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ERIC EJ1111509: Raising Awareness and Promoting Informal Learning on World Heritage in Southern Africa: The Case of WHACY, a Gamified ICT-Enhanced Tool PDF

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International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT), 2016, Vol. 12, Issue 2, pp. 50-67 Raising awareness and promoting informal learning on World Heritage in Southern Africa: The case of WHACY, a gamified ICT-enhanced tool Asta Adukaite and Lorenzo Cantoni Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland ABSTRACT Diffusion of digital games and the trend of gamification in various fields have increased scholars’ attention on how digital games or their elements can be introduced into formal and informal learning practices. Majority of the research in this field has been conducted in economically developed regions and not so much in emerging economies. With this study the researchers focused on developing region of Southern African Development Community (SADC). World Heritage Awareness Campaign for Youth (WHACY) in SADC is a campaign dedicated to raise awareness and foster informal learning among Southern African youth about the heritage and sustainable tourism in the region. The campaign employed an online and offline gamified learning platform, which was supported by a dedicated website, Facebook page, wiki and offline materials. In one year of operation the campaign reached more than 100K audience. The purpose of this paper is to present the development, implementation, and evaluation of the campaign. The goals of the evaluation were dedicated to assess user experience in terms of engagement and conduciveness to learning as well as exploring the possibility of a gamified application to be integrated into the regular high school tourism curriculum. South African tourism students’ and tourism teachers’ perspectives were taken into consideration. Keywords: awareness campaign, SADC, South Africa, gamification, formal and informal learning, world heritage sites INTRODUCTION Computers, internet and mobile technology have opened up the way to digital games, which have evolved into a significant global business and have become a common phenomenon in contemporary culture (ESA, 2015). However, beyond their use as entertainment, game mechanics and game thinking have also been applied in different industries for different purposes: this trend is called gamification (Deterding, 2012). Indeed, the idea of introducing game elements in non-entertainment environments is not novel; it has its roots in marketing activities such as reward systems, points collection, loyalty or frequent flyer programs (Seaborn & Fels, 2015; McGonigal, 2011). Game elements are also found in various simulations in the fields of education and training (Zichermann & Cunningham, 2011). The current re-emergence of gamification is influenced by factors such as cheaper and more accessible technologies, personal data tracking, and the popularity of games in individuals’ everyday lives (Deterding, 2012). Numerous positive claims have been put forward regarding the aspect of gamified learning in education, such as increased motivation and engagement, empowerment of students with low self-efficacy and even reinforcement of critical thinking (Turkay et. al., 2014; da Rocha Seixas et al., 2016). While the research related to gamification and education in developed countries (North America and Europe) are pervasive in the literature (Boyle et al., 2016; Dicheva et al., 2015), only a few studies have been conducted in the developing countries environment (da Rocha Seixas et al., 2016; O’Donovan et al., 2013). Informal learning on World Heritage in Southern Africa 51   Within this paper a campaign called World Heritage Awareness Campaign for Youth (WHACY) in SADC, which is dedicated to raise awareness and foster informal learning among Southern African youth about the heritage and sustainable tourism in the region, is presented. The campaign employed an online and offline gamified learning tool, which was supported by a dedicated website, Facebook page, wiki and offline materials. In one year of operation the campaign reached more than 100K audience. The purpose of this paper is to present the development, implementation, and evaluation of the campaign. The goals of the evaluation were dedicated to assess user experience in terms of engagement and conduciveness to learning as well as exploring the possibility of a gamified applications to be integrated into the regular high school tourism curriculum focusing on one of the SADC countries: South Africa. LITERATURE REVIEW Games and learning Playing and learning is not a new phenomenon; the belief that children learn while playing is well recognized. While playing, children practice skills and develop social attitudes that are central to their social, motoric, emotional and intellectual development (Sutton-Smith, 2001). However, the recent arrival and growing acceptance of digital games has generated new interest on how to harness and take advantage of them for educational goals (Gee, 2008; Prensky, 2005). The relationship between games and learning has been approached from various theoretical perspectives: examining the informal learning that occurs during play (Sefton-Green, 2003) or the exploring the incorporation of games in formal learning activities (De