Fast Gamiﬁcation Approach: Increase of the Motivation in Remote

Classes

P. Pernelle

, T. Carron

, S. Talbot

and D. Wayntal

University of Lyon 1, F-69221 Villeurbanne, France

LIP6, Sorbonne University, CNRS, F-75005 Paris, France

University of Savoie Mont Blanc, F-73000 Chambery, France

Keywords:

Collaborative RPG Serious Game, Fast Gamiﬁcation, Remote Class, Distance Learning.

Abstract:

Serious Games are considered as effective incentive tools for academic training. However, it remains a difﬁcult

challenge to use and generalize in university degrees. This paper aims at presenting a hybrid fast gamiﬁcation

approach for different training modules in order to improve the motivation context and involve non-game-

specialist teachers. Thus, in various experiments, we have been able to show that a serious game with a unique

and same storyboard increases motivation even in different formations. In the ﬁrst part, we present the game

scenario modeling. Then, in a second part, we detail integration mechanisms of several training modules into

this scenario. Finally, in a third part, we present the experiments carried out and the results obtained from this

approach used in distance learning, during the COVID-19 crisis.

1 INTRODUCTION

Serious games are effective tools to motivate learn-

ers in their formations. However, they remain very

marginally deployed in vocational university training

(Vlachopoulos and Makri, 2017). There are a vari-

ety of reasons for this. In addition to overcoming

strong resistance to change inherent in the academic

system, the difﬁculty of creating a playful scenario

also known as gamiﬁcation (Kapp, 2012; Bíró, 2014;

Deterding et al., 2011)) and the lack of simple tools

are the main obstacles.

Moreover, the quarantine and the closure of uni-

versity campuses have imposed the need and the gen-

eralization of distance learning. In this difﬁcult con-

text, for teachers and especially for students, motiva-

tional tools such as serious games appear to be essen-

tial to maintain students’ attention and to avoid the

phenomenon of dropping out (Muratet et al., 2012).

This article presents a hybrid approach called

rapid gamiﬁcation. The main point of this gamiﬁca-

tion consists in being able to create a same game con-

text for one or more existing training modules very

quickly. This approach relies on a simpliﬁed model

of the interactions between a fun activity and an edu-

cational activity. Thanks to this approach, the teacher,

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6982-7055

who is not a serious game specialist, integrates his

teaching activities into a fun framework initially pre-

pared by a serious game specialist, regardless of the

ﬁeld of use that will be made of it. The ﬁrst part of

this article presents the modeling used to build this

type of playful scenario and the dedicated modeling

tool.

In the second part, we present the experiments

achieved during the quarantine. Indeed, this approach

has been tested on different teacher modules in a re-

mote classes context. The last part describes the out-

comes collected in different vocational training ses-

sions: Imperative Programming, Database, Control

Theory. Moreover, this approach has been experi-

mented in various university degrees.

2 FAST GAMIFICATION

APPROACH

2.1 Playful Scenario vs Pedagogical

Scenario

Classic script-writing approaches are generally based

on the gamiﬁcation of an educational process (Botturi

et al., 2006) (Kim et al., 2018). In this type of ap-

282

Pernelle, P., Carron, T., Talbot, S. and Wayntal, D.

Fast Gamiﬁcation Approach: Increase of the Motivation in Remote Classes.

DOI: 10.5220/0010461702820287

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2021) - Volume 2, pages 282-287

ISBN: 978-989-758-502-9

proach, the trainer and the game designer try to build a

playful scenario from their educational and / or play-

ful experience, or even from a learning path estab-

lished elsewhere. To do this, they can use models that

will describe the steps of a player-learner’s progress.

In literature, we can ﬁnd the following models:

• IMS-LD-SG (Tran et al., 2010) is a modiﬁed ver-

sion of IMS-LD in order to design serious game

(SG) scenarios by adding speciﬁc types of re-

sources dedicated to the SG;

• SGORM (Bisognin et al., 2010) is an extension of

SCORM allowing to deﬁne playful components;

• MoPPLiq (Marne et al., 2013) corresponds to a

speciﬁc model for representing SG scenario that

can be easily modiﬁed;

• SG-LOM (El Borji and Khaldi, 2014) focuses on

metadata scheme and proposes an application pro-

ﬁle of IEEE LOM. It takes into account the differ-

ent evaluation studies and relies on a SG classiﬁ-

cation.

Most of these models integrate playful elements

into an educational logic. Finally, there is an inter-

dependence in the design of the educational scenario

and the playful scenario (Buckingham and Burn,

2007). These approaches produce good results but the

constraints are very strong. On the one hand, they re-

quire a high level of expertise; on the other hand, they

often induce long production time and some very spe-

ciﬁc developments.

The modeling approach that we have chosen cre-

ates a decoupling between the playful and educational

facets (Abed et al., 2018). In particular,this allows the

models to be produced in parallel and independently,

by different people.

2.2 Fast Gamiﬁcation Approach (FGA)

Modeling

We therefore opted for an opposite approach to the

previously mentioned approaches. Indeed we have

deliberately modeled a playful scenario with a pro-

gression in the game independently of any pedagogi-

cal consideration.

