eLearning Gamification Strategies: Why and How to Implement • Article

Gamification is the application of games – or other game-like elements – to learning content and tasks to encourage participation, improve user engagement or knowledge retention.

If you are involved in eLearning content production then you already know that “gamification” is a big hit in the corporate world and training industries. Quizzes and games are brought into play and it’s making training fun, easy and engaging.

Gamified Training VS Conventional Training

Gamification in corporate training might need more resources and a longer lead time. But learning gains surpass those of conventional corporate training. And more specifically, gamification offers several benefits:

Develops a sense of accomplishment
Summons healthy competition
Stimulates necessary behavioural changes
Improves learning experience
Encourages teamwork, collaboration, and motivation
Makes the learning experience easy, fun, and fast
Yields better task completion rates
Increases chances of practical usage and application of knowledge

Gamification in eLearning and Corporate Trainings: Dos, Don’ts & Examples

Several aspects are making gamified corporate training a bit different. In these cases, it shouldn’t be done with the sole purpose of making learning fun. There are several points you need to focus on to make the most of your efforts towards this “corporate investment”.

So, before you let gamification take over in full swing, think about this:

How will it help me achieve training goals and purposes?

Are the goals following the expectations and needs of trainees?

1. Promotes Healthy Competition

When it comes to gamification you should be extremely careful to balance competitiveness. So, keep in mind that gamification is not at all about competition, but rather about cooperation. It’s not a Mario Kart race competition where the winner takes first place! It’s about increasing productivity by cooperation. So therefore you should try to create healthy competition between the learners who participate.

2. Focuses on Socialization

Socialization is another vital quality of gamified e-learning content. Focus on connecting learners with colleagues, trainers, and the topic in a meaningful manner. For example, including ice-breaking activities or activities that require interaction early in your gamification plan might be the ideal solution to avoid unhealthy competition between the participants. Feel free to form pairs, teams, or simply encourage individuals to talk with other participants.

3. It is Challenging

This is a real challenge for both trainers and trainees! But remember that training that is not challenging can never be effective and interesting. More specifically, your training should be gamified in a manner that helps meet the training goals without being unchallenging and dull.

4. Includes a Reward System (points, leaderboards, badges, levels)

Most learners are motivated by rewards and recognition, no matter their age! Make sure you adjust these rewards depending on the age and background of the learners. For example, for adult learners from the corporate world, monetary gains and public appreciation are suitable motivators. As a result, always remember that rewards are an integral part of gamification in corporate training. Because what is the point of gamified corporate training without it?

5. Grants Autonomy

Create an atmosphere that encourages learners a feeling of independence, and a feeling of being in charge of their learning process. Don’t just force people to study! Because this makes people log in just to avoid punishment or a bad review and can result in decreased employee effectiveness. Make the setting for the corporate training interesting and motivational!

6. Focuses on Engagement and Enjoyment

Active participants show higher retention rates so focus on grabbing and retaining the attention of learners. But don’t forget that when learners are more willing to learn, knowledge retention improves accordingly. So, don’t forget that learner acceptance always comes first to ensure your learning content and environment are effective.

Gamification Examples – Learning from Case Studies

Energy Industry

Being a global company comes with the need to train large numbers of people not only fast but also effectively. To do that, we joined forces with one of our e-learning clients helping a leading company in the energy sector.

How? With a gamified module that uses gamification to educate employees on cybersecurity, Social Media, and phishing. Using a first-person perspective, an avatar sets the learner in their own home office, before presenting a series of situations and questions around the topics of focus. Given the fact that human brains comprehend more efficiently when trained in their native language, this energy company requested all training material in a variety of languages. That way, better understanding and effective information retaining were achieved and created a holistic approach to their learning experience.

Reading Eggs

Reading Eggs makes learning to read easy and fun for children all around the world.

The platform teaches children to read – and to love reading –using a multi-award-winning reading program, games, rewards, and songs. In this case study, gamification techniques are used to set up a motivating rewards system that builds the confidence, motivation, and pride of the younger ones.

Disneyland Resort Hotels

Disneyland Resort Hotels implemented an electronic leader board that displayed the performance results for laundry attendants. It used a green light for employees who were meeting their production quotas, yellow for those falling behind, and red for the underperforming. But focusing only on performance, this effort turned out to be an “electronic whip” instead of a motivator, and it forced workers to skip bathroom breaks and punished pregnant women for falling behind schedule.

Harvard and Stanford Educational Institutions

The example of these two institutions is a successful, well-designed gamification system. The leader boards created were quite noteworthy. Even though that there was a leader board everyone could compete in their “weight class”. So, participants were “contributing” to their teams rather than competing with each other. Moreover, the leader boards are refreshed each week, so that the new hires can have a shot in the first place too.