Designing a Gamified Online Course: A Preliminary Case Stud

This exploratory case study delves into the instructional design of a gamified online course. The study focuses on how the professor incorporated game elements into a graduate-level online course. Participants in the gamified course were pre- and in-service mathematics teachers. The qualitative case study used two sources of data, an interview with the professor and field observations of archived versions of three online courses taught by the professor. The data was analyzed using three separate coding schemes. The coding schemes allowed the data to be viewed through three lens: (a) best practices related to online course design, (b) general gamified design principles (not specific to education), and (c) guidelines for the design of gamified educational activities. The findings of this study suggest the gamified course design led to additional best practices in online learning being incorporated into the course design when compared to non-gamified courses taught by the same professor. The course achievements provided the professor the ability to assign value to course elements that are traditionally difficult to assess.