Gamification is not a gimmick. But neither does a digital platform, quiz or leaderboard automatically make a class more effective. What matters is how these tools are embedded in the learning experience.
This became clear to me while teaching operating systems and internet computing in a computer engineering degree programme. Students had to apply abstract concepts to concrete problems and understand key ideas such as concurrency, memory management, distributed architectures and internet services. Passive listening is rarely enough for these demanding courses.
So, I experimented with semester-long gamification. The aim was not to turn the course into a game nor to make complex topics look simple. I used elements of game design, such as immediate feedback, scores, rankings and continuity, to motivate students to be more active throughout the course.
Inspiration from a dolphin show and fantasy football
Experiences outside the university classroom influenced the idea. The power of rankings came from a dolphin show at Oceanogràfic València, where the audience played a quiz on their mobile phones. The answers to questions about marine pollution, rising temperatures and environmental protection – topics often perceived as serious or difficult – were explained, and the ranking table updated on a large screen.
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People paid attention because they wanted to answer quickly and correctly. The ranking made participation visible. The explanations turned the activity from a competition into a learning moment.
The mechanism of maintaining attention over time came from fantasy football. In fantacalcio, the Italian version, football fans follow Serie A players’ performance carefully; they observe trends, compare data, discuss choices and try to anticipate which ones are improving or declining. In other words, they engage with a complex system over time. That insight is relevant to teaching. A well-designed activity can use similar principles to encourage students to engage more consistently with course content.
From occasional quizzes to a semester-long feedback loop
In my courses, students did interactive quizzes at the end of selected blocks of lessons. The activities included both conceptual questions and small applied exercises based on the material just covered. Students answered in real time from their own devices, and the score depended on both accuracy and response time.
The most important aspect was not the quiz itself; it was the feedback loop that followed. Students answered, solutions were discussed, common mistakes were clarified, the ranking was updated, and the class saw immediately how the activity connected to their learning. Wrong answers were not treated as failures, but as useful signals. They helped me to identify points that needed further explanation and students to see which concepts required more work.
This changed the atmosphere of the lesson. Students had an opportunity to test their understanding and compare their reasoning with that of their peers. The ranking created attention, but the discussions created learning.
Building the missing tool with students
A challenge soon emerged. The gamification platform available at the university was effective for running individual quizzes, but it was not designed to build an overall ranking across multiple activities during the semester. If the experience was to support continuous engagement, it needed to turn separate moments into a visible learning path.
Together with some students, we developed a tool to collect partial results and generate a final course ranking. This was more than a technical workaround. It became part of the educational value of the experience: students were not only users of a platform but co-designers of a solution adapted to the needs of the course.
We also tried to avoid making the system punitive. Not all scores were counted. Instead, we considered a percentage of each student’s best results, so that those who missed lessons for personal, health or family reasons were not excessively penalised. The principle was to encourage participation without creating unnecessary pressure.
Aspects of gamification that made the experience useful
Four lessons emerged from the experiment.
- Continuity matters. A single interactive quiz can make a lesson livelier but a sequence of activities across the semester can support a different relationship with the course. Students see participation as part of the learning routine rather than as an isolated event.
- Fairness must be designed into the system. If gamification is perceived as arbitrary or punitive, it can reduce motivation. If it is transparent, flexible and linked to learning, it can support engagement without undermining trust.
- Balance competition with explanation. A leaderboard can capture attention, but it is the discussion of the answers that turns attention into learning. Without that step, the activity risks becoming entertainment. With it, the quiz is a diagnostic tool for students and teacher.
- Gamification works best when it is connected to the learning objectives. Questions should not be decorative; they should reveal whether students can understand, apply or reason about the concepts that matter.
A more active, not a simpler, university classroom
One common concern is that game elements make university teaching superficial. My experience suggests the opposite, provided that gamification is carefully designed. It does not replace study, practice or deep understanding; it creates more frequent opportunities for feedback and participation.
The first results are encouraging. Student participation increased, attention during the lessons was higher and the interactive moments generated useful discussions about course content. It will be important to evaluate whether this involvement is also reflected in final exam outcomes, and the system can certainly be improved in future editions of the courses.
The broader lesson, however, is already clear: innovative teaching is not simply a matter of adopting new software. A quiz platform alone does not change a course. A ranking alone does not improve learning. Innovation happens when tools are placed inside a coherent pedagogical design.
Fabrizio Marozzo is an associate professor in computer engineering at the University of Calabria, Italy.
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