The Review of Research on Gamification in Education

Introduction

In a fourth dimension disrupted past coronavirus disease 2022 (COVID-xix), the development of educational tools compatible with social distancing has go a fundamental strategy as millions of students are confined to reduce the spread of the epidemy. Thus, most all teaching has quickly transitioned to distance education in society to provide appropriate social distancing (Johnson et al., 2020). Although social distancing has been accompanied by online interactions, information technology has been possible cheers to the continuous advances in digital technologies. Applied science as well gives the student much access to information and promotes the creation and sharing of knowledge, but it requires educators to work to find ways of increasing students' motivation and engagement. Thus, a great amount of piece of work has also been devoted to develop new teaching strategies that enhance students' motivation and commitment and maximize their knowledge acquisition. Among different strategies, gamification has attracted the involvement of educators, who in the final times accept been exploring its potential to improve pupil learning (Dichev and Dicheva, 2017; Majuri et al., 2018; Koivisto and Hamari, 2019). Studies most the effectiveness of gamification are promising, with variable to positive results (Caponetto et al., 2014; Majuri et al., 2018; Osatuyi et al., 2018; Koivisto and Hamari, 2019).

Although "game" is an ambiguous term and different game formats have been used by researchers and educators (Hanghøj, 2013), gamification can be defined as the apply of game elements in non-entertainment contexts to promote learning. The fact that games have many elements that are naturally appealing for young and adults and have a stiff influence in their lifestyle helps to introduce an extra motivation for learning. Over the last decade, gamification is being increasingly employed in learning environments every bit a way to heighten students' motivation and encourage social interaction. Thus, games have been employed in many educational contexts beyond unlike educational levels, showing its potential to better learning outcomes (Seaborn and Fels, 2015; Koivisto and Hamari, 2019). The symbiosis between gaming and learning is also evidenced past the progressive development of best practices for courses gamification and game blueprint. Usually, the game (course) is designed to progressively introduce new concepts to be mastered; students must then utilize these concepts to increasingly challenging problems and ultimately employ prior knowledge to new situations (Varonis and Varonis, 2015). Some other reason for including game elements in education is that it has been reported that games can provide social links (Waytz and Gray, 2018), promote knowledge seeking (Toh and Kirschner, 2020), develop creativity (Vartanian and Beatty, 2015), improve mental wellness (Cruea, 2020), and reduce isolation (Valkenburg and Peter, 2009).

There be several types of games and gamification strategies. Quizzes are one of the simplest ways to gamify teaching, allowing students to exam their knowledge on dissimilar platforms, such as spider web-based quizzes or apps. In recent years, educators take developed thousands of electronic quizzes as apps to aid students in many areas. Additionally, different strategies have been employed: the challenge-, the immersion-, and the social-based gamification. The starting time strategy is based on overcoming challenges (Majuri et al., 2018; Koivisto and Hamari, 2019). The second model attempts to immerse the user into a story and is characterized by its audiovisual richness (Concannon et al., 2019). Finally, social-based games permit to develop strategies of competition and collaboration (Romero, 2017).

Gamified activities have been linked to enhancing students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In this line, the self-determination theory places the focus on iii basic psychological needs: autonomy, relatedness, and competence (Richter et al., 2015). Thus, gamification must fulfill at to the lowest degree one of them. Another theory that has been associated with gamification is the goal-setting theory. According to this theory, at that place are four factors linked to students' operation: their commitment toward the goal, the feedback they receive, the complication of the activity, and the situational constraints (Locke and Latham, 2002, 2006; Landers, 2014). According to this theory, gamification would require a challenge, an indication of progress, some feedback, levels of achievement, and a sort of competition (Huang and Hew, 2018). The tertiary theory related to gamification is menstruum theory, where an optimal psychological and physical land maximizes enjoyment and date. According to this theory, gamification requires specific and understandable goals, immediate feedback, achievement indicators, and an adequate residue between challenges, student's skills, and perceived value of the activity (Huang and Hew, 2018).

