A systematic mapping on gamification applied to education

Abstract

Gamification is a term that refers to the use of game elements in non-game contexts with the goal of engaging people in a variety of tasks. There is a growing interest in gamification as well as its applications and implications in the field of Education since it provides an alternative to engage and motivate students during the process of learning. Despite this increasing interest, to the best of our knowledge, there are no studies that cover and classify the types of research being published and the most investigated topics in the area. As a first step towards bridging this gap, we carried out a systematic mapping to synthesize an overview of the area. We went through 357 papers on gamification. Among them, 48 were related to education and only 26 met the criteria for inclusion and exclusion of articles defined in this study. These 26 papers were selected and categorized according to their contribution. As a result, we provide an overview of the area. Such an overview suggests that most studies focus on investigating how gamification can be used to motivate students, improve their skills, and maximize learning.