Paper Info
Title
When Gamification Spoils Your Learning: A Qualitative Case Study of Gamification Misuse in a Language-Learning App.
Abstract
More and more learning apps like Duolingo are using some form of gamification (e.g., badges, points, and leaderboards) to enhance user learning. However, they are not always successful. Gamification misuse is a phenomenon that occurs when users become too fixated on gamification and get distracted from learning. This undesirable phenomenon wastes users' precious time and negatively impacts their learning performance. However, there has been little research in the literature to understand gamification misuse and inform future gamification designs. Therefore, this paper aims to fill this knowledge gap by conducting the first extensive qualitative research on gamification misuse in a popular learning app called Duolingo. Duolingo is currently the world's most downloaded learning app used to learn languages. This study consists of two phases: (I) a content analysis of data from Duolingo forums (from the past nine years) and (II) semi-structured interviews with 15 international Duolingo users. Our research contributes to the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Learning at Scale (L@S) research communities in three ways: (1) elaborating the ramifications of gamification misuse on user learning, well-being, and ethics, (2) identifying the most common reasons for gamification misuse (e.g., competitiveness, overindulgence in playfulness, and herding), and (3) providing designers with practical suggestions to prevent (or mitigate) the occurrence of gamification misuse in their future designs of gamified learning apps.
Year
DOI
Venue
2022
10.1145/3491140.3528274
ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale (L@S)
DocType
Citations 
PageRank 
Conference
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Reza Hadi Mogavi100.68
Bingcan Guo200.34
Yuanhao Zhang300.68
Ehsan-Ul Haq400.34
Pan Hui54577309.30
Xiaojuan Ma686.00