Thus, according to the goal-setting and flow theories, as well designing applications with capability to increase students' motivation, teachers must also consider the special difficulties that their students face up during confinement. Therefore, they can apply gamification to mitigate physical and psychological constraints associated with a situation of quarantine. Furthermore, non all students have high-tech devices or appropriate internet connection at home, which restrict the generalized adoption of gamification for distance learning situations, every bit has been observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in developing countries and rural areas.

This piece of work is aimed at reviewing the published experiences of gamified learning in secondary school and academy education during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will draw the gamification strategy, the methodologies used during the COVID-nineteen pandemic, and its motivational and educational outcomes. Finally, we also pretend to analyze the theoretical base of these gamification strategies and how they have helped to ameliorate the situation of the students from a physical and psychological situation.

Gamification Case Studies in COVID-19 Times

Although there exists previous bear witness nigh the use of online tools and games in didactics, the number of studies using gamified strategies during the COVID-xix pandemic is scarce. At that place are, however, a big number of publications describing research proposals, protocols, and skilful opinions regarding the implementation of digital tools in instruction. The sudden evolution of the COVID-19 outbreak made it difficult to plan empirical studies that tested the use of gamified tools, with the majority of educators doing huge efforts to motion from a face-to-face classroom environment to online lectures through videoconferencing tools.

In the present work, a non-systematic search for terms included in the title, abstract, or keywords using the post-obit syntax [("altitude" OR "remote") AND ("teaching" OR "learning" OR "education") AND ("covid" OR "pandemic") AND "gam^∗"] has been carried out. The search was done on February 28, 2022 for studies published between Jan 2022 and February 2022 in Scopus (46 results), PsycINFO (2 results), ERIC (1 consequence), and Semantic Scholar (ane,450 results) databases. Merely research manufactures and conference papers describing a gamified practice in a learning surroundings accept been included. Studies non written in English, reviews, surveys, and opinion papers that did not conduct out any gamified practice have been excluded. A full of 11 studies that met these eligibility criteria have been included and reviewed here. The studies reviewed correspond to the following areas of cognition: Chemistry, Concern, Computer Scientific discipline, Biological science, and Medical education. A summary of the reviewed studies is shown in Table one.

Tabular array 1. Articles included in the review: objectives, methodology, and outcomes.

Chemistry Learning

Organic Chemistry is considered a difficult subject for secondary school and undergraduate students, being organic reactions are one of the virtually difficult topics in Organic Chemistry (Eticha and Ochonogor, 2015). Previous studies show that when learning activities of chemistry concepts are combined with games in the classroom, students' motivation increases (Stringfield and Kramer, 2014) improving their performance (Liberatore, 2011; Revell, 2014) and making them more engaged compared with traditional methodologies (Sousa Lima et al., 2019; da Silva et al., 2020b).

da Silva et al. (2020a) designed an interactive game-based awarding (Interactions 500) aimed to assistance students review concepts related to intermolecular forces in a collaborative environment. This game was originally designed to be used by students in the classroom; however, the interruption of confront-to-confront classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic required to use it remotely. Forty-four chemist's undergraduate students (11 groups) played the game remotely. A student got the role of a leader who was in accuse of coordinating the game, motivating their mates, discussing answers, and clarifying doubts. In the game, there was a contest among students who had to answer different quiz questions. The students rated the game very positively through a Likert-type survey with regard to its pattern, content, game play, and usefulness as educational tool. The authors compared the knowledge of a group of 44 students who played the game with regard to another grouping (N = xl) who were not exposed to information technology and studied alone at home. Both groups showed similar marks in the pretest and the post-test and the aforementioned level of learning. Therefore, the authors concluded that the game resulted in similar learning outcomes to traditional trouble-solving classes, although but the game created a pleasant learning environment, so all the students who played the game reported that they preferred it with regard to regular trouble-solving classes.

