Episode 161: Is gamification taking over?

Andy Psarianos

Hi. I'm Andy Psarianos.

Robin Potter

Hi. I'm Robin Potter.

Adam Gifford

Hi. I'm Adam Gifford.

Andy Psarianos

This is The School of School podcast.

Andy Psarianos

Welcome to The School of School podcast.

Adam Gifford

I'm back with the gang for another episode of The School of School podcast. Very nice to see you, Robin. How are you today?

Robin Potter

Thank you, Adam. Lovely to see you, too.

Adam Gifford

Andy, how are you today?

Andy Psarianos

Hey. Yeah, great.

Adam Gifford

Good. Excellent. I want to ask you something. There's been something that's in the press a couple of places. Had a bit of a read of it and piqued my interest a bit. It coincided with something else I've listened to recently about social media and certain apps that young people have the potential to spend a lot of time on, but this particular article was talking about gamification. So taking learning activities and turning them into games with the intent ... Well, I guess the overall intent is to help children learn. But when you read into it, I just would be really interested in your thoughts about encouraging ... or the gamification to keep children engaged. Is that models that we're after or is there a time and place for that? All of those sorts of things. So I'm going to throw it open to the two of you. Anyone can kick us off. What are your thoughts on this gamification?

Robin Potter

You had me thinking here about a memory I have because I used to be fairly strict with my kids about screen time and gaming and all of those things. And then when the pandemic happened, it was a whole new world in terms of being on screens. I do remember when they were home and doing schoolwork, as things to keep them engaged, I did ... I remember very well, there were a few that we had downloaded that they could play that were related to spelling and maths. Anyway, that was it, gamification. They were doing those kinds of things and staying engaged longer. I mean, that was my goal, in the hopes that it was still a positive learning experience for them. So that's kind of where ... when you say that, that's what triggers in my mind. They were at that age. They were younger. It was a way to keep them busy, but hopefully learning.

So there is a positive to it. There's no question that that seems to be the way we can keep children engaged longer, but there are obviously some negative effects, too. I don't know if it's the answer for schools to be bringing in ... to gamify everything, like suddenly everything is just a giant video game. And, "Here we are learning in the classroom, but kind of learning on our own, playing games," when perhaps they could do that at home as well. And then the question is the quality of the learning. Is it just memorization? Is it actual learning? I don't have the answers to that because I don't know enough about what is out there these days. What do you think, Andy?

Andy Psarianos

I mean, Adam, when you asked the question, my first initial response, "Well, what are we talking about here? What is gamification?" I just looked it up. According to the University of Waterloo, first thing that came up ... Gamification, meaning in education is what I looked up. "Gamification is the integration of game elements, like point systems, leaderboards, badges, or other elements related to games into conventional learning activities in order to increase engagement and motivation." Interesting thing, conventional is in quotes, in conventional learning activities. So I guess in its simplest form, like giving gold stars ... Sticking gold stars on someone's journal would be gamification, in the simplest kind of term. Or some kind of reward system or ranking system. If you really wanted to be technical, giving people grades is gamification because it's a leaderboard of sorts. Are those things positive things or are they negative things? I suppose they can be used for good and they can be used inappropriately.

But it's not a new idea. With technology, people just seem to think, like, "With technology, we can accelerate these things." When we talk about gamification ... When you're talking about an app on a mobile phone or something, that's really obviously gamification. But there's other things that we do in education, too, to kind of increase I guess the competitive nature in order to engage and motivate people. Some people are very competitive. I'm very competitive.

Robin Potter

Really? You hide it so well.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. I know. It's hard to believe, right? Put me in a go-kart and all of a sudden I think I'm Max Verstappen. I'm the guy who broke his leg playing tennis. I mean, that's just my nature. So for me, that would probably motivate me to try harder.

Robin Potter

Well, it's kind of interesting though with this generation because they are a generation of, "Everybody gets a ribbon." I'm not saying that there aren't competitive kids. There are lots of competitive kids out there. But it kind of is counterintuitive to what they've been learning as everybody just ... everybody should be rewarded for participating. Now you're saying that with gamification, we are ranking students. We are seeing who is performing the best. I guess it's kind of going full circle. I don't know.

Andy Psarianos

It is. Yeah, it is. I mean, if you create ... That's the thing. If you create a leaderboard, I mean, that has an effect. It has an effect in motivating some people to do better. But it also has an effect in pointing out to those children who are not doing well, that they're not ... It's giving them a measure. When we say not doing well, it's only one thing that we're measuring, so is it a fair measure?

Adam Gifford

To me, the premise is fine. You've got something that says, like you said, whether it's competition, reward, those sorts of things. The premise for that is fine, it's how it's used. I think that's the thing, is that depending on how these things are used, you've got to monitor the effectiveness of it. If we take it all the way through to, say, apps that might keep people engaged. So from a point system, like, I don't know, "If you hand your homework in on time every week you might get a point," or something like that. And, "If you get 10 points, you get something. You choose something, choose a prize," or whatever it is. Those have been around forever and ever and ever.

