Research on Gamification Teaching Based on ARCS Motivation Model—Taking the Mid-Level “Web Page Production and Practical Training” as an Example

Hong Yu; Wansong Liu

doi:10.4236/oalib.1110759

Open Access Library Journal > Vol.10 No.10, October 2023

Research on Gamification Teaching Based on ARCS Motivation Model—Taking the Mid-Level “Web Page Production and Practical Training” as an Example

Hong Yu, Wansong Liu^*
School of Physical and Electronic Science, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang, China.
DOI: 10.4236/oalib.1110759 PDF HTML XML 40 Downloads 431 Views

Abstract

Gamification techniques can be used in the classroom to motivate and engage students significantly. “Web Page Production and Practical Training” is a compulsory course for secondary computer majors with solid practicality. In the context of education, this study shows how gamification has the potential to increase engagement and promote higher-order learning. However, according to the actual survey results so far, the teaching effect of this course could be more satisfactory because it has not stimulated students’ motivation to learn. Because of this urgent problem, this paper combines Professor Keller’s ARCS motivation model with gamification teaching to construct gamified teaching based on ARCS motivation mode. It is applied to actual teaching, and the results show that this model can improve the motivation level of middle vocational computer students to learn the “Web Page Production and Practical Training” course.

Keywords

ARCS Motivational Model, Gamified Teaching, Web Page Production and Practical Training

Share and Cite:

Yu, H. and Liu, W.S. (2023) Research on Gamification Teaching Based on ARCS Motivation Model—Taking the Mid-Level “Web Page Production and Practical Training” as an Example. Open Access Library Journal, 10, 1-21. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1110759.

1. Introduction

An increasing number of games and game-like components [1] are increasingly influencing the modern world [2] . In the present era, the field of education has been compelled to adjust to a novel educational environment characterized by the presence of digital natives; given this context, it becomes imperative for the teaching-learning process to embrace innovative pedagogical approaches, such as gamification [3] . The use of game mechanics and game thinking to engage users and find solutions to problems is known as gamification [1] . The primary objective of this approach is to enable user experiences that exhibit attributes of playfulness and gamification, motivate desired user behaviors, ultimately augment overall user satisfaction [4] , and increase student involvement in educational environments [5] . Education is made more accessible, stimulates students’ cognitive interests, and boosts learning motivation through computer networks, web-based applications, and interactive services [6] . Motivation is a cognitive process that initiates and sustains actions toward achieving specific goals [7] . Utilizing self-determination theory (SDT) as a macro-level framework is an established approach to understanding the significance of motivation within education [8] .

Recent research has demonstrated that gamification strategies can effectively steer students toward educational objectives, such as promoting collaboration [9] [10] . Game technologies have the potential to facilitate the enhancement and modification of e-learning models within higher education institutions, thereby effectively supporting students’ learning experiences [11] . Research conducted in marketing has shown that integrating game dynamics into corporate websites can significantly enhance member engagement, thereby increasing the number of corporate members [12] . Student engagement has been acknowledged as a critical indicator of academic success in education [5] .

Students work together in a collaborative setting to accomplish a specific educational goal, with the teacher acting as a facilitator; this process is known as collaborative learning [9] . The widespread use of technology and the shift toward digitalization in educational institutions and pedagogy are obvious [13] . After being introduced a decade ago, gamification is continually growing in popularity in educational research [14] [15] and has evolved into a didactic approach that encourages motivation and participation [15] . The essential gamification elements include rules, competition, opposition, obstacles, and storytelling presentation [16] .

Moreover, acquiring knowledge is inherently facilitated, significant, and influential as it prioritizes student inquiries as its central focus, fosters the development of 21^st-century skills among students, tackles societal concerns, and is utilized in conjunction with information and communication technologies (ICTs) [17] . New and innovative ways to engage students in learning and address the expanding requirements of education are constantly being created by technological developments and their rapid development [18] . At the same time, entrepreneurship education and training are prioritized on worldwide policy agendas to encourage economic growth, battle unemployment, and build social capital [19] . ICTs have increased opportunities for formative assessment and for giving students access to content and learning resources [20] .