Fontana (2020) developed a gamified action based on ChemDraw (a software designed for drawing molecules) with the aim of making students become practice using this tool. Thus, students had to compete in a tournament. The idea was that it would maintain the classroom customs, improve students' health, and develop their organic chemistry skills. Videoconferencing software (Zoom) was used to enable real-time classroom participation. Nine students participated in the molecule speed-cartoon tournament (Molecule Madness). A molecule's chemical structure was posted to the class learning platform, and for each lucifer, two students had to share their screens with the class and compete to correctly draw its structure first in ChemDraw. Non-participating students followed the tournament as active observers (social spectators), socially engaging with beau observers and learning from contenders. Students competed to correctly draw molecular chemical structure, where advanced rounds presented molecules progressively more difficult to depict. By playing ChemDraw, students reported wellness experiences comparable with playing traditional videogames: enjoyed practicing, felt expectancy for the coming class activeness, and connected with their classmates. They too described Molecule Madness as a fun fashion to learn organic chemistry, practice ChemDraw, and promote high levels of excitement and engagement. Co-ordinate to the writer, postpandemic chemistry pedagogy will likely include some distance gaming elements that will enhance contiguous educational activity.

Chemistry crosswords have been used for a long time, and their effectiveness has been described as a tool for leaning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pearson (2020) used crossword puzzles every bit a model of remote agile learning for kickoff- and second-year undergraduate chemist's students. Chemical science-themed crossword puzzles were delivered via the eBlackboard site and used to supplement lectures and problems content. This action started before the lockdown, so the author compared students' behavior earlier and during the lockdown, with no clear differences betwixt both periods. When analyzing students' test performance with and without crossword aids, no significant differences were observed in the mean and median cohort exam grades (compared with a cohort from the previous academic year). Withal, more than students responded to the question (from a selection of 4) taught alongside online crossword exercises. The author suggested that the crossword activity instilled greater conviction to answer a question when information technology had been included in the crossword exercises. Moreover, a larger percentage of students got higher marks in their exam later crossword exposure compared with the previous academic year, in the absence of the crosswords. The author suggested that the crossword impacted the exam performance for at least more engaged students. Effectually 50% of first-twelvemonth students and fourscore% of second-twelvemonth students reported that this activity was helpful and would welcome more than. Moreover, in an online survey, twenty.four% of the students rated quizzes and puzzles equally the best remote pedagogy tool second only to instructional videos (46.3%).

The writer proposed that, looking ahead, these puzzles should exist delivered in a more than interactive online format and provide instant feedback. Moreover, for optimum educatee engagement and learning comeback, instructors could design crosswords that aid students identify key topics and concepts. Finally, some other approach would be that the students create their own crosswords.

The COVID-19 pandemic learning disruption has seriously affected interactive and hands-on experiences in laboratories. Thus, D'Angelo (2020) developed a series of 5 exercises, called "Labventures," mimicking the principle of "Choose your ain adventure" books or escape rooms. The exercises were created to review/reinforce several tasks, and 24 students took part. Labventures stories were ready up every bit a serial of webpages, and the students should complete a laboratory task choosing proper techniques. After every incorrect response, the students were given feedback explaining why a pick was wrong, whereas correct choices moved the activity forward. However, the assay of students' execution indicated a depression performance and agreement of the activities. The author proposed some improvements for hereafter versions of these exercises, including pictures or videos, providing more data to encourage problem solving, using a notebook quiz, and giving further information after wrong choices.

In all the works, a pocket-size number of participants with reduced heterogeneity of the samples were included. In the case of da Silva et al. (2021), 44 chemist's undergraduate students were included. In the studies done by D'Angelo (2020) and Fontana (2020), all the students belonged to the same classroom, whereas 132 first-yr and 120 second-year undergraduate pharmacy students participated in the study of Pearson (2020). Nevertheless, the main weakness comes from the predominant use of subjective procedures to assess learning outcomes.

Business Studies

Pakinee and Puritat (2021) investigated the effect of gamified and non-gamified learning for an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) course to motivate the students to engage and participate during working from habitation. Thus, two versions of an eastward-learning platform were adult, one implementing game elements (avatars, challenges, levels, points, progress bar, and leaderboard) and another 1 without game features (but the exams and course materials). Furthermore, in their study, the authors considered students' personality traits (Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Imagination/Openness). A exam before and after each chapter and web monitoring of students' activeness provided quantitative data well-nigh their functioning. According to the results, the gamified e-learning group showed higher engagement during the first 2 weeks, but then it started to drop, and at the fourth calendar week, both groups had equaled their activity. The authors referred that the gamification strategy increased students' action in the short term only not in the long term. Another activity record showed that gamification motivated students to first working during the first days a lesson was available, whereas the non-gamified group delayed their activity to the end of the week. Nevertheless, there was no statistical evidence to back up whatsoever differences in learning between the non-gamified and gamified groups.

