A GAMIFIED VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR STATISTICS LEARNING

Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) are web-based e-learning tools that provides support for students and teachers on the teaching-learning process. Although there are many VLE applications inside schools and universities, maximizing their efficiency is still a challenge. Nowadays, gamification has been a promising approach to overcome some limitations related to lack of motivation and contributing to improve students' involvement and engagement. In this work, we combine gamification with VLE in the development of a gamified virtual learning environment. Game elements are integrated with digital content, with the purpose of improving the students' involvement, drawing their attention and motivating them to explore the learning activities. The platform is currently being used to support statistics learning in Higher Education, in two different countries: one in Portugal and the other in Brazil. The developed VLE allows teachers to manage both the content available to students and other learning activities, such as online tests or practical assignments. The actions performed by the students are monitored and experience points, badges and virtual currency are awarded according to several factors. Finally, the impact of the gamified virtual learning environment is assessed through several metrics and indicators in the code.