While much attention in location-based game and wearable research is about their benefits as in-class education or is aimed at children, rather less research has been done about the combination of location-based games and wearables in private use. This paper investigates a game solution for the low history knowledge of German teenagers and focuses on the learning success of the combination of a proposed location-based mobile game and wearable, called ‘Geocation’ for educational purposes as well as the enjoyment of it. Two prototype sets, functional and appearance, about the location-relevant topic ‘King Ludwig II’ were created and tested with 36 teenagers in Munich. To analyze the learning success pre-and post-test surveys were conducted and applied to the strategy of gamification. The enjoyment of the combination of the location-based mobile game and wearable was evaluated by connecting it to the GameFlow theory and conducting post-test interviews. The study has shown that the connected wearable was not crucial for the player’s learning success; however, it contributed to the user’s motivation and enjoyment.

Gamification är ett relativt nytt fenomen som blir mer vedertaget i företagsvärlden. Kort beskrivet innebär det att spelmekanismer och spelelement implementeras i en icke-spelkontext, exempelvis inom ett informationssystem på ett företag. Detta görs för att stimulera motivation och engagemang från användarna och på så sätt bidra med nöjdare, mer tillfredsställda anställda och högre resultat. Trots att fenomenet blir allt vanligare på arbetsplatser saknas forskning om hur användarna upplever att arbeta på ett gamifierat sätt.    Vi har med denna studie undersökt användarnas egna upplevelser och jämfört dessa med hur arbetsledarna reflekterar över den påverkan gamification har på anställda. Detta har gjorts för att nyansera förståelsen för hur gamification påverkar användare inom en callcenterkontext. Vi undersöker även hur väl syftet är förankrat och förstått av användarna. Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ ansats där data samlades in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer där empirin sedan kodades efter teman vanliga inom området.   Resultatet visar på att det finns olika uppfattningar om vad gamifications syfte är, men den vanligaste uppfattning är att det syftar till att göra arbetet mer tillfredsställande. I frågan om hur användarna upplever att arbeta i ett gamifierat system kom vi fram till ett flertal teman där motivation, tillfredsställelse samt engagemang var mest förekommande upplevelserna. Vi fann även att upplevelser såsom stress, press och frustration var förekommande vilket inte diskuterats utförligt i tidigare litteratur inom gamification. Vi hittade även likheter och skillnader mellan användares och arbetsledares perspektiv gällande hur gamification upplevs av användare. De mer märkbara likheterna vi fann var upplevelser om tillfredsställelse och nöje samt ett ökat engagemang. Dock fann vi skillnader i hur användare och arbetsledare uppfattade motivationsfaktorer, upplevd motivation inom gamification samt huruvida användare upplevde stress.

Gamification is the use of elements and mechanics from the video-game industry in contexts which are not game-related. Gamification has, in the last decade, become a popular way to enhance a lot of contexts, such as medicine, business and education, by creating intrinsic motivation and engagement as well as changing behavior in the userbase. While a big part of the published science related to gamification is concerned with the question of “does gamification work?”, the question of what makes it work and why it works have gotten less attention. This study researches how to design a gamification experience in the context of education in the best possible way, including what the most common pitfalls are and how to avoid them, by studying the published literature on gamification in the context of education. The results of the study suggest that adhering to the self-determination theory (SDT) from the field of psychology is important in creating intrinsic motivation, and that a key part of gamification design may lie in choosing game elements which fulfil the three basic needs proposed by SDT: relatedness, competence and autonomy. A common pitfall in the design of gamification seems to be failure to fulfill these three needs. The study also shows that while gamification yields positive results for many people, a small but significant portion of the population does not gain any benefit from many gamification experiences. This suggests that an analysis of the future users of the gamification experience should be done prior to designing the gamification experience. Lastly, useful design principles are also found and discussed.

Serious games can be used for a vast amount of different purposes and they change the way we think, learn, and entertain ourselves. The focus of this paper will be more about learning or educational games and how the adaptation of content through personalized preferences can be of an importance for capturing the user’s interest and retaining their motivation. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of the content adaptation of a serious game target group in order to maintain their motivation to achieve the learning outcome. The players of serious games usually have a goal or motivation prior to begin playing a game. Those goals may include the learning of a new language or increasing one's geography or math skills. By adapting the content of a serious game to the level of knowledge of a player or giving the player the opportunity to choose in what field they would like to increase their knowledge in, could be a factor to maintain the player motivation up until the goal of the player is achieved. In this paper, an adaptive educational game has been developed to examine whether a target group with personalized content will indicate a higher motivation to play the game than another group which will be playing the direct version of the game without any personalized content.