Freitas & Oliver, 2006). Games, simulations, and gamification bridge the distinction between formal and informal learning. Introducing something that is considered an informal activity (gaming) into formal learning settings provides opportunities for better understanding on how formal and informal learning could reinforce each other in order to support cognitive development and promote learning (Sefton-Green, 2003; Koutromanos & Avraamidou, 2014). In their systematic review of 143 papers of high quality evidence about outcomes of the games in education, Boyle et al. (2016, p. 182) reported that the most “occurring outcome was knowledge acquisition “2followed by perceptual and cognitive, affective and behaviour change, with fewer papers reporting physiological, skills and soft and social skills outcomes”. Furthermore, STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) as well as health were the most popular domains for educational digital games. Boyle et al. (2016) report that research on games in education has an international dimension: out of 143 evaluated studies, 62 were conducted in North America, Europe (n=45), Asia (n=26), South America (n=5) and Australasia (n=5). Interestingly, not even one study in the systematic review was conducted in Africa. This also corresponds to similar findings of Hew et al. (2016) who reported that gamification studies are mainly produced in the USA and Europe. Theoretical background   Engagement and motivation are usually the ultimate goals of gamification practices. Thus, it is importance to uncover what makes games and gamification engaging to its users and which theories support these practices specifically for learning. It is critical to understand intrinsic (driven from within the user, mainly for the enjoyment the activity provides) and extrinsic (driven from external factors, such as prize, higher grade, praise from the teacher etc.) motivations of the learner while engaged with gamified experiences (Kapp, 2012; Deci & Ryan, 2002). Majority of the theoretical frameworks of motivation include both types of motivations. Three theories are discussed below, which have informed the design and development of the presented case study. 52 IJEDICT Self-Determination Theory is often used to explain human motivations to perform an activity or task. According to Deci and Ryan (2002), three psychological innate needs motivate individuals to initiate behaviour: (i) Competence, the need of a human being to be challenged and to attain ‘mastery’ through acquiring new skills; (ii) Autonomy, the feeling that a person has control and determines the outcomes of her/his actions; and (iii) Psychological relatedness, the individual needs to interact and connect with others. Furthermore, Malone (1981) introduced the Theory of Intrinsically Motivating Instruction. He investigated what makes games fun and intrinsically motivating and identified three principal elements: (i) Challenge, which depends on the uncertainty of the outcomes. If the user knows the exact outcome of using the application or knows that s/he will not be able to reach the goal, this will not facilitate challenging environment. In order to make the outcomes uncertain variables such as hidden information, various difficulty levels, or randomness could be introduced. (ii) Fantasy. It is an environment that evokes vivid mental images of things related to learning materials (using metaphors, for example), which has capacity to make instructional applications more engaging and provides emotional and cognitive advantages. (iii) Curiosity. The gaming environment should provide optimal informational complexity, which would evoke users’ cognitive and/or sensory curiosity throughout the process. Finally, Flow Theory significantly informs gamification design. Flow is a mental state of full immersion with complete focus on the task (e.g., playing a video game) (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Flow concerns full mental involvement with an activity with continuous engagement during the process: the perfect state between anxiety and boredom. Flow also concerns the balanced state between players’ abilities and skills compared to the challenge level of the tasks. According to Csikszentmihalyi (1990), eight components enable a state of flow: (i) Achievable task; (ii) Concentration; (iii) Clear goals; (iv) Feedback; (v) Effortless involvement; (vi) Control over actions; (vii) Loss of self-consciousness; (viii) Loss of sense of time. Based on the above mentioned theories, various authors (Kapp, 2012, Nah et al, 2014; Lee & Hammer, 2011) identified and listed the most common gamification elements used in the education: • Rewards. This concept describes the feedback and/or incentive arrangement within the gamified application that encourages users to continue and can support a high level of motivation. Even negative rewards, which could be considered as punishment within the game, can facilitate learning. As argued by Kapp (2012), it is better to provide the user with smaller multiple rewards, distributed throughout the game instead of one big prize. Thus, points and badges are common gamification features, and serve as a form of rewards while progressing through the game and measuring gradual achievements and success. • Challenge is the extent to which user skills match the challenges presented by the digital game (Kiili, 