The ARCS (attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction) model, developed by [21] , is a comprehensive framework that integrates various motivational and volitional concepts and theories. It serves as a basis for a tested motivational design process that has been applied successfully in numerous contexts [22] . If we consider gamification in light of educational theory and philosophy, this unbridled enthusiasm is inadequate [13] . Gamification techniques have been previously developed and utilized within collaborative learning and learning systems [23] . To solve this critical challenge, this paper combines Keller’s ARCS motivation model with gamification teaching to develop gamified instruction based on the ARCS motivation mode and implements it in practical classroom instruction.

2. The Teaching Status of the Course “Web Page Production and Practical Training” for Secondary Vocational Computer Majors

This paper uses the questionnaire survey method (see Supplementary I for the questionnaire) and the interview method (see Supplementary II for the interview outline) to investigate and analyze the teaching status of the “Web Page Production and Practical Training” course of the secondary vocational computer major.

2.1. Questionnaire Reliability and Validity Analysis

2.1.1. Reliability Analysis

Questionnaire reliability refers to the degree of consistency of the results obtained when repeated measurements of the same object using the same method, and the reliability of the questionnaire affects the reliability and stability of the questionnaire [24] . This questionnaire uses the alpha reliability coefficient method in SPSS software to analyze the reliability of the 20 scale questions in the questionnaire, and the analysis results are shown in Table 1 below. The measured reliability factor α was 0.967 > 0.7, which demonstrated that the results of this questionnaire were less different, the data quality was excellent, and the reliability was high.

2.1.2. Questionnaire Validity Analysis

Validity refers to the accuracy of the data measured by measurement, and the validity of the questionnaire affects the degree of consistency between the data collected in the questionnaire and the content to be examined [24] . The validity of the data was measured using SPSS software, and the results are shown in Table 2 below. The significance of the questionnaire data is p < 0.05, and the KMO value is 0.656 > 0.6, which means that the results of the pre-test questionnaire

Table 1. Reliability statistics.

are consistent with the content you want to study, and the questionnaire data can be further analyzed and interpreted.

2.2. Questionnaire Analysis

The questionnaire was distributed to students of Class 1 Grade 1 intermediate vocational computer network of Guizhou Vocational and Technical College of Economics and Trade, with 30 students in the class, and 30 questionnaires were received. As shown in Figure 1, the data in the questionnaire show that the teaching status of the “Web Page Production and Practical Training” course is not ideal, on the one hand, because the teaching methods of teachers are too traditional and old, and secondly, the teaching content is not combined with actual needs, resulting in students’ interest and desire to learn is very low.

2.3. Interview Survey Analysis

In response to this study, the author interviewed the class teacher who taught the course “Web Page Production and Practical Training” and randomly interviewed

Table 2. KMO and Bartlett tests.

Figure 1. Weight analysis graph.

seven students.

The first is teacher interviews. The teacher interview is held in the office, and the interview time is after listening to the teacher’s lesson. Interview; first, for the introduction method, the teachers in this class have only a few novel techniques; almost all directly explain the knowledge and then carry out practical operations. Second, in terms of attracting students’ attention, except for open classes, which use blended teaching to attract students’ attention, the rest of the courses need to be more scripted and pay more attention to students’ needs. Third, because secondary vocational students lack enthusiasm for the classroom, teachers’ confidence is also affected, so they hardly pay attention to self-confidence and learning satisfaction but complete their courses and teaching tasks step by step. Through interviews with classroom teachers, it can be seen that the current teaching status of teachers in the middle vocational “web page production and practical training” course is not ideal due to the poor enthusiasm of the student group, which in turn seriously affects the teaching enthusiasm of teachers, many advanced teaching methods even if used, the effect is not significant, over time, teachers’ teaching tends to harden.

