Implementing gamification in a university-level UML modeling course: A case study

摘要

The paper analyses the effect of applying gamification in a course for undergraduate computer science students in the Faculty of Informatics at Kaunas University of Technology. The course teaches Unified Modelling Language (UML) and its application in the Unified Process for software development. In this paper, the gamified course metamodel is presented, and it specifies a level-based course structure as well as other gamification elements used in the course, such as points and other types of rewards (coins, items, and badges), the leaderboard, content locking and trading. The gamified course was implemented on Moodle platform, and the experiment was carried out during spring semester 2018. The analysis of students' grades confirms the hypothesis which states that students' grades can increase as a result of applying gamification to their learning process. The results of students' questionnaire (based on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory scale) also confirm the hypothesis which states that gamification can improve students' motivation.