Personalized gamified learning based on learning style

Abstract

Gamification demonstrates motivation and encouragement that can be gained by people during the use gamified experience. Gamification technology has been successfully applied in several domains including health and fitness, marketing, education and daily activities. It is the strategy to use heterogeneous game elements within non-entertainment context. As Millennial Generation students have dissimilar needs and preferences, the necessity of having personalized learning is increased recently to boost the effectiveness of the educational system. Learning style has attracted researchers to develop a gamified learning with personalization attributes. As Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model (FSLSM) is the most recommended model by researchers, this study aims to investigate the personalized gamified learning based on student’s learning style. A Design Science Research approach (DSR) has been adopted to develop a personalized gamified model using 10 game elements and 4 FSLSM dimensions. To evaluate this model, a web-based gamification application prototype has been developed for Data Flow Diagram (DFD) topic within System Analysis and Design course. An experimental study using the prototype has been conducted with 71 undergraduate students from School of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Participants were divided into two groups: experimental and control. Additionally, the gamification application has two different modes: personalized mode (for experimental group) and non-personalized mode (for control group). Data was collected from the prototype database and perceived usefulness questionnaire. An independent t-test has been used to compare means of scores between groups. Result shows that there is a significant difference between the students’ scores within the two groups. Therefore, it was clearly revealed that personalized gamified learning is an effective method in learning process; aswell as in boosting student perceived usefulness of the application.