A Novel Gamification Application for High School Student Examination and Assessment to Assist Student Engagement and to Stimulate Interest

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript examines the use of gamification as a strategy to combat disengagement among high school students, who often lose interest in the traditional knowledge acquisition approach of formal education. The article explores the implementation of a gamified quiz, integrating gaming elements such as leaderboards and rewards to foster student engagement. The results indicate that students show increased interest in this interactive learning process and express a desire for more frequent utilization of gamified performance assessment in their everyday school activities.

Strengths:

The manuscript tackles a pertinent issue in education—the disengagement of younger generations of students. By recognizing this problem and proposing a solution through gamification, the manuscript seeks to revitalize student interest and participation in the learning process.

The authors provided a practical example of how gamification can be applied in the classroom setting. By developing a gamified quiz that incorporates gaming elements, it offers tangible evidence of the positive effects of such interventions on student engagement.

Critical feedback:

The manuscript would benefit from a discussion on the generalizability of the findings. While the results indicate increased interest among students, it is essential to consider factors such as the specific context, sample size, and learning theories in line with similar studies e.g. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13094829

The manuscript would benefit from a deeper exploration of the pedagogical implications of gamification in high school education. While increased student engagement is a positive outcome, it is crucial to analyze the impact on learning outcomes, retention of knowledge, and the development of higher-order thinking skills e.g. https://doi.org/10.1108/OMJ-04-2021-1232

The manuscript should acknowledge potential limitations or challenges associated with the use of gamification. It is important to consider factors such as the need for continuous innovation, the potential for extrinsic motivation to overshadow intrinsic motivation, and the risk of oversimplifying complex educational concepts in the gamified format.

The manuscript should be edited by an english-speaking native

Author Response

Please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Firstly, I would like to highlight that the text was not formatted following the rules of the journal. In addition, during the article revision, I found aspects that must be considered in a future version. I will list them in the same order they appeared during the reading. I hope the comments can be used to improve the text. At the end, I will present my final evaluation about the work.

1) The abstract must be improved to clarify the scientific contribution of the paper. The author discusses several aspects of the work, but what is the difference in relation to related works (state-of-the-art)? The reader ends the abstract without know what is the scientific contribution of the work;                              

2) It is important to include in the section "Introduction", a more complete description of the paper’s proposal. The section discusses several general topics, but the most important aspect of a scientific paper is little discussed, namely, the scientific contribution (its difference in relation to state of the art). The author can include a “research question” to indicate the focus of the research. Based on the question, the reader can understand the contribution that is being sought;

3) I believe the following aspect is the most relevant weakness of the paper. The text does not have a discussion and comparison of related works. Section 2 discusses some related works, but I believe that it would be interesting to improve that section through a “discussion of related works and comparison with the proposal”. Typically, based on a revision of related works is possible to indicate the contribution sought by an article. I advise the authors to include a comparison table based on criteria, allowing a better comparison and discussing of scientific contributions. Based on this table, it would be easier to understand the relation between the works, their relationship with the proposal and the scientific contribution of the work;

4) In a general vision, the article uses sufficient references, but I missed more references related to the basic themes related to Digital Games, Gamification and Learning. In this sense, I recommend the inclusion of additional references specifically related with these themes. The following references can be used to enrich the basic literature of this research work, because they discuss several aspects related to games, gamification and learning: (1) The Shift to Gamification in Education: A Review on Dominant Issues. The Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/00472395209176; (2) Executive Functions, Motor Development, and Digital Games Applied to Elementary School Children: A Systematic Mapping Study. Education Sciences, 2022. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12030164; (3) Gamification for student engagement: a framework. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2021.1875201; (4) Inhibitory control stimulation in elementary school children through digital games: A systematic mapping study. Applied Neuropsychology: Child, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622965.2020.1843040; (5) Fostering student engagement with motivating teaching: an observation study of teacher and student behaviours. Research Papers in Education, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2020.1767184; (6) GamiProM: A Generic Gamification Model Based on User Profiles. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2022.2159769

5) Section 3 describes the application. I recommend including a figure with the computational architecture of the application. I also recommend reorganizing the section to approach the model in a separate way from the prototype. The authors can describe the modeling of the application and after they can discuss the screens describing the functionality. I also advised the authors to better organize the figures with the screens. The figures are occupying much space. They can be put together in only one figure. The authors also need to justify how the subjects were invited to participate in the experiment;

6) Section 4 needs to be significantly improved to better describe the methodology. I recommend creating a section before the description of the application dedicated to present the scientific methodology of this work. The authors need to conduct a carefully revision of the English too. For example, the sentence “To conduct the research, the game made by us was used which was analyzed…” is wrong. There are other sentences with problem and a carefully revision is needed;

7) In section 5, I recommend to better discuss the results showed in the figures. I also advise the authors to improve the quality of the figures;

8) Finally, I advise the authors to improve the Section 6 through a better discussion of future works.

I consider that the article has relevant problems that will need several improvements. The work will need “Major Revision”. 

As indicated in the comments for authors, the text will require a careful revision of the English language.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a simple research project that highlights how gamification can promote a novel approach to student assessment, either within class assessment, or within a more formal examination.  Its main attractiveness is the novelty coupled with the idea of providing stimuli and attractiveness.

       The approach has potential application for any assessment setting and the degree of student support can be modified as seen appropriate by the teacher.  But the initial internet support for beginning the approach is seen as valuable and the author has really just illustrated an interesting application. As such, this is worth publishing, but maybe the title can be rearranged to put emphasis on the novel approach ie can this come 1st in the title.

        Some points

The abstract mixes present and past tense of the verb in the last sentence.

1st line of the introduction - meaning of 00?    

 The 1st paragraph of the introduction seems to need a reference.

 The paper is about research carried out using a questionnaire, but this is not made explicit at the beginning ie there are no specific research questions put forward, although 4.2 indicates the research methodology.  

   I am not sure why the 1st paragraph of section 5 (Results) is appropriate when introducing results!  It seems an aspect of the introduction, or a section where the Greek education system is introduced.  And I am not confident that paragraph 1 in section 5 is actually results, rather than part of methodology. In fact, much of the results incorporates aspects of methodology (the actual research questions asked are not specifically listed). 

     The conclusion seems appropriate and answers research questions (which unfortunately are not actually posed, yet actually are the focus of the paper). 

  While section 1 is the introduction to gamification , section 2 is the research background on gamification (although not specifical indicated in the heading).   Section 3 is a mixture of introduction to gamification and methodology of undertaking gamification, while section 4 is research methodology and data collection leading to section 5, results from the questionnaire. Section 6 mixes conclusion (from the results) with further research suggestions. 

 Within 3.   gamification methodology and sample questions are included, but this does not receive specific mention (sub-headings) as does, for example,  3.1  Software and Tools.   

Section 4 is the beginning of the actual research.   

The English is generally commendable, but the abstract suffers from change of tense of the verb.

Author Response

Please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I thank the authors for considering the previous comments

Reviewer 2 Report

I revised the response letter and the new version of the article.

I am satisfied with the improvements, so now I recommend accepting the work.

I consider that the quality of English is satisfactory.