Gamification to motivate the development of autonomous tasks in the university : Case study: Central University of Ecuador

Combine face-to-face classes with a gamified e-Learning platform, is a proposal in higher education that increases the commitment and motivation in the development of autonomous tasks. The present research shows the results of the application in the subject Programming I (P-I) of the Faculty of Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics (FEPSM) of the Central University of Ecuador (CUE). For this, an explanatory study, with a quasi-experimental design with groups: experimental (gamified methodology) and control (traditional methodology), is carried out. These results are discussed in seven semesters, during the years 2015 and 2019. In addition, surveys are applied to students who completed the gamification course to evaluate the gamification strategies applied. To determine if the proposal allows improving the academic performance of the students, differences between groups were evaluated using the t-Student test in the case of normality and the non-parametric U-Mann-Whitney test in the case of non-normality. The nine experimental groups who used the gamified methodology are compared using the Kruskal-Wallis test and the medium for k samples. It is concluded that the implementation of gamification strategies on a virtual learning platform not only influenced students' motivation in the development of autonomous tasks but also allowed better academic performance.