Increasing Student Motivation and Awareness of Career Opportunities Through Gamification

Effective student engagement is an important factor in achieving success towards their desired career opportunities. The results from a large 2012 survey in America consisting of over 192,000 students found that 87.9% of the students attended college in order to receive better career opportunities. Research to date also indicates that career opportunities are the end goal and main motivator for engagement with course modules. However the relevance of some modules can be unclear to the student, which may decrease engagement levels. As a result, the student may not develop the specific skillsets necessary to achieve their desired career choice. A limited awareness of career choices and required skills have been identified as problem areas. Regular feedback is essential to help students engage with their studies and achieve their goals. The development of a system that focuses on these needs can provide a clear menu of necessary skillsets for career choices and how to provide a roadmap to acquire them. This study utilizes gamification, the use of game elements in a non-game context, to address student needs and to answer the following research question: To what degree can a gamification system help increase student motivation and awareness of career opportunities and what effect do particular game elements have on student engagement? The approach used for this study is human-centred design to develop a gamified system to answer this question. The system utilizes game elements such as narrative, social interaction, rewards and competition. These game elements were chosen to teach core transferable skills such as networking with colleagues and collaboration while providing the student with progression and career planning. Students are represented by an avatar, which embark on quests provided by The Manager. The quests require the student to complete college assignments, which awards the student with achieved skillsets The student can then promote his/her avatar to a newer job position provided they meet the required skills. The impact of this system has the potential to increase student engagement and provide a career guidance tool that can be accessed by thousands of students across multiple disciplines and colleges.