New Perspectives in Science Education

Many publications describe implementation of ranking tool and its impact on participants of the gamified environment. Observed effects relate to positive change of the attitude of participants, however mostly only in short term. Many examples of the implementations of gamification tools can be found in business, medical and health-related environments, marketing and education. Although modern education shares similarities with game environments (points as grades, levels as school semesters), it also faces several problems when it comes to implementation of gamification tools, related often to the implementation and usage of an appropriate e-learning system but also amount of work needed to prepare and conduct the gamified course.

This article will describe observations made during one semester course on the topic of “Introduction to programming”. The course is a mandatory course for students of the first semester at the department of computer science. The course management was supported by an e-learning platform and prepared in order to adapt it to the purpose of gamification. Students (n = 130) have been divided into two groups. Only one of the groups was provided access to the actual ranking, updated weekly. Differences between groups have been observed – not only in terms of the final grade, but also in terms related to the perception of own competences and fairness of the final grade.