Fostering Online Learning Engagement via Gamification Diffusion among Tertiary Students

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandermic outbreak has accelerate the adoption of online teaching and learning among formal educational providers such as schools and universities. Online learning is the future of education especially in tertiary education.On the other hand, online learning requires high engagement among students. The lack of engagement to learn through the online medium should be resolved through the implementation of interesting activities during the delivery. Todays learners are no longer digital immigrants. They are digital natives who are users of digital devices starting from an early age. They learn from videos, online applications and games. Therefore, it is important for educators to adopt with the way they learn. By adopting gamification, educators may solve the main problems faced by todays learners which are motivation and engagement. Gamification broadly applied of game design elements in non-game contexts with the goal of promoting users’ engagement. Without Gamification, students in class will remain as passive learners and result in lack of engagement in the learning process. Their lack of involvement in their learning tasks not only in terms on behaviour but also intellectual and emotion. This is due to lack of interaction between students and educators by means of accessing, discussing and sharing associated information through webex meeting. Gamification strategies appear as an advantageous tool to increase the motivation and involvement of users during lecture session. The researcher applied action research approach to address engagement improvement through action that is at once a means of effecting better engagement and generating positive knowledge after the gamification adoption in teaching and learning. Data collected among hundred fifty media and accounting students.