As I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of ‘gamification’. Certainly for formal learning, where I think intrinsic motivation is a better area to focus on than extrinsic. (Yes, there are times it makes sense, like tarting up rote memory development, but it’s under-considered and over-used.) Outside of formal learning, it’s clear that it works in certain places. However, we need to be cautious in considering it a panacea. In a recent instance, I actually think it’s definitely misapplied. So here’s an example of doing gamification wrong.
This came to me via a LinkedIn message where the correspondent pointed me to their recent blog article. (BTW, I don’t usually respond to these, but if I do, you’re going to run the risk that I poke holes. 😈) In the article, they were talking about using gamification to build organizational engagement. Interestingly, even in their own article, they were pointing to other useful directions unknowingly!
The problem, as claimed, is that working remote can remove engagement. Which is plausible. The suggestion, however, was that gamification was the solution. Which I suggest is a patch upon a more fundamental problem. The issue was a daily huddle, and this quote summarizes the problem: “there is zero to little accountability of engagement and participation “. Their solution: add points to these things. Let me suggest that’s wrong.
What facilitates engagement is a sense of purpose and belonging. That is, recognizing that what one does contributes to the unit, and the unit contributes to the organization, and the organization contributes to society. Getting those lined up and clear is a great way to build meaningful engagement. Interestingly, even in the article they quote: “to build true engagement, people often need to feel like they are contributing to something bigger than themselves.” Right! So how does gamification help? That seems to be trying to patch a lack of purpose. As I’ve argued before, the transformation is not digital first, it’s people first.
They segue off to microlearning, without (of course) defining it. They ended up meaning spaced learning (as opposed to performance support). Which, again, isn’t gamification but they push it into there. Again, wrongly. They do mention a successful instance, where Google got 100% compliance on travel expenses, but that’s very different than company engagement. It’s got to be the right application.
Overall, gamification by extrinsic motivation can work under the right circumstances, but it’s not a solution to all that ails an organization. There are ways and times, but it’s all too easy to be doing gamification wrong. ‘Tis better to fix a broken culture than to patch it. Patching is, at best, a temporary solution. This is certainly an example.
Hi Mr. Quinn,
My name is James Hron – I’m a teacher turned Instructional Designer.
I agree with most everything you mentioned in this post. Though I remain a fan of gamification in lots of areas, I do believe it’s overused (and most of it ends up very “surface-level”).
One item I wanted to bring up and hear your thoughts on, is the transition from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation, specifically through gamification?
When I was teaching full time, I witnessed this transition while using gamification techniques. Students would first be engaged extrinsically – but the motivation would transition to intrinsic. One example was from my engineering class. Students had to create automated systems and robots to complete tasks. Each time they created one, they earned money. The money could be used to purchase rewards for themselves. This was all extrinsic motivation. However, I started showing off a leader board at the end of each class, showing which group had the most money. I saw, in a few students, a shift in motivation. They wanted to earn more money – not to buy rewards, but so they would be first!
I’m curious if you’ve seen examples of this shift from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation, or any thoughts you have on it?
Thank you – I very much enjoy reading your learnlets!
-James Hron
Standing ovation. Thank you!
Agreed. Plus, gamification is hard to implement well even in a circumstance that suits it. It can accidentally incentivize an undesired behavior that ends up being a more efficient way to “win”. Even people who design games professionally struggle with this, where elements of the system essentially break and lead to emergent (and sometimes unfair) strategies. Really cool when you’re talking about game theory, but problematic when you want people to learn a specific thing.
Thanks for the comments. James, if their motivation is money, not understanding engineering, I think you can get to the type of problem Dave mentions, people finding ways to win without actually focusing on the desired learning outcomes. My focus would be on trying to find out why learning programming is important, and link that to the ability to make robots do things. Program a robot to rescue an animal, deliver needed drugs, … the success is when the recognizably desirable outcome is achieved. My $0.05.
Competition and “earning money” are great examples of extrinsic motivators. To internalize the motivation, share the speed at which tasks were completed, or the efficiency in number of steps or reduction in lines of code – those are intrinsic to the task.
I’m not so sure about that Robb. Isn’t the result there going to lead to something where people cut corners to do it quickly? Easy to fall into a “letter of the law but not the spirit of the law” situation.
This is why any gamification is so difficult and so easy to implement sub-optimally. Heck, professional game designers get this wrong frequently!
I agree and I think you hit the nail on the head in your last paragraph where yo say that extrinsically motivated gamification doesn’t work. The research is actually pretty aligned on that point. What does work is deeper more intrinsically motivated gameful design. Contrary to popular belief, what makes games motivating isn’t surface-level things like accumulating points but things like support for player autonomy and the way games support mastery by supporting trial and error and incremental improvement. These are the things that we need to build into education
Ben, agreed. I’d go further, and say that making the task obviously relevant, and the context meaningful also are parts of the picture. There’s a list of eight elements that were the core of my alignment between effective education and engaging experiences (c.f. https://blog.learnlets.com/2009/11/engaging-learning/) that I think are critical. Thanks for weighing in!