2.2.1 Playful Model

The playful modeling is based on a decomposition ap-

proach by aggregation around the following concepts:

universe, activity, scenario, quest and task. The uni-

verse characterizes the playfulcontext in a thematic or

dreamlike coherence (example: a medieval-fantastic

universe). The activity represents a play unit (exam-

ple: a set of multitouch table activities, a 3D game, a

2D Web Game, a VR game session). These two con-

cepts are mainly categorical elements that help game

designer (and as we will see later teacher) to identify

the granularity.

The structural modeling of a scenario can be bro-

ken down into several quests, each quest being able to

be broken down into tasks. The dynamic of the play-

ful scenario is characterized by the sequence of quests

and tasks whose links are based on predicates.

Figure 1 describes the model used with UML no-

tation.

Figure 1: FGA playful model.

Figure 2 illustrates an extract from the scenario

model which was produced for the experiments in a

University and in an Institute of Technology. We de-

veloped a web tool: a simple graphical editor called

ScenarFab to facilitate the global visualisation of each

scenario.

Figure 2: Quest modeling example.

2.2.2 Pedagogical Model

In order to get/reinject existing pedagogical content

(exercises, video, documents, questionnaire), we only

add one concept: the "integration task". The educa-

tional model represents a simple extension of certain

elements of the playful model (see Figure 3). Thus,

the quests include exercises or video capsules. Some

exercises can be detailed, if necessary, by breaking

them down into tasks.

Fast Gamiﬁcation Approach: Increase of the Motivation in Remote Classes

283

Figure 3: Extension of playful model FGA.

The pedagogical-playful integration is thus natu-

rally done through the integration tasks and their eval-

uation link. These tasks will deﬁne the pedagogi-

cal attachment points which will then be used by the

trainer. Figure 4 shows an example of integration with

an exercise in ScenarFab. An important feature of

ScenarFab is the recursive aspect: game designer and

teacher may zoom into each level of granularity (play-

ful activity, scenario, quest) in order to get a clear vi-

sion of that part of the scenario. ScenarFab generates

a JSON ﬁle with the full scenario but currently we are

not yet able to directly generate the game from this

JSON ﬁle.

Figure 4: Integration example.

With this approach, the creation of the exercises is

totally decoupled from the playful scenario. This al-

lows the trainer in particular to work in parallel with

the game designer. Another advantageis that the same

scenario frame can be used for different training mod-

ules.

3 EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS

This section presents the experiments carried out with

FGA. The approach allowed us in particular to very

quickly offer a context of motivation during the health

crisis of COVID-19.

3.1 Experiments Context

We tested our approach on three different learning

modules in two different training courses.

• ﬁrst cohort with 56 students (Computer Science

bachelor)

– a module on imperative programming in C

language: Imperative Programming, functions,

separate compilation, pointers.

– a database training module: Relational DBMS,

SQL

• second cohort - 80 students - Institute of tech-

nology diploma GMP (mechanical and production

engineering department).

– control module : Linear system, identiﬁcation,

PID

The table 1 presents the characteristics and condi-

tions of these experiments and in particular the dis-

tribution of hours worked face-to-face (before the

COVID crisis) and hours worked in remote class con-

text (during quarantine). The duration represents the

effective game play including brieﬁngs and debrief-

ings. We did not take into consideration gender be-

cause most of these students are male in the degrees

for these experiments. Average age is around twenty-

one.

Table 1: Characteristics of modules using serious play.

Module (total) C Lang DBMS Control

Total 24 24 16

before COVID 20 h 16h 7 h

during COVID 1 x 4 h 2 x 4 h 3 x 3 h

SG Duration 2 h 2 h 2.5 h

Quests Nb 7 9 7

Exercise Nb 5 7 5

E-learning Moodle Moodle Claroline

Discord yes yes yes

LAWEB yes yes yes

The three scenarios have been modiﬁed with FGA

and the ScenarFab tool (cf. Figure 5). It is important

to note that the ﬁrst and the second scenario (of the

C.S. Bachelor cohort) are part of the same scenario

background although they involve two totally inde-

pendent modules in training.

These scenarios have been implemented in the

LAWeb platform. LAWeb is a collaborative-RPG

game platform running within a simple web browser

Besides LAWeb, the students also had an audio virtual

room to communicate within their team (ﬁgure 6).

It can be seen as a layered build based on an editor

software of 2D game called RPG Maker.

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284

Figure 5: Extract from the scenario model with ScenarFAb.

Figure 6: Used gaming tools : LAWeb.

Table 1 also summarizes the quests and integra-

tion tasks of the different scenarios. As we indicated

in the previous paragraph, the trainer deﬁnes the exer-

cises. As part of these experiments, we integrated ex-

ercise evaluation mechanisms with two different ap-

proaches.

The ﬁrst approach is based on online tests within

an LMS (Learning Management System) platform.

The second approach is based on a shell/CLI (Com-

mand Line Interpreter) assessment engine (the an-

swers are compared with a correct test set): the input

interface is available within the game (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Global evaluation on C and SQL modules.