2005; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Appropriate challenges will keep the player engaged and motivated throughout the game and the playfulness of the experience will be higher (Woszczynski et al., 2002). Thus, if the application is too challenging the user may become frustrated quickly. On the contrary, if the application is not challenging enough the user may become disinterested. Elements of challenge within games are often supported by different difficulty levels. • Feedback is a typical game feature, which is usually instant, clear and direct. Based on feedback, players can make certain decisions, that is, change or correct their playing behaviour. Educational gamification researchers argue that the immediacy and frequency of feedback contributes to greater learner engagement, effectiveness and attainment of the flow state (Kapp, 2012; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Informal learning on World Heritage in Southern Africa 53   • Competition among players is a common game element, where each participant strives to optimise their performance and to attain the best possible achievement against the other participants. The competition is often intensified with another gamification feature: leader boards. The leader board is a social component embedded into the digital game, consisting of a list of players with top scores. According to game designers, leader boards can be powerful motivators for players, pushing them to play repeatedly in order to get to the top of the list. CONTEXT The applied domain: UNESCO World Heritage Sites & tourism   In 1972, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) adopted a Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, aimed at the “identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations” (UNESCO, 1972: p. 3) of the world’s cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value. As of May 2016, the World Heritage Committee has included 1031 properties in the World Heritage List: 802 cultural, 197 natural, and 32 mixed sites in 163 countries. The World Heritage Convention clearly states that apart from conservation and protection of world heritage, its “presentation” (UNESCO, 1972: p. 3) is also among its primary aims. Presentation implies communication and creation of public awareness among the local community (ibid.) and international visitors (Pedersen, 2002). According to Weaver (2012), sincere public awareness and appreciation is required to generate sustainable conduct. Furthermore, the great potential of ICTs is recognized to facilitate sustainable tourism through awareness raising, valorisation, sensitization, and guidance for locals and tourists (Ali & Frew, 2013; Schieder et al, 2014). Indeed, the Convention states the need for “educational and information programmes to strengthen appreciation and respect” (UNESCO, 1972: p. 13) for cultural and natural heritage sites. One of the potential strategies to contribute to this reconciliation of tourism and preservation of heritage places is harnessing technologies for learning purposes (Cantoni et al, 2009) and possibly introducing gamification features for more profound engagement and interest creation. The geographical context of the presented campaign is Southern African Development Community (SADC), a strategically important region in economic and geographic terms located in Southern Africa. It includes 15 countries: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. SADC region is considered still a developing geography, undergoing various sustainable development challenges. The SADC region is very rich in touristic resources in term of cultural and natural properties, which every year are attracting increasing numbers of tourists. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and the Regional Organization of Tourism in Southern Africa (RETOSA), tourist international arrivals grew from 13 million to approximately 23 million during 2002-2012. These numbers are positively influencing the GDP, employment, and investment in the region. Therefore, tourism development in SADC is viewed as a substantial tool to contribute to the economic growth, hence, to alleviate poverty, advance security, and empower the promotion of local attractions (WTTC, 2013). The 15 countries of SADC region host 39 World Heritage Sites (WHSs) – 17 cultural, 19 natural, 3 mixed – properties of outstanding universal value representing the cultural and natural richness of the region, which at the same time attract very high interest from the tourism perspective. 54 IJEDICT PROJECT: WHACY   Case study: Awareness campaign about UNESCO World Heritage Sites in SADC UNESCO Chair in ICT to develop and promote sustainable tourism in World Heritage Sites based at USI – Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano (Switzerland) together with Hospitality Youth Initiative (HYI), a South African NGO and the Regional Tourism Organisation of Southern Africa (RETOSA) have designed an awareness campaign about the 39 WHSs in the SADC region. The concept of the campaign was built on three main pillars: • Awareness. Firstly, the gamified online/offline quiz tool, supported by online outlets as a dedicated website, wiki, and Facebook page, were designed to spread awareness among local students and young adults in Southern Africa around the unique and universally valuable heritage in their region. • Informal learning. Participants become