According to the authors, gamification cannot better the overall cognition considering it has positive and negative impacts on each personality type. Thus, some personality traits were linked to higher scores for the gamified e-learning because they are more prone to contest, whereas others reported a negative upshot from competition. The authors affirmed that gamification in the ERP grade can better students' motivation, although the fun and curiousness related to gamification are short-lived. They recommend adding new minor tasks of game elements every 2–iii weeks until the end of the course, concluding that gamification of due east-learning alone serves as a tool to appoint students in altitude learning, just in gild to heighten learning, the presence of a lecturer is as well required.

This work has the merit of including students' personality traits every bit a research variable. Thus, it tin provide some cues about how to design more personalized gamification strategies according to participant's personality. Furthermore, it has compared the efficiency of gamified and non-gamified options. However, it has some limitations, for instance, the research was conducted only in one course (ERP) and the express number of participants per grouping.

Information science Learning

Lelli et al. (2020) addressed the concept of Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) every bit a temporary shift of instruction in crisis circumstances and involves the use of fully remote teaching solutions. The authors described a gamification methodology for ii Informatics courses by using ClassCraft, a gratuitous educational platform from Google that works as a virtual classroom. This platform allows the teacher to assign tasks to the students and enables the apply of asynchronous (forums, videos) and synchronous tools (chats) and a score based on the accomplishment of the tasks. A number of modules (missions) with unlike tasks were defined according to the courses content, and game levels for each module were set as students progressed through tasks.

The authors stated that the apply of this gamification tool was constructive to appoint the students during the pandemic. Some students pointed out gamification as a positive experience to learn remotely. Still, the number of students who participated in the remote activities decreased afterward some time, with some students reporting no concrete and psychological conditions or involvement in following the gamification activities. The authors besides observed that students had difficulties to understand the purpose of using asynchronous tools, such equally forums.

In another work, Liénardy and Donnet (2020) provided to start-year Estimator Science students a gear up of gamified homework exercises, they called GameCode, aimed at educational activity an appropriate methodology for programming. The exercises were inspired by GameBooks in which the reader can choose the path to complete the story. Students could cull their own solving path for each do and do it at their ain pace. Any GameCode exercise met the post-obit requirements: (a) each exercise was self-sufficient and contained the minimal information to complete it; (b) theoretical reminders were needed and were as brusque equally possible; (c) hints never revealed the solution, nor a function of it; and (d) several solutions were always possible and could be discussed in the course forum. However, the authors reported that few students took part in the exercises, as many students had abandoned their courses, supposedly a effect of the loss of motivation by the COVID-xix lockdown. One-half of students who did the action informed that they liked it, only 43% alleged that they would have preferred podcasts.

In both studies, the reduced number of participants tin be considered a serious weakness. In the study past Lelli et al. (2020), the use of a free platform will allow other researchers to replicate the aforementioned protocol in different courses. However, in both cases, the participation was lower than expected, which demonstrates a lack of motivation and date. Like outcomes were obtained by Liénardy and Donnet (2020). In both cases, the authors explained the depression participation every bit a consequence of the physical and psychological effects of COVID-19 confinement.

Biological science Studies

Teaching biology is particularly challenging if the students are not allowed to admission laboratories for easily-on observation of fresh specimens and the lockdown restricted motility outside students' dwelling. Lobet et al. (2020) developed a biological treasure chase activity for 346 beginning-year biology students by using QuoVidi, an open-source spider web-based platform. This platform was conceived to teach biological vocabulary and to observe the surrounding natural world. Students received a list of quests that addressed botanical and zoological terms. Students should empathize the significant of the quest and go out to get photos of plants and animals that should exist uploaded to the platform. Due to motility limitations during the lockdown, there was the option of learning from photos submitted by other students (photography quiz). In this case, they had to match the submitted photos with their quest. Students showed a skilful performance as the majority of pictures submitted in the treasure hunt activity were right. Nevertheless, operation was less authentic for the photography quiz, probably due to different levels of engagement. Regarding students' feedback, 91% reported to like the activity and take learned from it, although in that location were two main criticisms, that the activeness took and then much time and some students had the feeling that they did not truly learn. The authors addressed these points by proposing a meliorate tailoring of the activity and a meliorate communication with the students about the pedagogical goal of the action.

