Guess Who's Learning?

Hubken’s Darren Bindert and Pulse Advanced Media’s Ben Reeves explain how to design effective gamification elements in your future eLearning project.

Gamification has emerged as a powerful tool in eLearning, transforming traditional learning experiences into interactive, engaging, and motivational journeys.

So much has been written about the numerous aspects of gameplay and the psychology inherent in successful games (if you’re looking for inspiration, look out for books and papers by Andrzej Marczewski, Yu-kai Chou, Kevin Werbach & Dan Hunter).

When you dive into this subject, it becomes clear that designing eLearning that incorporates effective gamification, requires more than just adding points, badges or leaderboards. It demands a strategic approach that blends clear educational objectives with game mechanics to improve learner engagement and retention.

In this article, we’ll explore how the Royal College of Podiatry (RCPod) introduced gamification elements into a recent course for their membership, and along the way, we’ll be offering practical guidance on how you might include gamification elements in your own courses.

Project Overview

The Royal College of Podiatry (RCPod) represents 10,000 UK podiatrists, providing support, training, and CPD courses. RCPod collaborated with Ben Reeves at Pulse Advanced Media and LMS partner Hubken, with their Totara platform, to develop a course on ‘Heel Pain’.

Addressing this common, but complex condition, the course incorporates multimedia and interactive elements to enhance learning and increase retention. Although designed for busy schedules, it also ensures clinical accuracy.

This eLearning approach uses several layers of gamification, the first of which is the adaptation of a well-known board game to create immediate learner engagement.

Practical Guidance on Designing Engaging and Effective Gamification Elements

Understand Your Audience

Before diving into the design process, it’s crucial to understand your learners. What motivates them? What are their learning preferences and challenges? Tailoring gamification elements to the specific needs and characteristics of your target learners will ensure that your eLearning course is more relevant and engaging.

The RCPod wanted to push the boundaries of the style of training the College traditionally produced, whilst understanding that for their members, the three most important considerations were:

• Time it would take to undertake the training• Clinical accuracy• Learner engagement

Don’t start with gamification

Gamification should not overshadow the educational goals of your course, and care should be taken not to turn the learning into a gimmick.

Start with the performance goals or objectives. What improvements in the organisation are we trying to achieve? What are the learning objectives and what decisions are we asking learners to make? What constraints do we need to consider?

Engagement and motivation strategies should come after these have been understood.

Align with Learning Objectives

With the RCPod, every effort went into ensuring that game elements aligned and supported the learning objectives. In this case, the RCPod wanted to enhance the membership training program, specifically looking to improve engagement rates, diagnostic effectiveness, and CPD.

And while there are many different gamification features that can be incorporated, it’s more important that appropriate elements are used thoughtfully. More is not necessarily better.

Incorporate Feedback Loops

Immediate feedback is a core component of effective gamification. Use real-time feedback to help learners understand their progress, correct mistakes, and stay motivated. Feedback can be provided through scores, progress bars, or direct messages.

Assessment

Learners shouldn’t be taken out of an immersive gaming experience so that their skills and knowledge can be assessed, through a multiple-choice test, for instance. Assessment should be embedded within, and as part of the learning.

With RCPod’s Heel Pain course, learners demonstrate their understanding as part of their interaction with the game. The choices they make affect how successful the outcome is, just as would be the case in a real-life patient consultation.

Rewards

Rewards are powerful motivators, but they need to be meaningful and relevant. In eLearning, achievements are virtual symbols, used as a form of reward to signal the accomplishments of learners. Badges are the visual display of the user’s capability to do something or demonstrate that they have acquired a new skill. The benefits of using badges and achievements are:

• Create higher performance expectations• Increase user self-efficacy• Satisfaction for task completion

In the case of the RCPod Heel Pain course, two levels of reward were integrated. The first level was point-scoring. For each correct diagnosis, learners are awarded 10 points.

However, for each hint used, they lose 5 points.

At the conclusion of the game, the number of points the learner has been awarded determines which medal (if any) they receive. This is the second level of reward. The more points the learner has earned, the more valuable the medal they receive. It is also possible for learners to pass the course, but not receive enough points to earn a medal.

The intention then, is to encourage learners to retake the course, earning enough points to receive a gold medal on subsequent attempts.

Interactive Elements

Use interactive elements such as quizzes, simulations, and scenarios to actively engage learners. These elements encourage participation and allow learners to apply their knowledge in practical contexts. Interactive content also provides opportunities for experiential learning, which can enhance understanding and retention.

Visual and Audio Enhancements

Visual and audio enhancements can significantly impact immersion and engagement levels. Use high-quality imagery (preferably in vector format, such as SVG), animations, and sound effects to create a rich, multisensory experience. Ensure that the visual and audio elements are not only aesthetically pleasing but also serve a genuine purpose to reinforce the learning.

In the case of RCPod Heel Pain, each consultation was introduced by a virtual character with AI-generated voiceover. As well as providing a more immersive learning experience, voiceover also addresses accessibility considerations, allowing learners with visual impairments to more readily access the learning.

Continuous Improvement

Gamification in eLearning is an iterative process. Continuously gather feedback from learners and analyse their performance data to identify areas for improvement. Use this information to refine and enhance gamification elements, ensuring they remain effective and engaging over time.

Balance Fun and Learning

While it’s key to make learning fun, game elements should not distract from the educational content. Strive for a balance where fun elements support the learning experience, rather than detract from it.

For the RCPod, this was critically important as the outcome of the learning was to reinforce and improve accurate diagnosis of heel pain. Ultimately, the game had to provide a learning outcome that enabled Podiatrists to achieve better patient outcomes, therefore gamification elements needed to support this, not belittle it.

Conclusion

And so how has this new gamification approach to eLearning for RCPod gone down with its members? Feedback has been extremely positive and reinforces how well targeted this approach was.

• 75% of those polled reported that the course was either very good or good• 95% indicated that it was relevant to clinical practice

“Clear explanation, thought-provoking clinical presentations, fun learning exercises”

Accessible, relevant to my practice and good format.

Clinically relevant, challenging and helpful.

Inciteful, testing and job appropriate.

Informative, Engaging, Interactive.

Including effective gamification elements in eLearning requires a thoughtful and strategic approach. By understanding your audience, aligning the appropriate game elements with learning objectives, and incorporating clear goals and meaningful rewards, you can create a compelling and motivational learning experience. Additionally, leveraging thoughtful interactive, visual and audio elements will help you craft immersive and engaging game-like experiences.

Embrace these tips and tricks to transform your eLearning courses and drive learner success – just like RCPod.

Darren Bindert, Head of Marketing at Hubken Group and Ben Reeves, Director Ben Reeves, Director of Pulse Advanced Media Ltd