I guess what is happening is we're becoming far more sophisticated to want people to feel that success, that immediate success. Again, if I go to the nth where what keeps people scrolling, it's the hope that there's something better or that there's something more. Gaming's big business. It didn't become big business purely because of the nature of the game. People are getting better at thinking, "How can we keep you playing? How can we keep you doing that?" I guess where, I suppose, we need to be mindful is the sophistication and the difference between something that motivates and promotes learning, as opposed to just something that keeps you going and going and going because you want to just get the next point or you want to just do the next thing at the detriment elsewhere.

They're two extremes. Like you're saying, I mean, listen, people have been involved in things that have some competitive basis or something that's a reward system if you do something right, forever, probably. For a very, very long time. I think what it comes down, to me, is whether or not it's having an impact on learning. And equally, if it's having a detrimental impact on learning.

Robin Potter

Well, in the article that, Adam, you were referring to, they did at one point say it could be considered chocolate covered broccoli. Meaning that, again, with the rewards, someone who's wanting to play a ... they used space-age type of video game that's maths related. That person's engaged while playing that, but as soon as they leave that game, does that mean that they're more interested in doing maths? Not necessarily. So the reward is only effective while playing the game. And then, overall, does that translate, again ... That's back to my original question. Does that translate into being more knowledgeable in maths from playing that game? Or are the two things more about ... is it more about reward than actual learning?

Adam Gifford

Coming back to your point, Andy, about, "Where is it detrimental?" One of the places that I think gets talked about quite often, where it's really detrimental, is children that get rewards, and sometimes they're quite significant, for a hundred percent attendance at school. What if you break your leg? So you're not at school for three weeks. Or what if you've been ill. Or what if something's happened at home that's really serious, which means you don't come into school. What? You're now penalised because of that. So I think that it's those sorts of things where you go, "All right, bottom line is, we want children at school." That's reasonable. "If we do something like that, what does that say to those children who, for whatever circumstance, they couldn't get to school? Is that worth putting the reward in? Or is it better not doing that and having the reward elsewhere?"

I think it's those things that you kind of think it through and go, "All right, what are the situations where this exists and how do you manage that?" We've got to keep in mind, too, these are wee kids. A lot of the decisions that are made are not theirs. So many children, I used to see, who were constantly late at school. Constantly. The look on their faces was mortification. They were mortified every single day. It wasn't them, it was their parents. But they were the ones that were coming late to school, so they were the ones that were marked down late. That goes in their school report, "You've been late 24 times out of the ..." however many days.

I think it's things like that. I think we're just probably a bit more mindful, a bit more considerate, "Is that worth rewarding for if it's something that ..." Of course it needs to be addressed, but rewarding the children to be late. Do you understand where I'm coming from with those sorts of things? I think there's other things that we could probably use, that reward structure or that competitive structure to manage and to motivate.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. Also, in some instances, if you take it to an extreme, that kind of behaviour is illegal. You're not allowed to bribe people, but that's effectively what you're doing. You're saying, "If you do these things, I'm going to give you something." Taken to an extreme, that's a form of bribery, "If you change your behaviour, I'm going to give you money. If you do something that you don't want to do, I'm going to give you ..." I don't know want turn this into some kind of a philosophical discussion here, but the point is you're trying to get people to do stuff they don't want to do, is effectively what the whole gamification idea is.

Robin Potter

Well, is it?

Andy Psarianos

The issue I guess I would ... It is, yeah.

Robin Potter

I mean, what if it is that they want to do it anyway, but this is more appealing because now there's ...

Andy Psarianos

No, but they wouldn't do it otherwise. That's the point of ... Use your math app for example. They wouldn't just sit there and just do a bunch of math calculations on their own, but if you gamify it, they'll do it. So you're bribing them into doing it. It's a form of bribery.

Adam Gifford

I mean, of course.

Andy Psarianos

Don't you think? Or have I got that wrong?

Adam Gifford

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and if that's the only motivator, you're in trouble. Because as soon as you take away the rewards, what's left?

Andy Psarianos

I know it's an extreme view. If you take this to an extreme and you continuously reinforce that there has to be a reason, there has to be some kind of personal gain in order for me to do something, whether it's a dopamine hit or it's money, or whatever it is. But, "In order for me to do my maths, it has to be entertaining, or you have to give me money, or whatever, give me points, or give me recognition or a gold star. It's the only reason I'll do it. I will do my maths if you give me a gold star."

You're reinforcing this continuously. If you're gamifying, let's say playing on an app, that's what happens. You're doing it because you get gratification. So then what happens when they have to do things and there is no gratification attached? Does that mean that that's not associated anymore? Like, you can't do things for let's say altruistic reasons anymore, right? "I'm going to do this because it's the right thing to do," gets kind of diminished. This sort of like, "I'm going to do this because I'm going to get something out of it," becomes enlarged. So maybe there's a behavioural issue that we need to consider, right?

