Submitted by Kilvya Braga (kilvyabraga@hotmail.com) on 2018-05-15T14:15:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 KLÁUDIO HENRIQUE MASCARENHAS MEDEIROS - DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGCC) 2016.pdf: 295444 bytes, checksum: 39e4e99b14909cdff8524e2e85703da8 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-15T14:15:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 KLÁUDIO HENRIQUE MASCARENHAS MEDEIROS - DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGCC) 2016.pdf: 295444 bytes, checksum: 39e4e99b14909cdff8524e2e85703da8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016 / Dentre as práticas importantes para alunos de programação introdutória está a realização de exercícios. Existem disciplinas de programação que disponibilizam aos alunos um grande conjunto de problemas. Apesar dessa disponibilidade, existe o problema de que as disciplinas contém alunos que não são motivados a resolvê-los. A gamificação consiste no uso de elementos e dinâmicas existentes em jogos em contextos que não são jogos e nos últimos anos tem sido considerada uma possível solução para o problema de desengajamento de alunos em contextos educacionais. Um dos elementos de jogos utilizados em contextos gamificados é o leaderboard. Os leaderboards são tabelas que exibem indivíduos ordenados de acordo com um critério de pontuação e criam competições que podem estimular os alunos a serem mais ativos. Neste trabalho, nós propomos e avaliamos um design de leaderboards para disciplinas introdutórias de programação, como intuito de incentivar os alunos a resolverem mais exercícios de programação. Nós elicitamos requisitos baseados nos aspectos positivos e negativos dos leaderboards e tomamos decisões de design para atendê-los. A avaliação do design foi feita através de um experimento de curta duração e um estudo longitudinal durante um período letivo. Nós encontramos indícios de que os leaderboards exercem efeito positivo sobre os alunos, fazendo-os exercitar mais. A atribuição de pontuação igual para todos os tipos de problemas permite que mais alunos tenham chances de alcançar altas posições nos leaderboards. A implantação de leaderboards de menor duração incentivou alunos menos ativos na disciplina, mesmo que por poucos dias. / Among the important practices to students of introductory programming is the exercise solving. There are programming courses that offer a large set of problems to students. Despite this availability, there are cases of courses that have students that are not motivated to solve these problems. Gamification is the use of game elements and dynamics in nongame contexts and recently has been considered to be a possible solution for the problem of disengagement of students on educational contexts. One of the game elements used in gamified contexts is the leaderboard. The leaderboards are charts that shows individuals ranked accordingly to a score criteria and creates competition environments that may stimulate studentstobemoreactive. In this work, we propose and evaluate a leaderboarddes ign for introductory programming courses, in order to motivate the students to solve more programming exercises. We elicited requisites based on the positive and negative aspects of leaderboards and made design decisions for fulfill those requirements. The evaluation of the design is done through an short-length experiment and a longitudinal study during a semester. We found evidences that the leaderboards have a positive effecton the students,motivating them to do more exercises. The attribution of the same score for all exercises allowed more students tore achhighranks on the leaderboards. The implantation of short-lengthleaderboards motivated less-active students on the course, even for a few days.

