While games can be an innovative and a highly promising approach to education, creating effective educational games is a challenge. It requires effectively integrating educational content with game attributes and aligning cognitive and affective outcomes, which can be in conflict with each other. Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), on the other hand, have proven to be effective learning environments that are conducive to strong learning outcomes. Direct comparisons between tutoring systems and educational games have found digital tutors to be more effective at producing learning gains. However, tutoring systems have had difficulties in maintaining students€™ interest and engagement for long periods of time, which limits their ability to generate learning in the long-term. Given the complementary benefits of games and digital tutors, there has been considerable effort to combine these two fields. This dissertation undertakes and analyzes three different ways of integrating Intelligent Tutoring Systems and digital games. We created three game-like systems with cognition, metacognition and affect as their primary target and mode of intervention. Monkey's Revenge is a game-like math tutor that offers cognitive tutoring in a game-like environment. The Learning Dashboard is a game-like metacognitive support tool for students using Mathspring, an ITS. Mosaic comprises a series of mini-math games that pop-up within Mathspring to enhance students' affect. The methodology consisted of multiple randomized controlled studies ran to evaluate each of these three interventions, attempting to understand their effect on students€™ performance, affect and perception of the intervention and the system that embeds it. Further, we used causal modeling to further explore mechanisms of action, the inter-relationships between student€™s incoming characteristics and predispositions, their mechanisms of interaction with the tutor, and the ultimate learning outcomes and perceptions of the learning experience.

Abstract Background:  Both the fitness and gamification industry are booming with no signs of slowing down in the near future. Gamified applications are entering the markets, attempting to induce gameful elements into tedious environments to enhance intrinsic motivation. The same goes for the gym sector, as market leaders, such as the Swedish gym chain Nordic Wellness, are increasingly implementing gamification elements into their business models.   Problem: The true effectiveness of gamification on intrinsic motivation remains underdeveloped. Literature highlights the necessity of adapting gamification design towards the end-user, by considering the different effects from the individual game elements and the context. However, the gym context has been completely neglected, even though gamification has become increasingly utilized in this sector.     Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the body of knowledge on how extrinsic mechanisms such as gamification can influence intrinsic motivation. This study utilizes the context of a gamified gym application for Nordic Wellness to determine the motivational potential of game elements. Thereby, the research team attempts to add to the body of literature by expanding on the effectiveness of gamification on intrinsic motivation, while also contributing through entering a currently undiscovered domain of gamification in the gym context.   Method: A qualitative approach with fifteen semi-structured interviews has been conducted on young Swedish adults attending the Swedish gym chain Nordic Wellness.   Results: The findings suggest Self-Determination Theory as a valid framework to examine the effects of gamification on intrinsic motivations. Through connecting the identified themes and theory, a framework is proposed for the evaluation on the effectiveness of game elements on intrinsic motivation. From evaluating the discussed game elements through this framework, recommendations are made for a gamified gym application that is argued to positively satisfy the psychological needs and therefore enhance the intrinsic motivations in a gym context.

