Game of Exams : Creating a gamified learning platform to teach university curriculum in programming

Abstract

Gamification has become a popular trend to create more engagement in ICT systems in later years. A gamified web platform is created to increase engagement in learning tasks related to university courses in programming. It explores how to design an artifact that applies game-driven structures and incentives to learning. This is evaluated and developed using methods from action design research.

Psychological theories are explored to understand the motivating forces behind meaningful gamification. Through an iterative development process, both technical and theoretical aspects are analysed in the problem area of teaching programming.

The result is a webapp which supports creation of interactive java exercises. Students can solve the programming exercises using an in-browser editor. The solutions are submitted to a webservice that is able to run the programs and get resulting output. Students then receive automatic feedback on their solution.

The thesis will discuss the challenges related to creating a platform to teach programming, while using game design methods to create a meaningful learning experience.