Robin Potter

Right. Though, we kind of do that ... As you mentioned, we've been doing that forever in different ways, not necessarily through gamification. You look at children having to take exams to get into a certain school or a university, I mean, that's also ... There's a reward at the end of that, "You do well on this ..." That's not necessarily saying, "Here, you're getting points for this, this, and this." It's the be all and end all, at the end of the day, that you got into where you wanted to go to school, or your parents got you into going to where they wanted you to go to school. So there isn't necessarily a reward per se about doing the work and doing the learning, but we're still rewarding them, in a sense, for doing well on whatever exam it was that they had to take to get in. Does that make sense?

So we're doing it all the time and gamification isn't necessarily going to encourage that more or less. I realise you're saying they've stopped doing the learning for the actual learning, but we kind of do that already. We kind of encourage a certain way of behaving for a reward, at the end of the day. Whatever that reward is.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. I mean, university admittance is a gamification of the system, right?

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

It's like, "You've got to do all these things and get these ..." It's a leaderboard about, "If you can do all these things then you get this badge of honour to say that you went to Cambridge or Harvard," whatever. That's how you do it, so that's like gamification of sense, but it's also ... It's also a merit-based system, so it's kind of ... they're sort of very similar.

I suppose my challenge is that I think it can be used well. It can be used well and as a good motivator. It's also kind of how life works, like, "You get out of it, what you put into it." But the artificial kind of acceleration of this dopamine hit, I think you can take it too far. There needs to be ... Capitalist systems, whatever it is, they're all based on, "If you can create value, you can benefit from that." Is that gamification? It is in a sense. I mean, it's the same sort of idea, "If you put the effort in, you get something in return." It doesn't always work out, but that's the concept. And if you're motivated and you work hard, you'll do better than if you're not. That's the idea.

But in education, there's also kind of ... you're taking away something as well, I think, which is, to use Richard Feynman's terminology, just the pleasure of figuring things out. Like, "Oh, why is that?" That natural curiosity, and then just going and figuring it out. You don't need ... There's pleasure just in that. You don't have to make it about a gold star.

Adam Gifford

In my experience, in the schools, where this is used most often is a behaviour management tool. So you use it to try to establish behaviour. Robin, if you're being very naughty and you're acting up in class, I say to Andy, "Andy, you're sitting beautifully. You have five points." With the intention that you sit up and say, "I would like five points, too." So we're dishing out points and we do all of this. The problem with it, the thing that I see in all of this, and it touched on what you just said, Andy, about the inherent curiosity or just something ... that's learning, that's just simply learning, the pleasure is in learning, is that I've seen it happen with behaviour management. Where someone comes in and doesn't address the actual reason for it, which might be relationship based with your children, all of those sorts of things. They say, "All right, put this in. It might be a quick fix," because everyone wants to win the prize at the end of the week.

So you start doing that, but the problem that I see is that then you've got to manage another process. One that is very easy to stray into bias towards certain children, "All right, Robin, you're at it again. Andy gets another five." Andy's loving this. He's thinking, "Every time Robin's naughty, man, I'm getting five points. This is easy." I think it's those sorts of things, where you go ... I think the biggest question in schools for me is, "What's the purpose? Is it achieving what you set out for it to achieve?" I don't just mean they sit well and they listen to you. That should just be a prerequisite of learning and teaching. You have to have an environment that works. But if it's like, "Does this promote learning? Does it do what you set out to do?"

Because the investment in it is huge and you've got to commit to it. Because if you're inconsistent, children see through that in a heartbeat. They're like, "Well, Andy always just gets the points anyway, so why am I going to sit here? I'm going to be like Robin. I'm just going to be doing whatever because Andy always gets the points. He always gets the prize at the end of the week, so just give it to him now." Children aren't dumb.

I think that's the thing. I think that with these sorts of things, you might get a quick win. You might get a quick hit. And there's an argument that you can stretch it out and say there's all sorts of things, that reward mechanism and will reward only a certain number of people, if you behave in a certain way. That can work, but I'm not sure about the sustainability of it. And I think people underestimate just how much effort you have to put in to make it consistent, and just how many knots you can tie yourself in when parents come to you on Friday and say, "Hi, I'm Robin's dad. She has got no points for the last four months. I'm just wondering how that program's working out for you, Mr. Gifford. Is it working? Is it motivating Robin?" No, of course it's not. Robin's had enough. Robin doesn't want to be ...

I think these are the things that we just need to consider because sometimes they're a quick fix, but quick fixes are usually exactly that, quick, over very quickly. And then you're left with something that you go, "What do I even do with this now? I don't even know." So I think just being mindful of those things. Easy to start, hard to maintain. How long are they effective for? I don't know. But we should ask that question from the outset. That's my opinion, anyway.

Robin Potter

Well, definitely, Adam. Those are wise words. I think we should leave it there. You get 10 points for your contribution.

Adam Gifford

Thanks. Good.

Andy Psarianos

And a gold star.

Adam Gifford

Wonderful.

Robin Potter

And a gold star. Yes. Thanks so much.

Andy Psarianos

Thank you for joining us on The School of School podcast.