3 Technologies Essay

University of Connecticut

Measuring the Effects of Badges on Game Completion and Participation

3 Technologies Essay

Pufahl, Jason

7-19-2014

Table of ContentsIntroduction................................................................................................................................................................. 2

Technology 1 – Emerging Technology - Micro-Credentials (Badges).........................................................................2

Description...............................................................................................................................................................2

How Does a Badge Facilitate Learning....................................................................................................................2

Expected Student outcomes.....................................................................................................................................2

Medium impact on learning.....................................................................................................................................3

Technology 2 – Classroom Technology- Gamification................................................................................................3

Description...............................................................................................................................................................3

How Does Gamification Facilitate Learning............................................................................................................4



Technology 3 – Emerging Technology– MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).......................................................4

Description...............................................................................................................................................................4

How Does a MOOC Facilitate Learning..................................................................................................................4



References................................................................................................................................................................... 5

IntroductionThe technologies included in this essay were chosen because they are distinct, but all complimentary to the

practicum. I am currently intending to use badges to enhance completion rates and student engagement in the existing gamified training application I designed called HuskyHunt. I am starting the essay with Micro-credentials (Badges) as that is the intended modification to HuskyHunt and what I hope to show contributes to participation. My second technology, gamification, contains many of the specific assessment criteria for the practicum and is ultimately the basis for the concept of HuskyHunt. Finally, I chose MOOC’s as my third technology because at its core HuskyHunt is an educational application aligning most closely to the xMOOC model and designed to be delivered at scale.

Technology 1 – Emerging Technology - Micro-Credentials (Badges)Description

Micro-Credentials (Badges) are electronic tokens used to indicate that an individual has reached a goal or achieved a particular accomplishment. Badging is considered a possible mechanism to provide incentives to game players and is being used more regularly in online learning and gamification applications. The most common badge implementation is to award badges within a game or activity, however these badges aren’t transferrable outside of the particular ecosystem in which they were awarded. There are currently projects such as Mozilla’s OpenBadges and P2PU that are working to open badging platforms and enable individuals to maintain their own earned badges as part of a their digital identity.

Gartner considers badging to be an innovative trigger on their Hype Cycle for Education (Lowendahl, 2013) indicating that this is really an emerging technology that could be adopted at scale within 5 years or may “be hampered by issues related to identity management of individual earners and trust in issuers” (Lowendahl, 2013)

How Does a Badge Facilitate LearningOpen badges provides the opportunity for learners to showcase their achievements. These can be used as

differentiators, perhaps for college admissions or as additional certification criteria for a job opportunity. As the concept of badging gains popularity the possibilities to tie badge attainment to possible future successes or achievements becomes a strong progress motivator (Schenke, 2013). Badges facilitate learning by providing additional intrinsic motivation to progress through a series of challenges and, assuming the game leverages an established instructional design principle, that progression should enable continued opportunities for teaching and learning.

I expect the key challenges to leveraging badges to contribute to the participation goals will be the following:

Clearly communicating the badges that can be earned Defining how the badges are earned Defining badges that motivate people to participate in and complete game modules.

If the criteria to earn badges are clear then it is reasonable that we should expect higher participation throughout the game and a greater completion percentage.

Expected Student outcomesBadging can potentially become a long term motivator to earn and showcase achievements. Currently the

weakness of badging is that most badges are confined to the ecosystems they live in (ie. Untappd). The concept of an identity is changing as people continue to interact virtually with such frequency. The advent of open badging could move us to the state where individuals want to collect and showcase badges over time; enabling users to enhance their digital identity.

https://untappd.com/

https://p2pu.org/en/badges/

http://www.openbadges.org/

http://huskyhunt.uconn.edu/

Digital identities need to be created and managed, but most importantly there needs to be authenticity and trust; badging offers one mechanism to build and enhance an authentic online identity. They also offer the opportunity for enhanced levels of assurance (LOA) by enabling multiple trusted communities to continually validate that an individual is who they claim to be, ultimately enabling badges to be used as tokens that validate skills and are leveraged for privileged access to resources.

Badging has the potential to become a commonly used technology, but large scale acceptance will likely require that people understand the broader positive impacts of managing their digital identity.

Medium impact on learning Clark suggests that if “learning occurs as a result of exposure to any media, the learning is caused by the

instructional method embedded in the media presentation” (Clark, 1994, p. 26). Badges do not specifically contribute to learning but are expected to positively contribute to motivation. If badges can be leveraged to produce more exposure to the media then we can expect to positively impact learning.

Technology 2 – Classroom Technology- GamificationDescription

Gamification is a mechanism designed to increase engagement and interest in a non-game related activity, such as corporate training. Gamification utilizes techniques such as badging, points and rankings to elicit a competitive response and encourage continued improvement. The project I expect to utilize for my practicum will be HuskyHunt, which is an application that attempts to leverage gameplay, rankings and social interaction to encourage participation in security awareness and training.

The following qualities, as identified by Apostol, Zaharescu and Alexe were identified as being related to gamification and more generally gameplay: “rules, goals and clear outcomes, feedback and rewards, problem solving, players, safe environment, and sense of mastery(Kapp, 2013). The current version of HuskyHunt has rules, goals and rewards but neglected the creation of clear expected outcomes at the beginning of the game and lacks regular feedback. The players are awarded points for certain common activities, and accumulate points towards a grand prize but the ultimate goal of the game, a monetary prize, occurs only at the end of the game and does not provide ample regular feedback.

HuskyHunt has the potential to be an effective training delivery tool, but is currently plagued by low completion rates, an external reward system and a poor ability to measure effectiveness. My intention with the practicum will be to maintain two different versions of the application; one that operates in its current configuration and one that has badges implemented. I will identify distinct groups of people to participate in the game and endeavor to determine if awarding badges provides additional incentive to play the game and complete the game. I will likely run the game as an online challenge only, omitting the current physical world scavenger component. Measuring the effects of badges on game completion and game enthusiasm will be done using a qualitative assessment such as grounded theory.