Secondly, random interviews were conducted with seven students in the class, the interview time was evening self-study, and the interview location was the computer room. Only two of the seven students chose their major, and the other five students followed the arrangements of their families and did not participate in related activities and competitions. In addition, apart from the knowledge teaching of textbooks, there is no other way to learn the knowledge related to web page production, and the learning status could be better. And the course will not likely be used in life, and I will be too good at working in this profession. From the results of student interviews, it can be seen that secondary vocational students do not have a clear understanding of their careers, which leads to unsatisfactory learning in professional courses, which is mainly due to the low correlation between courses and self-development, so it is necessary to help students re-sort the correlation between courses and self-development, and then improve their enthusiasm for learning.

3. Research on Gamification Teaching Based on ARCS Motivation Model―Taking Middle-Level “Web Page Production and Practical Training” as an Example

3.1. Construction of Gamified Teaching Model Based on ARCS Motivation Model

3.1.1. ARCS Motivation Model

The ARCS motivation model was proposed by Keller in 1983 to create effective motivation strategies and learning environments by analyzing learners’ motivation to stimulate and maintain students’ motivation and willingness to learn. In the ARCS conceptual category, A stands for Attention, R refers to Relevance, C refers to Confidence, and S refers to Satisfaction [25] [26] .

There are corresponding sub-category strategies under the four dimensions of motivational strategies in ARCS [24] [25] , and the following sub-category strategies (as shown in Table 3) are selected as teaching aids based on the needs of this study, and their purpose and methods are clarified.

3.1.2. Gamification Teaching

The term gamification has been widely used since 2011 to apply gamification elements, frameworks, thinking, and mechanics to non-gaming areas such as business and education. Gamification teaching is a branch of gamification research and development in education, which mainly refers to a teaching mode that organically combines game activities with traditional teaching activities according to specific strategies and methods [27] .

There are three primary forms of gamified teaching, and one is to use game activities as a tool to assist teaching and set up corresponding game activities in each teaching link to provide support for classroom teaching and promote the achievement of teaching goals. The second is gamified element gamification teaching, which designs teaching activities and the entire classroom as a game using game elements and mechanisms such as points, badges, tasks, and rankings. It is suitable for courses where the teaching objectives are relatively abstract, the teaching links are relatively small, and the learning content is alienated from the student’s life experience and of low interest. The third is the

Table 3. ARCS motivational strategies.

synthesis of the above two types of gamified teaching under the framework of the gamification mechanism, the use of educational games to support the achievement of teaching goals, and the timely integration of gamification elements to form a complete gamification of the entire classroom [28] [29] .

3.1.3. Teaching Model Construction

This paper draws on the research results of ARCS motivation mode and gamification teaching, selects the middle vocational “Web Page Production and Practical Training” as the course background, refers to the general steps of gamification teaching, integrates the strategic elements of ARCS motivation mode into the corresponding teaching links, and constructs gamified teaching based on ARCS motivation mode, and the model construction composition is shown in Figure 2 [30] .

3.2. Preparation Stage for Gamification Teaching

3.2.1. Analysis of the Academic Situation

The teaching experiment is aimed at 21-level computer network students of Guizhou Vocational and Technical College of Economics and Trade. The student’s overall learning enthusiasm is average. They have particular prior experience in learning the “Web Page Production and Practical Training” course; that is, they have studied the course before taking this teaching experimental course. Therefore, it will be easier for students to participate in this teaching lab class, including understanding code and keyboard proficiency.

3.2.2. Analysis of Teaching Materials

First, the analysis of the target elements of teaching materials. The textbook

Figure 2. Gamification teaching model diagram based on ARCS motivation model.

selected for this teaching experiment course is the “13^th Five-Year Plan” textbook “Web Page Production and Practical Training” for secondary vocational education, as shown in Figure 3. This book is written according to the “project-task” driven teaching model, using several practical projects as a carrier to guide students to complete the project and master the methods and skills of web page production. Finally, it leads students to complete project training to cultivate students further practical ability and innovative ability.