aware and gain knowledge about the outstanding value of the heritage in their region, and about the importance of sustainable tourism to ensure development at those sites. • Empowerment. The promotion of a sense of ownership among youth of such heritage. The youth becomes aware of heritage as a relevant asset for their professional future, as well as for local development. The project addressed the following audiences: • Schools in the SADC region were invited to participate in the project, but the actual game was played by individual students with a foreseen age from 16 to 19. • Any other individual participant interested in the topic. Campaign’s development: ICT tools The principal tool for the campaign is an online/offline quiz platform. The platform is based on an algorithm that randomly retrieves questions from a previously populated database, and presents to the user a unique collection of multiple choice quizzes. An ad hoc database of 470 questions has been created, distributed among four categories: • 390 questions on 39 World Heritage Sites (10 for each site divided into 5 difficult and 5 easy ones) • 40 questions about sustainable tourism development • 20 questions about UNESCO • 20 questions about eTourism (information and communication technologies and tourism) The goal for the user is to collect the highest score by correctly answering the questions. By reaching the end, the user obtains a personalized certificate with her/his final score in printable PDF format (Figure 1). In order to adapt the contents to audience, who was either second, or third English language users, all the questions were revised by a panel of experts gathered by South African project partner. Moreover, during the design and development phase the quiz was hosted on a Swiss server. Before the launch, the application was migrated to a South African server in order to allow faster connection and data transmission for game participants. Additionally, an offline version on a CD-ROM was developed. Informal learning on World Heritage in Southern Africa 55   Figure 1: Awareness campaign interface example and final certificate Gamification features of WHACY Firstly, rules are provided in a dedicated section of the platform, specifying all the information needed about how to proceed with the game. The reward structure of WHACY consisted of a point system: the user collected points after answering questions. At the end of the quiz, a certificate was available to download, indicating participation and the score achieved. All these can be considered as extrinsic motivators for players to answer the questions correctly. Feedback is another gamification element present in the WHACY platform. Every time a player submits an answer, s/he receives an immediate feedback if the answer was correct, partially correct or incorrect. Moreover, a player receives complimentary information related to a question to facilitate learning about the topic. In addition, a progress bar is displayed to players to indicate the remaining questions to finish the game. As for aesthetics, the presence of different pictures in every question (corresponding to the WHSs described in the questions) and the presence of some videos enhance the user experience. Regarding the element of time, it is important to mention that during the first round of the quiz, the players were not restricted by time, and there was no time element present. Nevertheless, in the second round, a restriction of 30 seconds to answer a question make the game more intense by pressuring players to provide the answer within a limited period. The replay option is offered at the end of the game allowing the players to improve on their performance and increase their knowledge regarding the topics covered. The game was organized along two main phases: • First Phase (May – Aug. 2014). The first round contained 28 questions: 16 questions on four selected WHSs out of 39, four questions about UNESCO, four about sustainable tourism development, and four about eTourism. Questions were randomly selected from the pool of available questions, which meant that different playing instances were possible, without being exposed to the same questions. Participants could also play offline (CD-ROM). 56 IJEDICT • Second Phase (Sep. – Nov. 2014). This round contained 42 questions about all 39 WHSs and other topics without a possibility to preselect WHSs as in the first round. Each question had timer with 30 seconds. The offline tool did not support the second round. The initial plan of the campaign also envisioned the third phase: a residential workshop together with top performing students from each SADC country, however, due to various challenges it was cancelled. Table 1 summarizes other ICT platforms used for the reinforcement of the campaign. Table 1: Campaign’s supporting ICT platforms Platform Description Dedicated website: The website was created using Worpress content management www.whacy.org system with the main goal of presenting the project, its partners and goal to the wide public. Dedicated wiki: Wiki was created as content support repository about all WHSs http://wiki.africaheritag and other topics: UNESCO, sustainable tourism development, etourism.org eTourism. The wiki platform was chosen because it enables an easy management in terms of content creation and editing without any HTML or other coding perquisite. Facebook page: Facebook page has been created in order to support the project’s www.facebook.com/af promotion. It reached more than 4K likes (May 2016) mainly from ricaheritagetourism Madagascar, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Mauritius, Zambia, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Botswana. Campaign’s outreach Promotion of WHACY has been done both offline and online. Activities have been aimed at recruiting participants, as well as informing relevant stakeholders. Online promotion was mainly supported by dedicated Facebook page (see above) through regular posting about WHSs in SADC, photo competition, as well as several paid campaigns. Moreover, digital promotional materials where spread through channels such as YouTube. Furthermore, an email campaign was carried out approaching 6’900 potentially interested schools in SADC, however, only 18% had working email addresses. To overcome Internet connection problems, the offline version (CD-ROM) of WHACY has been produced and shipped to almost 2’500 schools in SADC region. Moreover, 68 schools have been visited in person presenting the campaign to the head of the school and the relevant teacher (Tourism, Geography and/or IT). Mainly due to a lack of internet connectivity the participating schools preferred to use offline version in CD-ROM format. More than 104’000 students have been exposed to online and offline WHACY as of March 2015. The offline exposure was estimated by HYI, based on telephone interviews with a sample of 128 schools, who received offline material. Participants from 13 SADC countries have been exposed to the campaign, but no participation from Swaziland and Angola has been reported. Informal learning on World Heritage in Southern Africa 57   CAMPAIGN’S EVALUATION METHODOLOGY For the evaluation part of the campaign, one country from SADC region was selected i.e. South Africa, which is a developing/emerging country with a growing tourism industry. Tourism in South Africa is recognised as a key economic sector with potential for continuous growth, which demands a skilled and professional workforce. This implies that the local workforce should be aware of the nature and role of tourism, and should be able to critically evaluate its potential. Since 2000 tourism as a subject has been widely introduced at secondary school level (10-12 grades) throughout South Africa. Tourism subject has seen significant growth in terms of the number of schools where it is taught: from 120 schools in 2000 to almost 3’000 schools in 2014 (Umalusi, 2014). To this date, tourism is one of the most popular electives in high schools: up to 20% of all high school students select the subject (Allais, 2014). Tourism education in South Africa is constrained by a lack of trained teachers, students’ limited exposure to tourism industry, and students’ lack of interest and motivation to study the subject (Adukaite et al., 2016; Umalusi, 2014; Chili, 2013). Tourism subject in South African high schools has a reputation of being an “easy” subject, which in some ways becomes a “dumping ground” for academically weak students or those who try but eventually cannot cope with other subjects (ibid.). The introduction and adoption of ICT has been identified as a potential enabler of tourism education (Adukaite et al., 2016). To address the challenge of students’ apathy regarding the subject, one potential strategy would be the use of digitally gamified learning. Due to the fact that topics of World Heritage Sites and sustainable tourism are covered in the South African tourism curriculum, audience of tourism teachers and students have been chosen for the evaluation of the campaign. The evaluation of the campaign was carried out employing mixed methods throughout two phases (Table 2). The goals of the evaluation were mainly dedicated to assess students’ user experience in terms of engagement and conduciveness to learning as well as exploring the possibility of a gamified application to be integrated into the regular high school tourism curriculum. Table 2. Overview of the campaign’s evaluation Phase Evaluation Method Location Number of subjects Phase 1 Focus groups South Africa 9 focus groups with high school students from 11-12 grades taking tourism subject Semi structured South Africa 19 high school tourism teachers interviews Phase 2 Questionnaire South Africa 209 high school tourism teachers   Phase 1: Fieldwork in South Africa   During three months (April-June 2015) the main researcher has visited 16 schools in two provinces of South Africa: Western Cape Metro North District (ten schools) and Eastern Cape Western District (six schools). Firstly, the lists with the high schools offering tourism subject were obtained from the Department of Basic Education and the sample for the study was drawn including different types of schools in regards to their socio-economic characteristics because 58 IJEDICT tourism is taught in all schools – from well-resourced private to poorly resourced disadvantaged community schools. A typical visit to the school consisted of a group of tourism students (grades 11-12) playing WHACY for 30-45 minutes in the school’s computer lab. Afterwards available and interested students were invited for a focus-group discussion, 20-45 minutes. For focus groups’ discussion, semi-structured questioning approach was used to ensure consistency among groups, however, allowing quite large degree of flexibility. Finally, semi-structured interviews were conducted with tourism teachers lasting 30-75 minutes. The focus group and interview protocols covered different questions related to ICT integration for tourism teaching, however, in this paper only findings related to the campaign are reported. Table 3 provides an overview of the fieldwork, number of students and teachers involved. Table 3: Outline of the field work Type of school   Western Cape (WC)   Eastern Cape (EC)   Public school (township). 