Os ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem estão cada vez mais populares e estão recebendo cada vez mais atenção das pesquisas acadêmicas devido ao avanço tecnológico na última década e na modernização das escolas e ambientes de ensino. Diversos estudos apontam que alunos que utilizam sistemas educacionais melhoram o seu desempenho e aprendem mais. Entretanto, problemas importantes que dificultam sua utilização ainda precisam ser investigados. Dentre eles, um dos principais problemas encontrados é o uso inadequado destes sistemas por parte dos alunos. O tédio, desinteresse, monotonia, a falta de motivação, entre outros fatores, acabam por fazer com que o aluno se comporte inadequadamente ao interagir com o sistema. O comportamento inadequado mais conhecido é trapacear o sistema (do Inglês \"gaming the system\"). Ao externalizar este comportamento, o aluno tenta identificar formas de resolver os exercícios mecanicamente, sem levar em consideração o que precisa ser aprendido. Nesse contexto, esse trabalho tem por objetivo estudar e definir uma alternativa para diminuir o comportamento indesejável nos sistemas por meio do uso de técnicas de Gamificação. Essas técnicas permitem \"persuadir\" o aluno a interagir de forma correta com o sistema. Este trabalho apresenta o desenvolvimento de um sistema educacional gamificado (E-Game) a fim de comprovar se os elementos de jogos auxiliam na diminuição de comportamentos como gaming the system nos alunos, aumentando a motivação deles durante a atividade. O sistema educacional foi submetido a experimentos empíricos em ambientes reais de aprendizagem para que fosse possível obter diferentes tipos de dados para análise. Dessa forma, um outro sistema educacional foi desenvolvido, sem técnicas de gamificação, a fim de obter dados comparativos. Um experimento foi realizado numa escola estadual de São Carlos com o total de 60 alunos. Observou-se, a partir do experimento, que há uma diferença estatisticamente significativa quando se usa os sistemas gamificado e não gamificado. Empiricamente, os resultados comprovam que há uma diminuição do comportamento externalizado gaming the system com o uso de sistemas educacionais gamificados. Além disso, foi observada uma diferença nos resultados relacionada aos gênero dos alunos, até então desconhecida pela literatura. Foi detectado que o gênero masculino externalizou menos trapaças durante o uso do sistema educacional gamificado, em relação ao gênero feminino. Por outro lado, o gênero feminino externalizou menos trapaças no ambiente não gamificado, em comparação ao ambiente gamificado. / Researches in Virtual Learning Environments are getting increasing attention from the research community due to the technological advances of the last decade, the modernization of schools and teaching environments. Several studies indicate that students who use virtual learning environments improve their performance and learn more. However, there are important problems that hinder their use and need to be further investigated. Among them, one of the main problems is the inappropriate use of these systems by students. The boredom, lack of interest, monotony, lack of motivation, among other factors, ultimately causes the student to behave inappropriately when interacting with these systems. The best known improper behavior is Gaming the System, which makes the student to ignore the content to be learned and find ways to perform mechanically the activities proposed by the system. In this content, this project aims to study and define an alternative to reduce the appearance of this undesirable behaviors through the use of gamification techniques, where it can persuade the student to interact with the system in a proper way. This work presents the development of a gamified educational system (E-Game) in order to prove if the game elements can reduce the behavior such as Gaming the System, increasing the motivation in the students during the activity. The educational system was submitted to empirical experiments in real virtual learning environments, in order to get real data to analyze. Also, another educational system was developed, without the game elements, in order to get comparative data. One of the experiments was executed in a school in São Carlos city, with 60 students in the sixth grade. The results of the experiment showed that statistically there is a significative difference during the use of gamified and non-gamified educational systems. Empirically, the results proved that the externalization of undesirable behaviors decreased during the use of gamified educational systems. Furthermore, it was observed a difference in the results related to the students gender, so far not noticed in the literature. It was detected that the male gender externalized less undesirable behaviors in the gamified systems, than the female gender. On the other hand, the female gender practiced less gaming the system in the non-gamified environment, compared to the gamified environment.

