A Review of Research on Gamification Approach in Education

Gamification has become the most popular topic of the last few years. Studies in gamification area are examined based on certain different criteria in this study and content analysis method was used in order to identify trends in this area. Web of Science were scanned through using gamification as keyword without year restriction. A total number of 313 studies were regarded as appropriate for the aim of the study and examined. It is seen that research in this area have begun in 2011 and increased every year. It is also seen that motivational theories are mostly preferred in the studies conducted in gamification area. It was determined that goal-duty, reward and progression sticks are the mostly used components as game components. It is seen that gamification applications are frequently preferred in virtual environment, simulation and augmented reality learning environments after mobile environments and in parallel with these, they are also preferred in learning areas such as public, service, food and health. Therefore, identifying different activities which could affect success in online environments, integrating these into education environment and provide these activities with theories appropriate for students’ ages for them not to lose their motivation are essential