The Gartner's 2015 Hype Cycle and a Year of Research on Gamification of Education

This year, gamification was not included in the Gartner's Hype Cycle. In the last four years, gamification was part of the cycle: see this post. This gave rise to some comments, like this one: The Hype is Over – Gamification is Here to Stay.

What really happened is that Gartner moved gamification to a digital marketing hype cycle:

This is also pointed by Toby Beresford in Quora: Why Gamification is not included in the Gartner's 2015 Hype Cycle:

As Jorge Simões points out, gamification hasn't gone - it's simply been downgraded from a major "game changer" theme to being a component of another one - in this case 'digital marketing'.  It's worth noting that few gamification practitioners really agree with Gartner's view that gamification is a purely digital technology.

In 2014, Gamification was on the "Through of Disillusionment", with a prediction to reach the "Plateau of Productivity" in two to five years. In 2015 in seems that Gamification reached the bottom and was kept out of the cycle. No problem with that. It will probably move to the "Slope of Enlightenment" but Gartner is now considering it just as a digital marketing tool and probably will keep it out of the cycle. But gamification is not relevant just for marketing purposes and it can even be used in non-digital environments (which is not the Gartner's opinion).

Gamification is still considered as relevant in Education and several other contexts. Darina Dicheva and Christo Dichev submitted a paper to E-LEARN 2015 (Gamification in Education: Where Are We in 2015?) where they present a follow-up of an initial study - Gamification in education: A systematic mapping study (see this post). 

In this follow-up (covering the period from July 2014 till June 2015), the authors found that there is "... inconclusive and insufficient evidence for making valid claims about the efficacy of gamification in education". They also point for " ... the drop of the empirical studies reporting positive results and the big jump of the studies with inconclusive or negative results".

It seems that, also in education, gamification is reaching the "Through of Disillusionment". Or it means that we still need further research on how to apply gamification effectively.

The paper also includes a definition for Gamification in Education: "the introduction of game elements and gameful experiences in the design of learning processes" (I have my definition of gamification in education: the use of game elements and game techniques in technology-enhanced learning environments in order to improve students’ motivation and engagement).

References:

Dicheva, D., Dichev, C., Agre, G., and Angelova, G. (2015). Gamification in education: A systematic mapping study (in press). Educational Technology and Society, 18(3). 

Dicheva, D., Dichev, C. (2015). Gamification in education:Where we satnd in 2015?. E-LEARN 2015 - World Conference on E-Learning, Kona, Hawaii, October 19-22, 2015

A Brief History of Gamification: Part IV - The Evolution

This is the fourth post on The Brief History of Gamification, following Part I - The Origin, Part II - The Name and Part III - The Definitions. I invite others to contribute (with comments to the post) if something is missing and to correct what may be wrong or incomplete.

Since the first uses of the word gamification in late 2010, the concept quickly spread. That is due, in great part, to some popular video presentations, even if some of them do not use the word gamification. These video presentations, some at the TED Conferences, highlighted the importance of game thinking, with perspectives from game designers like Tom Chatfield, Jane McGonigal and Jessie Schell (all in 2010) or perspectives from digital marketing professionals, like Gabe Zichermann (in 2011).

In 2011, the word gamification was part of the Oxford University Press short list for the word of the year. In the same year, Jane McGonigal published Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, a book about how features from video games could be used in different contexts making a contribution to a better citizenship and to a better world. Although McGonigal, a game designer, never mentioned the word gamification, the concept was present and inspired several other gamification’s developers and researchers. Many software applications, digital services, campaigns, products and communication strategies released in 2011 and after were inspired by this gamification movement.

Gartner added gamification to its “hype cycle for emergent technologies” in 2011, pointing for a period of 5 to 10 years for mainstream adoption. Gartner uses hype cycles to track technology adoption: after the “peak of inflated expectations” period, technologies will fall into the “trough of disillusionment”. Then, they will start evolving to the “slope of enlightenment” and some of them will reach the “plateau of productivity”. By 2013, gamification was at the “peak of inflated expectations”. 

Gamification became a buzzword in the business world and a popular term in digital media.