5 schools 4 schools Previously, before 1994, only 60 students played 73 students played black or coloured schools, often 3 focus gr. (25 students) 2 focus gr. (19 students) inadequately resourced.   6 teachers   5 teachers   Public school (ex-model C). 3 schools 2 schools Previously, before 1994, only 38 students played 15 students played white schools, well resourced, 2 focus gr. (16 students) 1 focus gr. (8 students) now integrated.   4 teachers   2 teachers   Private schools. Independent, 2 schools 0   well resourced.   27 students played 1 focus gr. (7 students) 2 teachers     Total: 16 schools 213 students played WHACY 9 focus groups (75 students participated) 19 teachers interviewed   Summing up, 16 schools were visited, 213 students played WHACY and were observed, 9 focus group discussions with 75 students were held, ranging from 5 to 10 students per focus group, and 19 interviews with tourism teachers who also played WHACY and observed students playing it were conducted. All the focus group discussions and interviews were conducted in English, audio recorded and later transcribed. The transcripts were analysed by coding them using inductive thematic coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) through analysis software NVivo 10. Phase 2: Tourism teachers’ survey   The second evaluation phase was a survey with tourism teachers to obtain quantitative insights about their perceptions towards gamified application. The sample of the study was in-service tourism teachers in South Africa and the study adopted convenience sampling technique. The focus was on three provinces: Western Cape, Gauteng, Eastern Cape. Survey participants were asked to play WHACY game and to fill in the questionnaire reporting their perceptions about gamified application (Likert scale from 1 to 5, from strongly agree to strongly disagree). Informal learning on World Heritage in Southern Africa 59   The lists of the schools offering tourism subject in the respective provinces were obtained from the National Department of Education and the mailing lists were compiled (n=529 valid email addresses in 3 provinces). The survey was distributed via email addressing the school principal and asking to pass the survey information to school’s tourism teachers. After two weeks the reminder followed, and after another week the telephone calls (n=80) were conducted to further invite tourism teachers to participate in the survey. Finally, the invitation to survey was distributed through tourism subject coordinators and advisers and their mailing lists. In total 218 teachers filled out the survey and 209 were retained after data cleaning (see Table 4 for sample demographics). Table 4: Demographics of the survey sample Gender F (83%); M (17%) Age 20-34 (13%); 35-49 (61%); 50-65 and more (26%) Province Western Cape (34%); Eastern Cape (31%); Gauteng (30%); Mpumalanga (2%); KwaZulu-Natal (1%); Northern Cape (1%); Limpopo (1%) Language Afrikaans (37%); English (24%); isiXhosa (26%); isiZulu (3%); Setswana (3%); (mother Sesotho (2%); Sesotho sa Leboa (1%); Other (4%) tongue) The respondents were asked to self-declare their level of technology training: 7% reported having extensive, 17% moderated, 39% occasional and only 37% with no technology training. This implies that the respondents of this survey were exposed to technology and even 66% of the sample reported that they used technology for teaching purposes. Thus, the sample can be considered as technologically experienced, and the results of the study cannot be generalizable for the rural schools where internet connection and technological training and exposure is scarce. Only 9% of the respondents had previously used digital games/quizzes for teaching purposes. Ethical considerations Firstly, research approvals and permissions were obtained from the respective regional Education Departments. Secondly, principals of the selected sample schools were contacted to obtain their permission to visit the school and conduct foreseen research. Thirdly, all respondents gave their written consent to be interviewed or surveyed. They were informed that their participation was voluntary, anonymous and confidential. The main researcher commenced with fieldwork after becoming familiar with the context and environment (Sherry, 2008). RESULTS Engagement and learning opportunities: students’ perspective   Overall observations proved that the quiz was easy to use and intuitive, none of the students experienced technological issues, even though 39% of participants reported that they have never used computers before. Two main themes emerged from the group discussions with students. First theme relates to gamification features of the application, which engaged students and made their experience enjoyable. Second, potential learning opportunities offered by gamified application.

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