Os ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem estão cada vez mais populares e estão recebendo cada vez mais atenção das pesquisas acadêmicas devido ao avanço tecnológico na última década e na modernização das escolas e ambientes de ensino. Diversos estudos apontam que alunos que utilizam sistemas educacionais melhoram o seu desempenho e aprendem mais. Entretanto, problemas importantes que dificultam sua utilização ainda precisam ser investigados. Dentre eles, um dos principais problemas encontrados é o uso inadequado destes sistemas por parte dos alunos. O tédio, desinteresse, monotonia, a falta de motivação, entre outros fatores, acabam por fazer com que o aluno se comporte inadequadamente ao interagir com o sistema. O comportamento inadequado mais conhecido é trapacear o sistema (do Inglês \"gaming the system\"). Ao externalizar este comportamento, o aluno tenta identificar formas de resolver os exercícios mecanicamente, sem levar em consideração o que precisa ser aprendido. Nesse contexto, esse trabalho tem por objetivo estudar e definir uma alternativa para diminuir o comportamento indesejável nos sistemas por meio do uso de técnicas de Gamificação. Essas técnicas permitem \"persuadir\" o aluno a interagir de forma correta com o sistema. Este trabalho apresenta o desenvolvimento de um sistema educacional gamificado (E-Game) a fim de comprovar se os elementos de jogos auxiliam na diminuição de comportamentos como gaming the system nos alunos, aumentando a motivação deles durante a atividade. O sistema educacional foi submetido a experimentos empíricos em ambientes reais de aprendizagem para que fosse possível obter diferentes tipos de dados para análise. Dessa forma, um outro sistema educacional foi desenvolvido, sem técnicas de gamificação, a fim de obter dados comparativos. Um experimento foi realizado numa escola estadual de São Carlos com o total de 60 alunos. Observou-se, a partir do experimento, que há uma diferença estatisticamente significativa quando se usa os sistemas gamificado e não gamificado. Empiricamente, os resultados comprovam que há uma diminuição do comportamento externalizado gaming the system com o uso de sistemas educacionais gamificados. Além disso, foi observada uma diferença nos resultados relacionada aos gênero dos alunos, até então desconhecida pela literatura. Foi detectado que o gênero masculino externalizou menos trapaças durante o uso do sistema educacional gamificado, em relação ao gênero feminino. Por outro lado, o gênero feminino externalizou menos trapaças no ambiente não gamificado, em comparação ao ambiente gamificado. / Researches in Virtual Learning Environments are getting increasing attention from the research community due to the technological advances of the last decade, the modernization of schools and teaching environments. Several studies indicate that students who use virtual learning environments improve their performance and learn more. However, there are important problems that hinder their use and need to be further investigated. Among them, one of the main problems is the inappropriate use of these systems by students. The boredom, lack of interest, monotony, lack of motivation, among other factors, ultimately causes the student to behave inappropriately when interacting with these systems. The best known improper behavior is Gaming the System, which makes the student to ignore the content to be learned and find ways to perform mechanically the activities proposed by the system. In this content, this project aims to study and define an alternative to reduce the appearance of this undesirable behaviors through the use of gamification techniques, where it can persuade the student to interact with the system in a proper way. This work presents the development of a gamified educational system (E-Game) in order to prove if the game elements can reduce the behavior such as Gaming the System, increasing the motivation in the students during the activity. The educational system was submitted to empirical experiments in real virtual learning environments, in order to get real data to analyze. Also, another educational system was developed, without the game elements, in order to get comparative data. One of the experiments was executed in a school in São Carlos city, with 60 students in the sixth grade. The results of the experiment showed that statistically there is a significative difference during the use of gamified and non-gamified educational systems. Empirically, the results proved that the externalization of undesirable behaviors decreased during the use of gamified educational systems. Furthermore, it was observed a difference in the results related to the students gender, so far not noticed in the literature. It was detected that the male gender externalized less undesirable behaviors in the gamified systems, than the female gender. On the other hand, the female gender practiced less gaming the system in the non-gamified environment, compared to the gamified environment.

Because of their seemingly universal appeal, game elements such as points, goals and leaderboards, are increasingly being incorporated into non-entertainment situations with the aim of increasing user performance. This process is referred to as gamification. However, little empirical research exists on gamification’s effectiveness in enhancing performance, particularly with respect to moderating influence of user personality traits. Social gamification that involves more than one participant incorporates social interdependence, which takes form as negative interdependence (competitive in nature) or positive interdependence (cooperative in nature). Based on the hypothesis that the interdependence type underlying a gamification system would appeal to differing personality traits, this study reports a quasi-experiment involving a platform designed to manipulate participant interdependence structure among cooperation, competition, and neutrality, with the latter acting as the control condition. These three interdependence structures functioned as the experiment’s independent variable, with measures of participant performance as dependent variables, together with the participant personality traits assessed using the five factor model of personality acting as moderating variables. 294 undergraduate participants worked with the platform on a voluntary basis over an eight-week period, spending 38,180 minutes and performing 3,275 actions. At the conclusion of the experiment, the data collected were analysed using Kruskal-Wallis, ANOVAs, multilevel mixed method regression models, and a generalised estimating equation. The study’s results yield significant evidence that incorporating gamification in the experimental platform increases participant performance as measured by completed actions on the platform, and that participant personality traits moderated performance depending on interdependence structure. Significant results suggest that within the gamified platform, Extraversion positively moderates performance under competition and Openness positively moderates performance under cooperation.

