Advances in Gamification and IoT-Based Education

Dear Colleagues,

Digital transformation is reshaping contemporary learning environments, and the integration of gamification with Internet of Things (IoT) technologies is emerging as one of the most promising directions for innovative educational design. This Special Issue aims to bring together cutting-edge research, theoretical advancements, and practical applications that explore how gamified approaches and IoT-based systems can enhance learner engagement, motivation, feedback, personalization, and performance across diverse educational contexts.

Gamification provides immersive learning dynamics, such as challenges, feedback loops, rewards, and narrative structures, that foster engagement and sustained participation. Superficial use of gamification focuses on extrinsic rewards that might undermine long-term motivation and learning, whereas effective gamification strategies promote autonomy, mastery, purpose, and relatedness to sustain deep, long-term engagement. Meanwhile, IoT technologies enable real-time data collection, ubiquitous sensing, automation, and the creation of adaptive learning environments that respond dynamically to learners’ behaviors and needs. When combined, these approaches have the potential to transform traditional instructional models; support learning analytics; promote individualized, inclusive, and accessible education; and open new pathways for competency development in STEM, health, engineering, smart laboratories, virtual–physical blended environments, and lifelong learning.

This Special Issue welcomes contributions including empirical studies, theoretical frameworks, technical developments, design experiments, case studies, and systematic reviews. Submissions may address applications in formal, non-formal, or workplace learning, as well as emerging challenges related to ethics, data privacy, scalability, and sustainability. The goal is to provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the state of the art and future directions in gamification and IoT-powered education.

Prof. Dr. Anna Dipace
Dr. Andrea Tinterri
Dr. Raffaele Di Fuccio
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.