Escuela Superior Politecnica de Chimborazo
Ecuador
Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo
Ecuador
Gamification (“learning by playing”) is an educational strategy that has been increasingly incorporated into the teaching and learning processes over the years and is currently widely used at different academic levels, and especially in the stages of formative assessment. On the other hand, information and communication technologies constitute an essential ally for automating procedures, which in turn offer new alternatives for interaction between learners and teachers. The objective of this paper is to propose a formative assessment procedure using a TestGame web system, which implements a gamification method with questions and answers about a topic in any subject. It promotes competition among the participants, all in real time, which produces interest and motivation to play an active role in the process. This proposal includes the procedure, rules, and good practices of the game.
This study was conducted in two Ecuadorian higher education institutions – UNACH and ESPOCH – to obtain the results of the activity. Specifically, three experiments were carried out with each group of students from eight subjects in the periods April to August 2018, and September 2018 to February 2019. The total number of participants was 148. The first experiment involved setting and familiarization with the tool; the second one consisted of evaluating the knowledge of the half cycle; and the third one had questions that covered the entire semester. All the experiments used the software TestGame.
A survey of 13 questions about usability and user experience was employed to evaluate the performance of the tool and the impact of the proposal. In terms of results, 85.1% of the participants said that they played an active role in the process; 89.9% considered that the tool contributed in some way as a preparation for a summative evaluation; 70.9% considered that interest was stimulated; and 91.2% said that they would recommend the use of the application in other subjects.
The activity performed showed that an active role in the process was promoted in the students using the TestGame, and their interest in the subject increased as well, as a high percentage of students recommend its replication in other subjects. Also, cooperation among the academics through question banks allowed them to incorporate good practices and homogenize content.