Problemet med gamification är de begränsningar som finns relaterat till fenomenet idag. De begränsningar som det oftast pratas om är hur belöningar i form av exempelvis poäng och medaljer prioriteras. Det är på grund av de här belöningarna som fokus skiftas från bland annat syfte och utformning och det lämnar mycket utrymme för utveckling. Därför är det intressant att undersöka hur gamification kan utvecklas och appliceras för att påverka användarnas inlärning och engagemang. Arbetet fokuserar på problemlösning med hjälp programmering i två olika miljöer, en med grafisk feedback och en utan. Mätningen utfördes på gymnasieelever och indikerade att grafisk feedback inte bara underlättar vid inlärning utan har en positiv påverkan på elevernas motivation att slutföra uppgiften.

O engajamento dos discentes é um dos assuntos em voga na Educação hoje em dia. Observa-se que os novos alunos possuem uma forma diferente de encarar o processo de aprendizagem, uma vez que o modelo tradicional ainda impõe ao aluno o papel passivo em sala de aula. Nessa perspectiva, o uso da gamification surge como uma proposta de estratégia capaz de auxiliar os professores a atrair os seus alunos, uma vez que a estrutura do gamification possui potencial de engajamento. Seu formato é adequado aos anseios atuais, principalmente quando o assunto é aprendizagem em uma época em que os professores disputam a atenção dos alunos com a tecnologia. Assim, esta pesquisa descreve quais as preferências e os determinantes do engajamento de discentes de Ciências Contábeis em relação aos elementos da gamification. São apresentados os fatores determinantes do engajamento de discentes em relação à aceitação de elementos de gamification. Utiliza-se uma abordagem quanti-qualitativa e descritiva como método para coleta dos dados da pesquisa. O campo de pesquisa explorado foi o curso de Ciências Contábeis da UFRGS, no qual participaram 355 alunos de todo curso (43%). A pesquisa revela que os alunos de graduação são experientes com jogos (quase 95% utilizam jogos digitais) e que eles se envolvem com frequência nessa atividade (54,4% frequência pelo menos mensal). Os resultados permitiram identificar que a percepção dos alunos sobre gamification é positiva: 36,62% disseram que se sentem confortável com a ideia. Além desses, 27% demonstraram animação com essa proposta. Os estudantes indicaram serem favoráveis a um sistema com elementos de gamification no ensino, considerando os seguintes elementos: Pontos, Progressão, Equipes, Medalhas, Perfil e Ajudas. Por fim, esta pesquisa contribui na identificação dos fatores determinantes do engajamento dos discentes em relação à aceitação de elementos de gamification (seção 4.5). Acrescenta ainda informações sobre o relacionamento dos discentes com os jogos, tornando possível encontrar uma linha orientadora que possa auxiliar professores a aplicar com sucesso atividades com gamification. / Engagement of learners is one of the most important topics in Education nowadays. It is observed that the new students have a different way of looking at the learning process, since the traditional model still imposes on the student the passive role in the classroom. In this perspective, the use of gamification appears as a strategy proposal capable of helping teachers to attract their students, since the structure of gamification has potential for engagement. Its format is well suited to current yearnings, especially when it comes to learning in a time when teachers challenge students' attention to technology. Thus, this research describes the preferences and determinants of accounting student engagement in relation to the elements of gamification. The determinants of student engagement in relation to the acceptance of gamification elements are presented. A quantitative-qualitative and descriptive approach is used as a method for collecting research data. The field of research explored was the Accounting Sciences course of UFRGS, in which 355 students from all over the course participated (43%). Research shows that undergraduates are experienced with games (almost 95% use digital games) and that they engage frequently in this activity (54.4% at least monthly frequency). The results allowed to identify that the students' perception about gamification is positive: 36.62% said they feel comfortable with the idea. In addition, 27% demonstrated animation with this proposal. The students indicated that they favor a system with elements of gamification in teaching, considering the following elements: Points, Progression, Teams, Medals, Profile and Helps. Finally, this research contributes to the identification of the determinants of students' engagement in relation to the acceptance of gamification elements (section 4.5). It also adds information about the students' relationship with the games, making it possible to find a guideline that can help teachers to successfully apply gamification activities.