Second, the analysis of the content elements of teaching materials. The book is divided into eight items, and an appendix; for each item. There is a focus on theory and practice (as shown in Table 4).

Third, the analysis of the implementation elements of teaching materials. In the process of teaching implementation, it is first necessary to determine the

Figure 3. Textbook “Web Page Production and Practical Training” of the 13^th Five-Year Plan for Secondary Vocational Workers.

Table 4. Analysis of content elements of textbooks.

teaching links, teaching content, teaching activities (teaching activities here involve teachers and students), and learning resources. Among them, the teaching links include three links: students’ pre-class preview, in-class teaching (including board book design and class discussion), and homework assignment; the teaching content is divided into eight projects and a supplementary; teachers mainly teach teaching activities, and students take notes and carry out corresponding hands-on exercises; in addition to textbooks, learning resources include corresponding hardware and software, such as computers and Dreamweaver CS6.0.

Fourth, this book aims to expand students’ vocational skills, master the production methods and skills of web pages, cultivate students’ ability to collect, analyze and express information, and further develop students’ practical ability and innovation abilities. Therefore, the analysis of evaluation elements can be carried out around the above aspects, and evaluating students through specific features can make the evaluation results more objective and in line with curriculum standards and teaching objectives.

3.2.3. Introduction to the Gamified Teaching Platform

The gamified teaching platform used in this institute is CSSBattle. CSSBattle is a code golf game developed for CSS enthusiasts, where players can visually copy targets with minimal CSS code. CSSBattle is built using React, Firebase, Firestore, and SCF. As shown in Figure 4, on the target page, the player can encode in the editor area on the left; when the player starts typing, the output area in the middle will start rendering the code, and when the output is confident that the result matches the target image, the stand-alone Submit button submits and views the score.

Figure 4. CSSBattle platform.

3.2.4. Establish Gamification Teaching Goals

Based on students’ current learning level, this gamification teaching aims to complete the learning of Battle#1, help students better understand the CSSBattle platform, and pave the way for subsequent breakthrough learning. Through practical learning, master CSS language skills, improve the level of web page production, and enhance learning confidence and Satisfaction.

The following section provides an extensive summary of the procedures involved, presented in table form. More specifically, Table 5 illustrates the gamified teaching practice stage in classroom import, Table 6 indicates the explanation of gamified teaching content, Table 7 outlines the gamified teaching goals,

Table 5. Classroom import.

Table 6. Explanation of gamification content.

Table 7. Introduction to gamification teaching objectives.

Table 8. Practical exercises for students.

Table 9. Evaluation stage of gamified gamification teaching.

Table 8 showcases the practical exercises assigned to students and Table 9 show the gamification teaching evaluation stage.

4. Results

After the end of this teaching experiment, to test the implementation effect, a feedback questionnaire was issued entitled―Gamification Teaching Based on ARCS Motivation Model (Taking Middle-level “Web Page Production and Practical Training” as an Example) Implementation Effect and Satisfaction Questionnaire, as shown in Supplementary III. A total of 30 questionnaires were distributed, 28 were recovered, the reliability and validity of the questionnaires were tested, and the specific analysis results are as follows.

4.1. Reliability

This questionnaire uses the alpha reliability coefficient method in SPSS software to analyze the reliability of the seven scale questions in the questionnaire, and the analysis results are shown in Table 10 below. The measured reliability factor α was 0.702 > 0.7, demonstrating that the results of this questionnaire were less different, the data quality was excellent, and the reliability was high.

4.2. Validity Test

This questionnaire uses SPSS software to measure the validity of the data, and the results are shown in Table 11 below. The significance of the questionnaire data is p < 0.05, and the KMO value is 0.708 > 0.7, which means that the results of the pre-test questionnaire are consistent with the content you want to study, and the questionnaire data can be further analyzed and interpreted.

