Cultivating an Elearning Gamification Program that Won't Derail

Effective elearning gamification

There are some things to keep in mind in order to maintain an elearning training system that does what you want it to do. There are two main components to consider:

• Combination of interactive design and actual data. A successful elearning system will integrate fun, challenging elements that spark healthy competition with the genuine data that employees work with on a daily basis. Activities that are out of context will have the opposite effect if arbitrary work is added with no clear connection. Added work to burden employees should be avoided when implementing a gamification system.
• The employee element. Ultimately, a well-done training program is for the benefit of the whole company. The advantage to employees personally can’t be overlooked, however. When a person feels well-equipped to do their job, they have greater confidence, and are more likely to perform at a higher level. For any of this to work, the employees must have an open mind and be willing to take their jobs seriously.

Factors for success

There are some general guidelines that, when followed, can ensure that an elearning gamification program won’t go off-track:

• Clear and attainable objectives. The learners should know what their goals are and how to achieve them. It’s imperative that the activities be easy enough to accomplish, but not so easy as to cause the learner to lose interest. Learners can grow frustrated and give up if the tasks are too challenging.
• Intrinsic motivation. The deepest learning and understanding comes when a learner is motivated by internal factors like competition, recognition, and mastery, as opposed to external rewards. Extrinsic motivators will fail to hold interest long term.
• Recall and application. A good elearning gamification program will require the learner to recall what they’ve learned and to apply it to real-life situations. Learning is facilitated by the process of retrieving information and implementing it into new scenarios.
• Leaderboard use. While the use of leaderboards is very motivating to some learners, others who don’t always come out on top can become frustrated with the process. By utilizing more individualized leaderboards as well, players can choose to compete with peers who are close to the same level.
• Immediacy of feedback. Productive feedback is vital for an effective elearning activity. It can serve two main purposes. One is to let the learners know when they have reached specific goals, and the other is to let them know how they performed on certain challenges. It’s imperative to supply the player with information about what they did well and what they can work to improve on.

Working to cultivate an elearning gamification program that won’t fail is much easier, when these considerations and guidelines are taken into account.