Gamification is in its infancy yet is proving to be a useful tool for practitioners in many industries. Little research into the perceptions of consumers, in regards to the gamification of online shopping, has been conducted though. Along with a lack of research from the consumer perspective, there is also a lack of qualitative research in this field. The purpose of this paper is to explore the consumer perceptions toward the gamification of online shopping and describe this through a model. Therefore this paper aims to bridge the gap by providing insight on the consumers perception using eight semi-structured interviews. This was supported with established theories, including the mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics (MDA) framework. Through these interviews, the participants allowed for rich empirical information to be gathered. The main findings of this paper conclude consumer perceptions towards the gamification of online shopping to be perceived benefits, enjoyment and drawbacks. The perceptions of consumers also included suggestions for the gamification of online shopping; such as privacy and sustainability.

Using game elements in a non-game context, called gamification, has grown popular recently and can be seen in education, health, and on e-commerce websites. In this thesis, the use of game elements, specifically badges is evaluated on a secondhand website. The gamification component is implemented in three steps: a paper prototype, a digital prototype, and an implementation in ReactJS. All iterations are iterated using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with feedback from the client and with Lean UX. The game elements are evaluated using A/B testing and interviews with users from the A- and B tests.  The results show that gamification can have a positive, although small impact on user engagement on a secondhand website. It also shows that gamification can be incorporated to communicate the core values of the business. The A/B test indicated that there is room for improvement in the gamification component, specifically by more clearly showing that badges are clickable and by adding an explanation of how they can be achieved. These improvements would likely contribute to a better user experience and could increase user engagement with the gamification component.

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Through the development of digitalization, the use of the Metaverse and the strategy of utilizing game elements for brands has increased. Therefore, this thesis purpose has been to understand, from the consumers perspective, if consumer engagement is influenced by gamification strategies used by brands in the Metaverse. The study for this thesis was quantitative, where two digital surveys was performed. When collecting the initial survey, too few respondents were obtained which gave the study too vague result to work with. Therefore, the authors of this thesis decided, for a two-week period, to reopen the questionnaire. The final survey amounted in a total of 125 respondents and was therefore the one used for this thesis. Beside the information conducted by the survey, this theses relied on the theoretical framework based on previous research on aspects such as Gamification strategies, the Metaverse, consumer experience and consumer engagement. The results from this thesis showed that there was a significant relationship between how the repondents were aware of game elements and their purpose and if they let it influence their engagement beside their awareness. We did also perform two additional Pearson Chi-square cross-tabulations concerning the areas of encouragement and spending habits, and market perception. The results in those two did however not show any significant relationships.  This thesis contributes to an understanding of how applied gamification strategies within the Metaverse is experienced by consumers and how it influences them.

AbstractThe subject of gamification is a relatively new and novel concept when it comes to stimulating behavior. Gamification is the use of game elements in a non-game context. Gamification is a tool that can motivate people to engage with activities related to health, education and personal productivity. Gamification can be used in a plethora of areas, and business and organizational contexts are no exception.This study investigates how gamification and the use of game elements in an organizational context influence internal marketing activities. Internal marketing is a management philosophy that explores how to treat employees as internal customers to increase the quality of service. This study investigates how gamification and game elements can help accomplishing this goal through influencing internal marketing activities. The study answers the following research question:The purpose of the study is to investigate how gamification and game elements of an app influence internal marketing activities. The app we are investigating was developed by Volvo Group for their employee ambassador program, called #WeAreVolvoGroup. The app is the context which is being investigated as it contains elements of gamification. A conceptual framework has been developed containing game elements as an influence on seven internal marketing activities, which are job product development, employee recruitment, training and education, motivation and reward, internal market research, internal communication, and retention of staff.A qualitative study was conducted by interviewing managers and users of the app, #WeAreVolvoGroup. By using the thematic analysis, the results were presented and combined into themes that were further analyzed and connected to the conceptual framework. The conceptual framework was revised by retracting internal marketing activities that the app did not contribute to, which were job product development, employee recruitment, training and education, and retention of staff, and adding additional factors that the app contributes to. The findings of this study demonstrate that gamification influences the internal marketing activities that were present in the app listed as motivation and reward, internal communication, and internal market research, as well as additional factors which was company culture and personal branding. Our findings showed that the gamification and game elements of the app influenced these activities