One strong signal of this activity is its scalability, so hundreds of students tin can be involved. Furthermore, according to students' feedback and performance, information technology was motivating and engaging in learning a list of technical vocabulary. Nonetheless, the photography quiz, included as a response to the lockdown, resulted in a worse performance compared with the hunting activity. Thus, it would be essential to redesign the photography quiz in gild to make it more engaging and efficient.

Medical Education

COVID-19 has challenged medical educators on continuing to provide quality educational content. O'Connell et al. (2020) described a novel virtual game for obstetrics and gynecology teaching. The game consisted of several rounds of rapid-burn questions and cases, eliminating teams to a final contest. All residents participated individually in a previous "warm-up" round, using a Kahoot quiz to test their knowledge of ultrasound imaging. The residents were divided into minor groups and placed into a breakout room with a faculty facilitator who and then divided their residents into two teams of three to 4 residents. The two teams so competed in the breakout room for the commencement three rounds. Each circular focused on testing the team's knowledge of a different attribute of obstetric and gynecological care. The 4th and final round was a series of iii cases in which the remaining teams were given a case and they had to write down their proposal for how each case should be managed. The quaternary round was judged by the faculty facilitators. At the terminate of the game, 23 out of the 36 residents completed an anonymous online survey. A large majority of the residents enjoyed the action. Ninety-v percent of the residents were in agreement or strong agreement that they were engaged during the activity. Seventy-four per centum were in agreement or strongly agreed that this action was meliorate than traditional lectures. Therefore, the bulk of the residents found this activity to be educational, entertaining, engaging, and better than the traditional lecture format.

Medical students usually learn clinical reasoning through "whole-case" conferences. However, this procedure has many challenges in social distancing scenarios. Thus, although videoconferencing tools allow some interaction, audition engagement and active participation are limited. Kobner et al. (2020) have described a novel case conference format to train clinical reasoning skills to a spatially afar audition. In their work, the authors describe a gamified serial-cue, low fidelity simulation in which a team of residents must clarify a real case that challenges their clinical reasoning skills. The instance includes all relevant diagnostic results, including several elements that challenge clinical reasoning abilities. The squad of residents plays through a simulated tabletop version of the case live on a videoconference call. The example menstruum is facilitated by a chief resident familiar with series-cue tabletop simulations and gaming procedures. A simulated cardiac monitor provides vital signs to the team and the virtual audience, and equally team members ask for diagnostic studies, the facilitator provides them through Dropbox to the team and the audience. At the decision of the case, a debriefing was conducted. After this, a spontaneous word ensued, covering themes ranging from diagnostic decision to patient safety and foundational medical knowledge. Finally, a sample of simulation participants, the virtual audition, and residency programme administrators were interviewed. All simulation participants felt that the tabletop simulation improved their clinical reasoning abilities in ways that mimicked real clinical encounters. They reported that the level of unpredictability helped to model the actual practise of emergency medicine, adding a level of excitement absent from typical mock oral boards-type tabletop simulations. Audience members agreed that they were more than engaged throughout the case simulation than during traditional case conferences. Residency program administrators noted increased faculty engagement and discussion when compared with traditional case conferences. Finally, interviewees suggested that this experience would do good from more gamification throughout the simulation.

Telesimulation can exist employed to deliver hands-on grooming that usually takes place in in-person simulation. In order to assess if it can be effective to teach anesthesiology trainees to manage a complex example-based scenario, Patel et al. (2020) developed a remote high-allegiance immersive case-based scenario for anesthesiology residents training. For this, the authors adapted an existing simulation scenario based on a existent clinical case. Fifty-eight residents were scheduled to participate remotely via Zoom meetings. For each session, a group of vi–eight residents participated in the simulation (a total of 8 sessions were carried out), whereas 4 faculty anesthesiologists were present in the simulated operating room with a manikin. Using Zoom'due south share screen characteristic, images of the operating room and a manikin vital signs were monitored. The residents were asked to reply to the scenario and verbalize all the actions that they would perform in a existent-life situation. An anesthesiologist present in the operating room performed actions based merely on instructions from the residents' team. Just before and after the simulation, participants' medical cognition was assessed through an online exam, and a satisfaction survey was conducted at the end of the activeness.