Gamification is a strategy for changing behavior that can be used for increasing physical activity (PA). In Sweden, 34% of the population are not active enough and since sedentary behavior is associated with many health risks, this needs to be improved. One gamification strategy is leaderboards, but most previous research has not looked at isolated gamification strategies. The behavior change effectiveness of leaderboards could increase by personalizing it based on traits. This study investigated the behavior change effectiveness of leaderboards and how individual differences in competitiveness affects the effectiveness. The following research questions were addressed: How effective are leaderboards for increasing physical activity in adults? Does competitiveness level impact a leaderboard’s effectiveness? This experimental study examined 24 participants who reported their PA during one week and were either in an experimental group that saw a leaderboard, or a control group. Their difference in PA before and during the study was compared. Results show that there was no significant difference between the control and experimental group. However, a within-subject significant difference in PA was found (i.e. a significant increase during the experiment) for the experimental group. Additionally, no correlation was found between change in PA and competitiveness. However, competitiveness correlated with enjoyment of the leaderboard. Future studies should investigate more gamification strategies individually and in relation to other traits. Our conclusion is that the leaderboard did no harm, we did not observe the effectiveness claimed by other studies, and competitiveness had no impact on the effectiveness. / Spelifiering är en strategi för att ändra beteenden som kan användas för fysisk aktivitet (FA). I Sverige är 34% av befolkningen inte tillräckligt aktiva, och eftersom stillasittande beteende är associerat med många hälsoproblem behöver detta förbättras. En spelifieringsstategi är topplistor, men tidigare forskning har inte isolerat specifika spelifieringsstrategier. Effektiviteten av topplistor kan öka genom individuell anpassning baserat på personlighetsdrag. Den här studien undersöker effektiviteten av topplistor och hur individuella skillnader i tävlingsinriktning påverkar effektiviteten. Följande forskningsfrågor undersöktes: Hur effektiva är topplistor för att öka fysisk aktivitet hos vuxna? Påverkar nivån av tävlingsinriktning en topplistas effektivitet? Denna experimentella studie tittade på 24 deltagare som rapporterade in sin FA under en vecka och antingen var i en experimentgrupp som fick se en topplista eller en kontrollgrupp. Deras förändring i FA före och under studien jämfördes. Resultaten visade ingen signifikant skillnad i FA mellan grupperna. Men deltagarna i experimentgruppen hade en signifikant skillnad i FA (alltså en signifikant ökning under experimentet). Vi fann ingen korrelation mellan förändring i FA och tävlingsinriktning. Men tävlingsinriktning korrelerade med att tycka om att se topplistan. Framtida studier borde undersöka mer spelifieringsstrategier individuellt och i relation till andra personlighetsdrag. Vår slutsats är att topplistan inte gjorde någon skada, den var inte så effektiv som tidigare studier hävdat, och att tävlingsinriktning inte påverkade effektiviteten.

Väldesignade spel är naturligt motiverande för att hålla kvar sina spelare. För att ett spel ska bli framgångsrikt är det viktigt att det innehåller motivationsförstärkare. På senare år har element hämtade från speldesign även använts inom andra områden, utanför sin vanliga kontext. Detta sammanfattas i begreppet gamification (sv. spelifiering).  Syftet med vår studie var att undersöka hur gamification kan påverka användandet av en applikation som är skapad i syfte att uppmuntra en miljövänlig livsstil. Detta gjorde vi genom att låta två testgrupper med studenter från programmet för Medieteknik vid Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan använda varsin applikation under åtta dagar. Applikationerna var identiska sånär som på en komponent: en av dem innehöll en topplista, vilket är en vanlig motivationsförstärkare inom speldesign. Utöver de data som vi samlade in genom applikationerna så lät vi även användarna svara på ett antal enkäter för att få kvalitativa svar angående deras användning av applikationen.  Resultaten visar att topplistan inte har fungerat som en motivationsförstärkare i det här fallet, men att många användare funnit motivation i att se sin personliga statistik. Införandet av topplistan krävde också att vi införde ett underliggande poängsystem. I diskussionen och analysen för vi resonemang om möjliga orsaker till undersökningens utfall. En möjlig förklaring till varför topplistan inte har höjt användarnas motivation kan vara poängsystemets utformning. Vidare visar resultatet att användare från olika årskurser visat på varierad motivation att använda applikationen. Studenter i årskurs ett och två har generellt presterat bättre än studenter i högre årskurser. / Well-designed games are naturally motivational to keep the players interested. For a game to be successful, it has to contain motivators. Recent years have seen elements from games used in other areas, out of their normal context. This is what is called gamification.  The purpose of our study is to examine how we can use common gamification elements to motivate our users to be more environmentally friendly. We have done this by letting two groups of students from the Programme of Media Technology at The Royal Institute of Technology use two separate applications. The study lasted for eight days and the two applications were identical except for one component – one of them contained a leaderboard, which is a common motivator in game design. We can see from our results that the leaderboard has not motivated our participants to be more considerate of the environment. A lot of people did however find motivation in their personal statistics. The use of a leaderboard required us to also implement an underlying points-system, one explanation to our outcome could be how this system was designed.