Also with an increasing number of scholars and professionals becoming interested in the concept, along with the general public, the online learning platform Coursera launched in August 2012, a MOOC on gamification, lectured by Kevin Werbach, an Associate Professor from the University of Pennsylvania. The course had more than 80.000 registered students with further editions in 2013 (with 66.000 students) and January 2014 (with 70.000 registrations). After the first edition of the course, Werbach co-authored the book For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business.

Since 2011, a large number of web log posts were released covering gamification related themes. These first references to gamification were very informal and debated the advantages or drawbacks of the concept and look for examples within web applications. Books on gamification were also published (e.g. Gamification by Design, Gamification at Work: Designing Engaging Business Software,  Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification). Most of them approach the concept with a business or enterprise view and others cover specific areas of application, like education and training (The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education; The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook: Ideas into Pratice).

Gamified applications, gamification platforms and a large number of academic papers on gamification also became part of the gamification movement, but that is for future posts.

The concept behind gamification long precedes the emergence of the term although its spread was only possible when the digital games industry has matured and after a generation of gamers was fully active in their working lives. The proliferation of digital media, social networks and other popular Web 2.0 applications have also created the environment that helped the dissemination of a movement that, despite all the criticism, became known as gamification.

This nice infographic (first published here) shows some of the important milestones on the short but rich history of gamification:

See also:

A Brief History of Gamification: Part I - The Origin

A Brief History of Gamification: Part II - The Name

A Brief History of Gamification: Part III - The Definitions 

Gartner Hype Cycle: Gamification and Big Data in 2012 and 2013

Gamification and Big Data walk along together (see this other post about the Horizon Report 2013 - Higher Education Edition and also Four Approaches to Collecting Data in Gamified Systems). It is also worth to look at what Gartner predicts about the future of these two technologies. In the 2013 edition of Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies (which I got from here, a link shared by Andrzej Marczewski) and in the 2012 edition we can see how the two technologies are evolving. They are now both at the top of the "peak of inflated expectations" (Gamification is a little ahead). They have an horizon of 5 to 10 years to reach the "plateau of productivity" (in 2012, Big Data was in the 2 to 5 years horizon).

Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2012

 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2013

And to end, a funny video about how gamification is already part of our lives ...

 

The video is from Designing Digitally, a company providing solutions for E-Learning programs, 3D training simulations and virtual worlds development.

Gartner Hype Cycle 2012

Foi publicado pela Gartner o Hype Cycle para 2012:

"Big data, 3D printing, activity streams, Internet TV, Near Field Communication (NFC) payment, cloud computing and media tablets are some of the fastest-moving technologies identified in Gartner Inc.'s 2012 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. "

Na zona "Peak of Inflated Expectations" estão algumas das tecnologias e tendências abordadas neste blogue como a gamification (que é a tag mais usada nos posts publicados), BYOD e realidade aumentada. Relativamente à curva publicada em 2011, a gamification não sofre alteração, mantendo-se no mesmo ponto da curva. Segundo a Gartner, ainda serão necessários 5 a 10 anos para esta tecnologia/tendência atingir o "Plateau of Productivity".

Ver o Gartner Hype Cycle de 2011 publicado aqui.

Gartner Hype Cycle 2011: Gamification

No Hype Cycle da Gartner para as tecnologias emergentes foi recentemente adicionado "Gamification" (ver também o Hype Cycle de 2010 neste post). O novo conceito aparece a entrar na zona designada por "mass media hype begins" com um horizonte de 5 anos para uma adopção generalizada (ver mais informação aqui).

Uma das áreas mais citadas para aplicação deste conceito emergente é a da educação. No simpósio Serious Gamification, do Projecto For The Win, que decorreu em 8 e 9 de agosto de 2011, a aplicação de "Gamification" no sector da educação foi precisamente um dos tópicos abordados. O simpósio tinha como objectivo analisar o significado da aplicação de mecânicas de jogos em cenários "sérios". Estão disponíveis as principais conclusões deste evento, destacando-se o que diz respeito à educação:

"The education team said that engagement and learning must go together in any successful educational program, not just a gamified one. As a broader approach, the team suggested not just a game, but a platform for adaptive educational experimentation that will allow teachers and administrators to run lots of experiments and quickly pick up the best ones that are going on."

O simpósio contou com participantes de peso, alguns dos quais já citados neste blogue, como Amy Jo Kim, Jesse Schell, Gabe Zichermann ou Michael Wu.