Digital Gamification for Youth Engagement
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HOW TO SUCCEED WITH DIGITAL GAMIFICATION FOR YOUTH ENGAGEMENT HANDBOOK 2018 CONTENT INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 4 THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY OF THE HANDBOOK .......................................................... 5 1. GAMIFICATION EXPLAINED ........................................................................................................ 7 1.1. What is gamification? .................................................................................................................... 7 1.2. Features of gamification ................................................................................................................. 7 1.3. Who are the beneficiaries of gamification? ................................................................................. 12 1.4. Types of gamification.................................................................................................................... 13 1.4.1. Online versus offline gamification ......................................................................................... 13 1.4.2. Structural versus content gamification .................................................................................. 14 2. MOTIVATION WITHIN GAMIFICATION ................................................................................ 15 3. FIELDS OF PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF GAMIFICATION ............................................. 18 3.1. Education ...................................................................................................................................... 18 3.1.1. Formal education .................................................................................................................. 18 3.1.2. Non-formal and informal education ...................................................................................... 21 3.2. Civic participation and democracy ............................................................................................... 23 3.3. Gamification in charity ................................................................................................................. 24 3.4. Management of human resources .............................................................................................. 25 3.5. Gamification for employment ...................................................................................................... 27 3.6. Gamified city guides and urban games ........................................................................................ 29 3.7. Health and self-development ....................................................................................................... 31 3.8. Gamification for environment sustainability ............................................................................... 31 4. GAMIFICATION AND YOUTH WORK ...................................................................................... 33 4.1. Experts’ views about gamification and its impact on youth ....................................................... 33 4.2. How does gamification work in the youth sector? ...................................................................... 34 4.3. Gamification as a tool in youth work ........................................................................................... 35 5. ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRE on gamification used by youth and youth workers ........ 38 5.1. The content of the questionnaires ............................................................................................... 40 5.2. The analysis of online questionnaire for young people .............................................................. 42 5.3. The analysis of online questionnaire for youth workers ............................................................. 49 5.4. Summary of both online questionnaires ..................................................................................... 55 2 6. GAMIFICATION AND NEW SKILLS FOR YOUTH ................................................................. 57 7. BARRIERS TO IMPLEMENTING GAMING TECHNIQUES in the context of youth .... 59 7.1. Misunderstanding gamification ................................................................................................... 59 7.2. Missing the true objective of gamification and adjusting to the target audience ...................... 60 7.3. Design and technical implications ................................................................................................ 62 8. SUCCESSFUL GAMIFICATION PRACTICES FROM AROUND THE WORLD ................ 63 9. SUMMARY OF STUDY TRIPS ..................................................................................................... 75 9.1. Vietnam ........................................................................................................................................ 75 9.2. Argentina ...................................................................................................................................... 77 9.3. India .............................................................................................................................................. 79 10. GUIDELINE FOR GAMIFICATION PROCESS PLANNING ................................................ 81 10.1. Process, tools and templates for gamification .......................................................................... 82 10.2. Gamification applicability .......................................................................................................... 84 10.2.1. Questions to validate gamification applicability .................................................................. 87 10.3. Design of gamification for event .......................................................................................... 88 10.4. Effectiveness of Gamification ..................................................................................................... 90 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................. 92 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................... 97 The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsi ble for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 3 INTRODUCTION Different agents shape youth engagement and civic participation: family, school, peers, non-governmental organizations, media, etc. Based on the fact that non-governmental organizations (hereafter referred to as NGOs) can play an important role in promoting youth engagement, the project’s aim is to apply gamification elements to youth activities, to make them more appealing for the target audience. According to the European Council and representatives of the Governments from the Member States, “to appeal to young people and to ensure greater impact on their lives, new settings where young people spend their time, such as modern city infrastructure and virtual space, as well as new approaches using innovative online and offline tools such as gamification” are needed. New approaches should be incorporated into youth work in order to develop the potential of young people. One approach that can be considered is gamification. Gamification is the application of game elements and digital game design techniques to non-game problems, such as business and social impact challenges. It is a motivation-based approach to increase the engagement and contributions of the target audience, as well as the achievement of necessary results through active involvement1. During the project “Digital gamification for youth engagement”, various elements and tools of gamification were researched and different approaches used to collect the most relevant information. This research resulted in the creation of this handbook,“How to succeed with digital gamification for youth engagement”. It covers the following topics: • What is gamification? • Why is it important? • What are the best examples of gamification? • How to use t(digital) gamification? • How to create a game by using existing templates and applications? • How to involve and educate a greater number of young people on various topics, such as democracy, unemployment, civic engagement, sustainability, peace-building, environment, local community, etc. The handbook is intended for NGOs, youth workers and other stakeholders. The project aims to improve the understanding of digital gamification as a pedagogical approach in non-formal education and reinforce an innovative way of teaching, introducing digital gamification as an attractive tool. 1Iscenco, A., Gamification in Sustainable Development. Masterpieces of the Nature, 2014 4 THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY OF THE HANDBOOK The “Digital gamification for youth engagement” project provides an overview of relevant and up-to-date situations in the field of youth engagement based on the study of various examples, on online questionnaires and on content analysis. The activities described in this project aim to reach, engage and analyse young people from many different geographical locations. The primary focus areas are within the partnering countries: Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Portugal, Argentina, India, and Vietnam. The main objective of this project is to promote The handbook