Use of a visual programming language to gamify statistics instruction for undergraduate students:a literature review and the path forward

Abstract

Teaching Statistics can be a challenging endeavor. Gamification possesses immense potential to improve acquisition and retention of knowledge in general by way of making learning fun and offering the ability to embed and contextualize concepts in the game design and simulation. The breadth of technology available today presents the possibility of designing, developing, using, and/or adapting existing technologies to tailor budget-friendly gamified simulations to meet curricular needs. This research work proposes to complement the gamification approach with the design and implementation of the video game by the participating students. The Game Builder Garage (GBG) is a programming game intended for the video game tablet console called Nintendo Switch. The GBG is a visual programming language that uses characters that are controlled using the console, and as such, is intuitive and does not require a programming background. This study presents a literature review of the use of gamification in an educational setting with the intent of providing a way forward on its incorporation into a Statistics course. Besides, the degree of motivation and the knowledge acquired will be measured with a Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), and a standardized exam, respectively. Furthermore, including the design of educational video games in the learning of Statistics could improve motivation, engagement and, consequently, performance, and be an option to be implemented in other engineering courses.