Overall, telesimulation resulted to be effective at increasing residents' knowledge every bit their score was superior in the post-test. They also rated the experience positively and informed that information technology could be a reasonable substitute for in-person learning. All the same, the authors pointed out the importance of using small group sizes (3–5 students are the typical number for traditional simulations), assigning roles to participants, and using intermittent reflective pauses.

The principal weakness of these studies is the small number of participants, and that they are based on a single-center study. Moreover, but students' attitude was evaluated in O'Connell et al. (2020) and Kobner et al. (2020), and there are no results almost the educational efficacy of the activity. Patel et al. (2020) conducted pre- and post-assessment of residents' medical knowledge; however, there was no comparing for knowledge gains in telesimulation versus traditional simulation setups.

Conclusion

In recent years, several innovations have emerged in the field of pedagogy. In an age disrupted by COVID-19, the development of gamified teaching strategies can be seen as a promising option to provide knowledge and enhance students' collaboration during social distancing. Thus, although traditional scholarly academic curricula are content-focused and essentially ignore personal development, some gamification literature suggests that collaborative activities can stimulate motivation and enhance learning (Rutledge et al., 2018). All the studies described here aimed at enhancing learning by improving participants' motivation and engagement. Some studies take used a pre-existing platform that has been gamified, but at that place are besides some experiences in which a gamified application has been developed on purpose by the authors. In about of the cases, the gamified activity was well-received past learners, considered constructive, educational, and engaging, and in some cases also fun.

One of the findings of this review is that virtually of the gamification experiences have been developed in Scientific discipline, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (Stem) disciplines. This could exist the result of the difficulties to carry out laboratory and hands-on practices during the COVID-nineteen pandemic, which particularly take affected these fields. Nevertheless, the efforts to introduce teaching innovations that assist to overcome social distancing shortcomings have led teachers to improvise activities forth the way. In many cases, this has been associated with a poor planning of the gamified surroundings, together with the advertizing hoc utilise of gaming elements mechanics with unclear guidelines for students. Thus, some of the studies included in the review (D'Angelo, 2020; Lelli et al., 2020; Liénardy and Donnet, 2020) showed piddling or no participation past students. According to the authors, such aloofness would be associated with a decreased intrinsic motivation related to the pandemic situation. At least in these cases, the employed gamification strategy did not result in efficient tool for engaging students.

Although any of the reviewed studies accept implemented a theoretical framework behind their gamification strategy, almost of them have reported an increment of learning and/or motivation. Game elements associated with competition, such as leaderboards and points, have been the most common ones, resulting in college levels of date and learning outcomes, with like results existence reported in simulation procedures and quizzes. But 1 study used puzzles, reporting moderate results, whereas those that employed escape rooms and gamebooks resulted in negative outcomes.

It has been stated that competition elements affect extrinsic motivation in students mainly, without increasing intrinsic motivation (Erdogdu and Karatas, 2016). Yet, most of the reviewed studies have reported a sense of enjoyment and positive feelings toward learning, which are directly related to intrinsic motivation (Bai et al., 2020). Thus, all the reviewed studies that reported positive emotions associated with intrinsic motivation, even when external elements were employed (competition elements), referred to increased motivation, date, and/or learning outcomes. Thus, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation would correlate and testify common properties as stated by the Self-Conclusion Theory (Ryan and Deci, 2002). However, some studies (D'Angelo, 2020; Lelli et al., 2020; Liénardy and Donnet, 2020) reported low motivation, date, and/or bad performance. In order to increase the interest and motivation of students, they should receive continuous support from the pedagogy staff, and the aim of the activity should be clear for all them.