Here, the role of the trainer is simply to provide a

set of exercises with assessable results.

3.2 Results Analysis

The results presented here are extracted from an

anonymous survey carried out at the end of serious

gaming sessions. The response rate for the ﬁrst co-

hort is 57% (same response rate for both scenarios).

The response rate of the second cohort is 48%.

Table 2 presents general student opinions on seri-

ous gaming, for the C programming module and for

the Database module. The results are mostly posi-

tive. We note that at the end of the ﬁrst scenario,

the students wish to continue the game for another

module (74%). The fact of continuing the scenario

for the second module did not modify their opinion

in a negative way. Moreover, 94% of students would

be ready to continue on a third module (cf. Tables 3

4). These results show that the “pedagogical discon-

tinuity” (in the same game environment, sequence of

modules from different domains or subjects studied

in remote class) has no impact on the already known

contribution of serious games. More accurately, the

learners considered as positive to ﬁnd the same envi-

ronment again and to continue to explore it, to already

master the use of the interface, to ﬁnd the same NPCs

(Non Playable Characters) again.

Table 2: What is your general impression about use a seri-

ous game in this module?

module C Language DataBase

Very Bad 0 0.03

Bad 0.04 0.03

Without view 0 0.10

Good 0.19 0.38

Very Good 0.65 0.58

Table 3: Would you like to play another game in a different

module?

after module C Language DataBase

No 0.26 0.06

Yes 0.74 0.94

Table 4: Has your opinion changed compared to the previ-

ous module?

No my opinion has not changed 0.48

Yes my opinion has changed but it’s

more positive

0.45

Yes my opinion has changed but it’s

more negative

The results (cf. Tables 5 7) were obtained for

the ﬁrst cohort (C.S. Bachelor) and for the second co-

hort (Institute of Technology Diploma). They show

that the main interest of serious games remains an in-

crease in motivation. Nevertheless, the students do

Fast Gamiﬁcation Approach: Increase of the Motivation in Remote Classes

285

not think that this directly facilitates their learning.

However, even without a direct impact, many studies

(Prensky, 2001; Connolly et al., 2012; Westera, 2019)

have shown that motivation is a determining factor in

the ability to learn, and with these very difﬁcult pan-

demic contexts, motivation become a crucial criteria

to avoid the dropout.

Table 5: Do you think this serious game is an asset for this

module?

cohort C.S. Bachelor IUT

No 0.06 0.08

Yes 0.94 0.92

Table 6: If you think serious play is an asset, which one do

you think is most representative?

cohort C.S. Bachelor IUT

It’s motivating 0.70 0.75

It changes my view on

the module

0.18 0.25

This helps to better un-

derstand

0.12 0

Figure 8: Ratings compared with and without serious game.

This pedagogical point is conﬁrmed by the results

of Figure 8 since the scores of the groups who per-

formed the module before quarantine (without the se-

rious game) are more or less the same as the groups

who did the module remotely with serious games.

This ﬁnding was not observed in the other modules

of the training.

Table 7 shows that the distance had no impact in

serious game. For the two cohorts, the results are

roughly the same. An important point is that for the

second cohort, the serious game session took place

over two sessions by dividing the cohort into two

groups (around 40 students per group). Thus, thanks

to the “MMO” game (not really massive but multi-

player and online), it was possible to manage two

sessions of 40 students in distance learning, instead

of the four that would have been necessary in face-

to-face or even more with current (post-conﬁnement)

pandemic risk restrictions in the universities.

Table 7: Because the COVID containment, you followed

this scenario in distance learning, what is your opinion on

this point?

cohort C.S. Bachelor IUT

It was not a problem 0.94 0.71

I have no opinion 0.03 0.25

It was problematic not to

be in presential

0.03 0.04

4 CONCLUSIONS

In this article, we have proposed an approach to

quickly implement a motivation context thanks to se-

rious gaming. In order to involve the non-game-

specialist teachers, this approach is based on a sce-

nario construction approach decoupled from educa-

tional aspects. The pedagogical link is carried out a

posteriori by using points of attachment on some spe-

ciﬁc tasks thanks to a graphical editor called Scenar-

Fab. This method allows the work of the designer and

the trainer to be done simultaneously. Furthermore,

the results obtained show that there is no playful dis-

sonance and that the pedagogical discontinuity is not

seen as a hindrance on motivation feeling. Moreover,

the results clearly present an effect of increased mo-

tivation in distance learning that makes a lot of sense

especially in these times of pandemic uncertainty.

Among the perspectives to be developed, we wish

to bring an increased and deeper adaptability of the

educational and play paths. Currently, the educational

hooks are linked to an exercise. In fact, there is no

pedagogical adaptation apart from the possibility of

putting optional play tasks. We wish to study the

possibility that the attachment points are no longer

linked to an exercise but to an exercise pool so that

the learner can do exercises according to a level of

difﬁculty. Another point concerns the real-time moni-

toring of the scenario by the trainer. Experimentshave

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286

shown that it is necessary to have suitable indicators

in order to be able to monitor a large group of students

in real time and react at the right time.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank to the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region for their

support in the implementation of our platforms.

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