I think that gamification in learning can be a great way to extrinsically motivate young learners to learn something. However, it can also be demotivating. In class, someone mentioned using a gamified app, Duolingo, to learn a language – they had this incredible streak of learning – 600+ days if I remember correctly, but when they were travelling in a place where they couldn’t access Wi-Fi, they lost their streak and gave up learning the language altogether. In this case, gamification killed their intrinsic motivation to learn something by a failure in the reward conditioning. They were no longer learning the language because they wanted to, but because of the extrinsic reward. So, when they couldn’t receive ethe extrinsic reward of a points of their learning streak, they gave up learning the language altogether!

Image: Duolingo – The world’s best way to learn a language

Gamification could be used where there is no intrinsic motivation; however, where there is intrinsic motivation, I would rather nurture the joy of intrinsic learning than implement reliance on gamification.

In a learning environment, I would use gamification to mix things up and help students have a fresh perspective on learning, but it’s important not to over rely on it.