4.3. Implementation Effect Evaluation and Analysis

According to Figure 5, the satisfaction rate of the fourth, fifth, and sixth questions are all above 89%, indicating that compared with traditional classroom teaching, the gamified teaching mode based on the ARCS motivation model is more helpful for students to integrate and refine the knowledge points of “Web Page Production and Practical Training”. It is easier to understand and master

Table 10. Reliability test.

Table 11. Validity test.

Figure 5. Satisfaction rate.

the critical content. Compared with traditional classroom teaching, gamified teaching based on the ARCS motivational mode is more conducive to stimulating the interest in learning “Web Production and Practical Training”. In addition, students also believe that gamified teaching based on the ARCS motivational model helps improve the ability to analyze and solve problems and expand scientific thinking. The above conclusions and data show that compared with the traditional teaching mode, the teaching mode used in this study can stimulate students’ interest in learning and help the understanding of knowledge and cultivate and expand disciplinary thinking.

According to Figure 6, it can be seen that 50% of students believe that gamified teaching based on the ARCS motivational model cannot help them better understand and master the knowledge of “Web Production and Practical Training”, which shows that as a new teaching mode, students cannot adapt quickly in the short term, so this teaching research needs to be optimized.

5. Conclusions

This teaching experiment began to boost secondary vocational students’ motivation for learning, gathered a ton of literature, and ultimately established a foundation for improving secondary vocational computer students’ motivation to take the course “Web Page Production and Practical Training”. This is equivalent to narrowing the scope of research, so that the author has a more directional sense when doing relevant research, but in the actual operation process encountered many problems; first of all, in the teaching of experimental courses, not every student has serious participation, the main reason is because of the students’ usual scattered learning habits, so at this point, the teaching experiment implementer should pay more attention to this part of the students, can be reminded appropriately, and help let every student participate in the curriculum. Secondly, in terms of the enthusiasm for filling in the satisfaction questionnaire after the implementation of teaching, most of the student’s enthusiasm

Figure 6. Effectiveness of teaching mode.

for filling in is not very high, so the feedback questionnaire only collected 28 copies (30 experimental subjects), which requires that after the end of the on-site teaching experiment, the teacher should let the students fill in the questionnaire, which is also the author did not do very well, the feedback questionnaire was not issued in time, missed the best time, resulting in the recovery of the questionnaire is not so smooth. Finally, the results of this teaching study may have some sense of distance and difference compared with the author’s initial expectations, which also shows the actual reliability of this experiment and can also motivate the author to continue research in this direction, continue to optimize teaching programs, and better help students improve their motivation to learn.

Through this research, the author realized that I want to help secondary vocational students improve their motivation to learn. In addition to the selection of theoretical methods, according to the literature, more time should be spent on the research and improvement of practical teaching, so in the future, the author will pay more attention to the analysis of in-depth practical education and better integrate theory and practical instruction. Of course, it is also hoped that more researchers can refer to the teaching methods of this paper for reasonable operation and optimize and create more advanced and effective teaching models to help students improve learning motivation, self-confidence, and satisfaction.

Authors’ Contributions

Conceptualization: HY; methodology: HY; software: HY; writing―original draft preparation: HY and WL; writing―review, and editing: HY and WL; supervision and funding acquisition: HY and WL. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their comments and suggestions.

Supplementary I: Questionnaire on the Teaching Status of the Middle Vocational “Web Page Production and Practical Training” Course

Dear students,

Hello! Thank you for participating in this survey. This survey aims to understand the teaching status of “Web Page Production and Practical Training” courses in secondary vocational colleges. This survey is completely anonymous; the survey results are limited to teaching and research and will not harm your life and work; please answer with Confidence according to your actual situation; thank you for your participation and cooperation, thank you!

1. Attention Dimension (4 questions in total)

1. Current teaching materials and teaching content can attract your attention. ( )