Gamification procedures allowed to monitor students learning progress in a non-invasive way, for instance, tracking students' beliefs in the web platform, or their achievements in the game. Other strategies to assemble data about students' perception of their own progress relied on the use of questionnaires and interviews. Yet, some works have attempted to appraise students' learning through their functioning in exams. In general, the reviewed studies accept combined quantitative and mixed methods to appraise students' learning and engagement (see Table ane). In general, nearly of the reviewed works came to the conclusion that gamification resulted in learning outcomes. In some cases, this statement was a subjective perception of participants obtained through questionnaires, whereas other works performed objective tests to assess students' knowledge. For example, da Silva et al. (2020a), Pakinee and Puritat (2021), and Patel et al. (2020) compared students' performance in pre- and mail service-exams, whereas Pearson (2020) compared exam scores with regard to previous year scores, showing an increment of students' knowledge following gamified activities. However, there is no show indicating that gamification yields better learning outcomes than could be obtained with more than traditional strategies. Furthermore, 1 study (Pakinee and Puritat, 2021) reported that gaming elements linked to contest resulted in controversy and did non produce the same result in all students, and in some cases, they could increase or decrease motivation according to the educatee's personality.

Social interaction is considered 1 of the foundations of gamification (Sánchez-Martín et al., 2017). All the studies were conducted in a fourth dimension of limited social interaction; all the same, just Fontana (2020) had every bit a main goal to enhance students' well-being and promote social interaction. The author reported an increase of course community, showing that the gamification strategy was useful to go along course morale during social distancing time.

Co-ordinate to the works reviewed, it is possible to infer that gamification can exist effectively combined with traditional teaching methods, such as online lectures, in social club to enhance students' engagement and deliver curricula material that usually is taught through confront-to-confront didactics. Likely, technology-enhanced learning initiatives will go more prominent as the education landscape is reorganized following COVID-19, and gamification may therefore be considered as an selection to augment traditional learning no longer deliverable at traditional contiguous classes. It tin can exist also incorporated into bookish programs currently limited to videoconference lectures to boost students' date and motivation.

There are, withal, some weaknesses that must be taken into business relationship. The reviewed studies are mainly a single-center written report with data from single classroom groups, resulting in a relatively low number of participants, which restricts the generalization of their results. Furthermore, all studies included had a short-term format. Thus, longitudinal studies are required to make up one's mind the efficacy of gamification every bit teaching strategy. Still, the main limitations are the lack of an objective assessment of learning as effect of the gamified activeness and the lack of a theoretical framework. Although some studies (Lobet et al., 2020; Patel et al., 2020) reported that the students' knowledge improved after the activity, at that place was no directly comparison with conventional teaching scenarios. Only Pakinee and Puritat (2021) compared the performance of their students in both situations, showing that gamification fabricated students kickoff working earlier, but there were no differences on their operation in the long term. This could indicate that gamification tin open a more than efficient time window during online learning. Therefore, the main conclusions of the reviewed studies are based on the subjective perception from participants: "a fun mode to learn" or "feeling to accept learned." In some cases, this drawback resulted from the sudden lockdown imposed by the regime, so teachers had to pattern and accommodate their courses along the fashion.

We must remark that during the COVID-19 lockdown, many students faced increased demands at dwelling, many had to bring together their studies with their job activities, caring for children during the day, along with an increase of academic online activities. Furthermore, some students and teachers could be resistant to implement a game as an educational tool as it is a new way of learning and teaching quite dissimilar from the traditional classes. It is also important that at that place is a good advice between teachers and students, so the pedagogical aim of the activity becomes clear.

Finally, it is important to conduct in heed that there are many examples of trendy "gamechangers" in pedagogy that have varied profoundly over fourth dimension. Problem-based learning, for instance, once a main educational strategy in some curricula, and social media-based learning accept lost part of their interest after a time of apogee (Guckian and Spencer, 2018). Information technology is essential that educational innovations have a solid foundation on research information. In the case of gamification as an educational strategy, future enquiry must accost dissimilar aspects, such every bit game mechanics and elements, in relation to an underlying theoretical framework.

Author Contributions

FN-Due east and MR-T conceived the present work, did the literature search, wrote the manuscript, and revised and verified the last version. Both authors accept read and accepted the content of the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or fiscal relationships that could be construed as a potential disharmonize of interest.

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