Gamification in Software Engineering Education: An Empirical Study

Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. Gamification is a relatively new trend that has been applied in various domains, including Software Engineering. However, few studies have explored the potential of gamification in the context of Software Engineering education. In this paper, we describe an experience of introducing two game elements, namely badges and leaderboards, in an introductory Software Engineering course. Our goal is to evaluate the students' perception on the impact of these elements in their motivation towards the course. We conducted a survey with 18 participants for quantitative results, and a series of interviews with 6 participants for a qualitative perspective on the results. We observed that students received badges positively, while there were mixed results about the use of leaderboards in our strategy. The main benefits on the use of these elements is that they provide social recognition rewards for students. In addition, the use of badges establishes further objectives for students to strive for, besides grades and approval.