The tags and descriptions entered by video owners in video sharing sites are typically inadequate for retrieval purposes, yet the majority of video search still uses this text. This problem is escalating due to the ease with which users can self-publish videos, generating masses that are poorly labelled and poorly described. This thesis investigates how users tag videos and whether video tagging games can solve this problem by generating useful sets of tags. A preliminary study investigated tags in two social video sharing sites, YouTube and Viddler. YouTube contained many irrelevant tags because the system does not encourage users to tag their videos and does not promote tags as useful. In contrast, using tags as the sole means of categorisation in Viddler motivated users to enter a higher proportion of relevant tags. Poor tags were found in both systems, however, highlighting the need to improve video tagging. In order to give users incentives to tag videos, the VideoTag project in this thesis developed two tagging games, Golden Tag and Top Tag, and one non-game tagging system, Simply Tag, and conducted two experiments with them. In the first experiment VideoTag was a portal to play video tagging games whereas in the second experiment it was a portal to curate collections of special interest videos. Users preferred to tag videos using games, generating tags that were relevant to the videos and that covered a range of tag types that were descriptive of the video content at a predominately specific, objective level. Users were motivated by interest in the content rather than by game elements, and content had an effect on the tag types used. In each experiment, users predominately tagged videos using objective language, with a tendency to use specific rather than basic tags. There was a significant difference between the types of tags entered in the games and in Simply Tag, with more basic, objective vocabulary entered into the games and more specific, objective language entered into the non-game system. Subjective tags were rare but were more frequent in Simply Tag. Gameplay also had an influence on the types of tags entered; Top Tag generated more basic tags and Golden Tag generated more specific and subjective tags. Users were not attracted to use VideoTag by the games alone. Game mechanics had little impact on motivations to use the system. VideoTag used YouTube videos, but could not upload the tags to YouTube and so users could see no benefit for the tags they entered, reducing participation. Specific interest content was more of a motivator for use than games or tagging and that this warrants further research. In the current game-saturated climate, gamification of a video tagging system may therefore be most successful for collections of videos that already have a committed user base.

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.

