Engage and Motivate: The Power of Interactivity and Gamification in Education Apps

Before talking about why gamification is a crucial ladder to upgrade educational practices there is something we should talk about. Have you ever thought about why students like gaming? The majority of parents will say that the games can hook children for countless hours. We consider that speculation but don’t think that’s the ultimate truth. You see the fundamental of games is—you perform a task and get a reward. Just like in any school test, the children perform well and they get rewarded with good marks.

Obviously, the execution does depend on their individual skill levels. The way students interact with their institutional environment. Their response to the curriculum. It shows their signs of interest and disinterest regarding educational practices . So we ask if the performance of every student varies highly due to skill level, then why there is only one method to provide them education? The methods and approaches need to be upgraded and gamification might be the right answer.

In this blog, we will learn about gamification in education app development. We will also deep dive into the term ‘interactivity’. An underrated process or ability with a humongous impact on our daily lives and education.

The Impact of Interactivity in Education App Development

• Explanation: Interactivity is simply a communication process. It is a term used to describe the process that takes place between humans and devices (Computers). A game is basically an interactive program integrated with audio-visual media to enhance user experience. It denotes one of the most basic forms of ‘interactivity’ can be seen in games.
• Example: Another example to help you understand the term interactivity is a user being active on an app. Consider a student filling out a form in an app for the test.
• Execution: In order to complete the process; he needs to interact with his keyword > which interacts with the phone’s system board > it interacts with cloud servers > data is sent to the phone again > the process is completed.
• End User Impact: Throughout the whole process there are numerous ways of interaction taking place. However, filling out a form for a test is a ‘must-do’ task. If you replace it with an optional task, 4 out of 10 students will choose not to just because it doesn’t interest them in any way. It proves that no matter how far the technology goes, human’s interaction with technology will have a greater impact compared to any other type of interactivity.
• Effective Strat: Improving interactivity is quite difficult as we need to consider user experience and give it a top priority. Gamification in education can be recognized by its vibrantly highlighted jaw-dropping interface and functionality.

• The information is smoothly presented with an interface made using game elements.
• You will also need to add a highly linear cycle of information, rewards, and decision-making.
• Every choice your hero/user makes leads closer to reward.
• New unlocked quests mean new information and fresh data results in progress.
• Lastly, the game-based micro-elements to underline the progress of the user.

Combining both the interactive aspects of games and informative bits of educational practices makes a successful gamified educational app. Provide users with such an effective strategy of choices, tasks, rewards, and progress. It will enhance their learning attitude. But let’s understand the power of gamified education by peering into its intricacies.

The Power of Gamified Education: Why is it So Effective?

Any gamification app has two primary goals to achieve for educators and students both. It significantly revolves around the idea of bridging the motivation gap and making educational material more interactive.

Bridging the motivation gap: This is what even the developers keep in mind while they are ideating for later processes involving education app development. Sometimes not just the students, even the educators lack motivation. Explaining every detail of a topic again and again can be mundane. A Sample of basic game mechanics can help improve the motivation level of students and teachers. This includes rewards, a point system, a leaderboard, etc.

Interactivity through gamification: Compared to traditional approaches of gamified education has always seen massive affirmation. But how exactly? Well, they need to crawl before they walk right. From the beginning, we have a habit of breaking down complex bits of information into more digestible pieces of content. That’s what games aim for too. And when you are able to utilize that information in the most effective way, you get a reward.

Let’s understand the above mentioned foundation of gamification in education through simple examples.

Scenario: During the pandemic, it was hard for students to adapt to the new online education system. Students were experiencing low motivational and attention levels resulting in a drop in engagement rate.

Solution: Introducing a gamified mobile application for the classroom.

Before the App :

• Attendance Rate: 78%
• Competition of Assignment: 52%
• Average Test Scores: 65%
• 60 % of students were feeling bored during lectures, 72% found it difficult to stay focused, and 80% wished science lessons were more interactive.

After Using App :

• Active participation in app-based activities increases.
• A 17% improvement in total test scores.
• The competition of assignment rate increased to 85%.

Reasons :

• Development of curiosity with interactive game based storytelling.
• Lessons were gamified to make them fun and memorable.
• Progress tracking with the help of badges, achievements, and competitions.

