or a thesaurus and tapping into prior knowledge, the students used reading strategies unique to the online format including searching for images and multimedia to better understand unknown words, using search engines to find additional information to support their understanding, and forming relations among link contents (905). Jose puts forth that hypertext articles and explicitly teaching online reading strategies such as these can have a positive impact.

Some final important key points to consider in this area relate to video creation for gamified or other components of an online class. Guo et al. (2014), examined the impact of video production decisions on student engagement in online educational videos by reviewing viewing data from 6.9 million video views in MOOCs. The authors discovered that students found shorter videos more engaging (suggesting engagement begins to have a significant negative impact after six minutes), informal presentations that show the instructor speaking and addressing the student directly by maintaining eye contact are more engaging than videos of slide presentations, videos with “live,” hand-drawn illustrations are more engaging than slide presentations or screencasts, and clear, enthusiastic, and rapid speech correlated with higher engagement. Another important note is the authors found no correlation between higher production value and higher engagement, meaning instructors do not need to spend a lot of time or money on equipment, lighting, and set-up when making their videos. The authors also found that instructors planning their content specifically for the online format, rather than attempting to re-package previously face-to-face content in an online medium, was important for creating content that students would find engaging. They highlighted how, historically, when a new communication medium arrives, people try to use it to do what they have been doing with pre-existing media rather than creating something new based on the capabilities (and limitations) of the new technology, underscoring the point that “presentation styles that have worked well for centuries in traditional in-person lectures do not necessarily make for effective online educational videos” (48).

Mayer et al. presented five evidence-based principles of video design that largely supported these findings. Echoing Guo et al., they cited the dynamic drawing principle, which states that students will be more engaged with a video where the instructor is drawing, and the perspective principle, which states a first-person presentation of material is more engaging than a third-person presentation, in line with Guo et al.’s findings that more informal videos are more engaging than more formal videos. Slightly divergent from Guo et al’s findings that maintaining eye contact with the camera creates optimal engagement, Mayer et al. presented the gaze guidance principle, which states that optimal engagement is created when an instructor shifts their gaze between the camera and the board or a secondary setting. The final two principles were not addressed in the work of Guo et al.: the generative activity principle, which states that engaging learners in summarizing or explaining content as part of the video fosters engagement, and the subtitle principle, which states that subtitles aid English language learners, such as ESL students, comprehension.