The following rubric will assess affect badging has on incentive to complete the game:

% of students completing each module % of students dropping out after each module % off students completing all modules % of students dropped out

The following rubric will assess the affect badging has on incentive to play the game:

Elapsed time from post of question to attempt at answering the question Frequency of social media posts Recruitment of new players

http://huskyhunt.uconn.edu/

How Does Gamification Facilitate LearningGamification attempts to leverage effective game and motivational elements to increase engagement of

learners. MOOC’s, for example, can potentially increase completion rates if courses leveraged game elements and improved the current reward systems. An aspect of gamification, open-badging, could be used to highlight achievement and improve the value and validity of achievement.

Expected Student outcomesIsabelle Alexe; Loredana ZAHARESCU; Silviu Apostol assert that the “literature shows the fact that

gamification and educational games have a positive effect on three main aspects of education: motivation, engagement and performance (APOSTOL, ZAHARESCU, & ALEXE, 2013). My experience with HuskyHunt to this point indicates that significant engagement can be achieved by leveraging gamification to entice students participate in online training.

Medium impact on learningGamification itself is a motivational mechanic to encourage participation in an activity that learners may

not be inclined to do otherwise. The concepts can be applied regardless of the medium, however the medium enables a greater reach than if the same information were to be taught through a more traditional lecture style. The gameplay is intended to be easy to learn, the application is intended to be low cost and players can compete for the grand prize by completing the core security modules and ignoring secondary game goals.

Technology 3 – Emerging Technology– MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)Description

A MOOC is designed to provide education to a large, potentially unlimited, student body over the Internet (“Massive open online course,” 2014) There are a variety of course providers offering free access or a hybrid of free access combined with possible paid assessment capabilities. MOOC content is provided by private companies such as Coursera and cooperative efforts within higher education such as EdX.

How Does a MOOC Facilitate LearningMOOC’s were initially created to satisfy a desire to make current course content available to any non-

matriculating learner for free. Many of these original courses were simply a repackaging of courses originally developed for students physically attending the University and resulted in courses that were available but didn’t translate smoothly to being online. There are generally considered to be two difference styles of MOOC’s (“elearnspace › MOOCs are really a platform,” n.d.):

cMOOC – A MOOC focusing on knowledge creation and generation. A cMOOC is likely to be geared more towards someone learning for interest.

xMOOC – Focusing on knowledge duplication. An xMOOC is geared towards an individual seeking an achievement, is likely offered in addition to other complementary education and is designed to be repeated.

HuskyHunt has qualities that most closely align with the xMOOC model. It should be understood that current reach of HuskyHunt is not as much massive as it is moderate, but the only hurdles preventing adoption are due to lack of awareness, not implementation constraints.

MOOC’s typically rely on 2 methods of student evaluation (“Massive open online course,” 2014)

Peer Review Automated Assessment through quizzes and tests

Expected Student outcomesCompletion rates of MOOC’s are extremely low, less than 10% ("Massive Open Online

Course." Wikipedia), likely due to the inability to work towards any relevant academic achievements. However, MOOC’s are designed to be accessible to anyone interested in a subject. The diversity of student’s capabilities and backgrounds likely contribute to course abandon rates, but also should make us reconsider our expectation for what success is (Dierkes & Wharton, n.d.). Students may have attained the knowledge they were looking for in the first week of the class, or perhaps they simply enrolled to gain better appreciation of the subject in general. It’s important to recognize that not all students will have the same goals, and that currently the goals of MOOCS are largely different than the goals of a traditional matriculating student.

Medium impact on learningMOOC’s are a medium that contribute to the learning process. Kozma suggests that the “visual and social

nature of the story, as presented with video, is more likely to activate relevant situation-based prior knowledge.” (Kozma, 1994, p. 12). He goes on to say that “a medium’s capabilities enable methods and the methods that are used take advantage of these capabilities. If media area going to influence learning, method must be confounded with medium.” (Kozma, 1994, p. 16). This statement describes the capabilities of a MOOC to integrate a variety of mediums to produce a positive learning outcome.

ReferencesAPOSTOL, S., ZAHARESCU, L., & ALEXE, I. (2013). GAMIFICATION OF LEARNING AND

EDUCATIONAL GAMES. eLearning & Software for Education, (2).

Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development,

42(2), 21–29. doi:10.1007/BF02299088

Dierkes, P., & Wharton, R. (n.d.). Learning Outcomes and Assessment | MOOC MOOC. Mooc Mooc. Retrieved July

19, 2014, from http://www.moocmooc.com/articles_files/Learning_Outcomes_and_Assessment.html

elearnspace › MOOCs are really a platform. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/07/25/moocs-are-really-a-platform/

Kapp, K. (2013). Thinking about Gamification in Learning and Instruction. Thinking about Gamification in

Learning and Instruction. Retrieved July 19, 2014, from http://karlkapp.com/thinking-about-gamification-

in-learning-and-instruction/

Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational Technology Research and

Development, 42(2), 7–19.

Lowendahl, J.-M. (2013). Hype Cycle for Education, 2013. Hype Cycle for Education, 2013. Retrieved July 19,

2014, from http://www.gartner.com/document/2559615?ref=TypeAheadSearch

Massive open online course. (2014, July 19). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Massive_open_online_course&oldid=617525172

Schenke, K. (2013). Design Principles for Motivating Learning with Digital Badges. HASTAC. Retrieved July 19,

2014, from http://www.hastac.org/blogs/kschenke/2013/06/05/design-principles-motivating-learning-

digital-badges