Primary problems solved and outcomes

Problem (For Teachers & Students)	Traditional Online Learning	Gamified App solution
Low Engagement & Focus	Long lectures, limited interactions	Interactive activities, quizzes, challenges
Lack of Motivation	Passive learning environment	Points, badges, leaderboards, progress tracking tracking
Difficulty Retaining Information	Traditional lecture format	Gamified Lessons and interactive learning experience

Note: The scenario which was studied by experts, who explore the importance of gamified education.

Let’s further discover the combination of interactive and gamification for education purposes. It will help us understand why games’ primary attribute interactivity has a profound impact on students.

Best Practices of Integrating Interactivity and Gamification

Essentially gamified education aims for high motivation, engagement, and retention rates. But to create a profound impact on a student’s mind proper ideation. Also on the other hand you have people who will deny the digitalization of education material for the benefit of their child. We agree with their concern. Hence here are a few best practices an expert follows when it comes  to gamified education.

1.Inquisitiveness

• When students engage in fresh content they quickly become curious and try to gather answers. One can leverage such feelings to build your own game mechanics accordingly.
• Maybe an adventure that gets them A to be B point but at every B point there should be hints of another quest. Spark curiosity in their mind, and allow them to step into the character’s shoes.
• For example: Solving math equations and the answer is the number of steps your characters get to move. At the end there’s a hint which encourages them to continue their journey.

2.Comradeship

• Co-op games were found to be more famous compared to single-player. Users love to share the fun experience with their friends. Students will always appreciate an individual’s amity who simply enjoys being with them. They will want to win together, lose together, and reach the top together.
• Totally contradicting the ‘motivate each other’’ there is ‘I want to be the best’ psychology. Gamified learning elements test an individual’s skill set and a user’s response with effort. Efforts to be the best.
• Competition and cooperation are two sides of the same coin. At the end of the day, they motivate users and students to participate and aim for big wins.

3.Drive

• Ambition and drive to be the best evidently result in the development of a unique skill set.
• Point tables, competitions, badges, etc empower students to self grow their unique ability to comprehend things.
• In the process, students might understand how to practically approach a task, equations, or topic rather than depend on the theory itself.

4.Purpose

• Drafting a story with a purpose for students will sound quite complex right? But the subjects have chapters too right? And building a story becomes easy if you have content at your hand.
• Let’s consider English subjects. Each lesson exclusively highlights the points that will be asked in the test. A purpose defines students’ roles in the game. To score optimum marks becomes their purpose. They take this as a challenge, the feeling of challenge allows students to scale and grow consistently.
• Here we are trying to let students play an active role in the curriculum through gamified activities. When they complete their role, they get rewarded, this gives them a clear defining purpose for their studies to continue.

5.Relishing

• A gamified app is a perfect balance between enjoyment and education. It makes sure each aspect of the app must enhance the knowledge of students. Yet it should not feel like a burden or else the engagement rate drops drastically.
• There are many ways to bring out the fun in learning. However, increasing the interactivity through gamified elements is the primary choice for students.
• Games are fun-based activities. And a fun based activity always considers participants’ choices. Hence, gamified learning should be personalized according to students. Each individual student will have the opportunity to take a unique path towards the leaderboard. But the idea still remains the same to learn and have fun.

Statistics

Let’s look at a few numbers that highlight the importance of gamification in learning.

• Introducing gamified learning allows students to increase their cognitive competencies by 12%.
• A simple simulation of a chapter allows students to gain practical knowledge. Which increases students’ performance by 25%.
• The report presented by Joan Ganz Cooney Center mentioned that 78% of teachers use gamified learning methods.
• It has even increased the engagement rate of low performing students by 65%.
• Last year the CAGR of gamification in the education market was 0%. This might just be the beginning as AR and VR are still in development. Which are expected to impact the metrics.

Conclusion

Gamification in education is all about striking the perfect balance between learning and fun. Learning is not a game based conceptual setting. This does not mean it should be boring. With the right approach and ideas, you gamify learning too. However striking the perfect balance between learning and fun, basically, the execution is quite complex. Plus to reach the standard of high interactivity is intricate.

Intricate but not impossible. Hiring the top educational app development company is like gaining an extra life in the game. They will surely have the experts and technical resources who are ready to turn your ideas into reality. Additionally, they research modern users and students too beforehand. Helping them to strategize their approach accordingly.