Submitted by Maicon Juliano Schmidt (maicons) on 2015-07-09T14:32:47Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciano Francisco Silveira da Silva.pdf: 483165 bytes, checksum: 334385da5d76cb0272aec196438ccdf0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-09T14:32:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciano Francisco Silveira da Silva.pdf: 483165 bytes, checksum: 334385da5d76cb0272aec196438ccdf0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-01-31 / Nenhuma / As redes de cooperação horizontais são organizações complexas que agrupam empresas individuais com um fim específico. Assim, necessitam de ferramentas para alinhar os associados aos objetivos da organização, promover interação entre os mesmos e estabelecer motivações não financeiras. Partindo deste princípio, o Gamification surge como uma ferramenta na gestão de redes de cooperação horizontais para gerar motivação dos participantes através da dinâmica de jogos. A aplicação das ferramentas de Gamification na gestão destas organizações pode servir como um estímulo envolvente, transformando atividades dos associados em jogos e assim, promover a interação e motivação de uma forma lúdica. As principais ferramentas de gamification são pontos, medalhas, níveis, desafios e ranking. Nesta dissertação estas ferramentas foram identificadas e analisadas dentro do programa de qualidade da REDEMAC, conhecido como Qualificar REDEMAC. Para isso propôs-se através de uma revisão bibliográfica e de uma pesquisa de caráter exploratório, utilizando o método de estudo de caso, compreender a dinâmica de jogos dentro do Qualificar REDEMAC e como o Gamification e suas ferramentas podem colaborar com a gestão destas organizações. As dinâmicas que envolvem sua utilização devem, sempre que possível, promover a motivação, uma experienciação lúdica, e transparência nas regras estabelecidas. O uso dos pontos, bem como o uso dos troféus foram adotados como fatores motivacionais e com o objetivo de dar status aos participantes que se destacavam. No entanto, a dificuldade em obter estes pontos, acabava por impedir o associado de evoluir rapidamente nos três níveis do Qualificar REDEMAC, tornando o programa dispendioso e desmotivador. Já a ferramenta de ranking aplicada a uma rede horizontal não se mostrou um fator motivador, dado o tipo de relação que se estabelece neste tipo de rede. Com base nestes achados, podemos afirmar que o Gamification auxilia o gerenciamento das redes de cooperação e sugere-se que estudos futuros abordem redes com maior e menor grau de proximidade dos associados. Sugere-se também o estudo da aplicação das ferramentas de ranking e de desafios em outra rede de cooperação horizontal, tendo em vista que no caso estudado ela não foi aplicada como o proposto na teoria de Gamification. / The horizontal networks are complex organizations that bring together individual businesses with a specific purpose. They require tools to align the goals associated with the organization, to promote interaction between them and establish non-financial motivations. With this assumption, the Gamification emerges as a tool in managing horizontal networks to generate motivation of participants through dynamic games. The application of Gamification tools in managing these organizations can serve as stimulus surroundings, transforming activities of associates in games and thus promote interaction and motivation in a playful way. The main tools are gamification points, medals, levels, challenges and ranking. In this dissertation these tools were identified and analyzed within the quality program of REDEMAC, known as Qualificar REDEMAC. For this it was proposed through a literature review and an exploratory research, using the method of case study to understand the dynamics of games within the Qualificar REDEMAC and how Gamification and its tools can collaborate with the management of these organizations. The dynamics involving their use should, wherever possible, promote motivation, one experiencing playful, and transparency in the rules. The use of points as well as the use of trophies was adopted as motivational factors and in order to give status to participants that stood out. However, the difficulty in obtaining these points would eventually prevent associated to evolve rapidly in the three levels of Qualificar REDEMAC, making the program expensive and demotivating. The ranking tool applied to a horizontal network was not a motivating factor, given the type of relationship that is established in this type of network. Based on these findings, we can say that the Gamification helps the management of cooperative networks and suggests that future studies address networks with higher and lower degree of closeness of the members. It is also suggested to study the application of the tools of ranking and challenges in another horizontal network, considering that in this case study it was not applied as proposed by the Gamification theory.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2016-06-10T13:27:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ricardo da Silva e Silva_.pdf: 1822144 bytes, checksum: 6de085c459272b4ba362b9ef9f523e76 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-10T13:27:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ricardo da Silva e Silva_.pdf: 1822144 bytes, checksum: 6de085c459272b4ba362b9ef9f523e76 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-25 / Nenhuma / O objetivo desta dissertação é apresentar uma experiência de sala de aula, através da aplicação dos conceitos da gamificação na construção de uma prática pedagógica em uma turma do ensino técnico profissional, do curso Técnico em Logística, buscando validar os conceitos de gamificação e vislumbrar sua eficiência no desenvolvimento de habilidades e competências. O experimento se dá em três fases, onde em um primeiro momento foi aplicado o jogo de entretenimento Age Of Empires com fins educacionais, na segunda fase foi executado o jogo educacional Beer Game e na última fase do experimento foi aplicado o jogo online serious Caminhos do Conhecimento, desenvolvido para esta pesquisa, com fins educacionais. As três fases distintas, relacionaram-se entre si através dos elementos dos games como ranqueamento por pontos, cooperação, feedback constante, entre outros. Esta pesquisa visa também analisar a satisfação dos discentes em relação às aulas gamificadas, como método alternativo de aprendizagem, através da análise de dados coletados em questionários aplicados aos alunos envolvidos nesta pesquisa. / The objective of this dissertation is to present a classroom experience by applying the concepts of gamification in the construction of a pedagogical practice in a group of a professional technical education, from Logistics Technician course, seeking to validate the concepts of gamification and envision its efficiency in the development of efficiency and skills. The experiment takes place in three stages, which in a first moment the entertaining game Age Of Empires, was used with educational purposes, and in the second stage the educational game Beer Game and in the last stage of the experiment the serious online game Caminhos do Conhecimento, developed for this research, with educational purposes. These three distinct stages were related to each other through the elements from games like ranking by scores, cooperation and constantly feedback, among others. This research, also aims analyze students satisfaction about their gamified classes, as an alternative learning method, through the analysis of collected data from questionnaires applied to students involved in this research.