How Educational Games Motivate Learners

By: Rachel Kolman January 12, 2023
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When it comes to learning, incorporating gaming can be a great way to help learners grasp complex concepts and motivate them to tackle difficult subjects. By adding in a sense of accomplishment or competition, learners will be driven to complete milestones to see their reward.

Gamification is a widely used tool in education. Gamification, which is the use of game elements in non-game contexts, helps engage folks in otherwise routine tasks. Since the early 2000s, the gamification trend has exploded, becoming a dominant strategy.

Let’s explore how educational games can promote motivation and how to add those features to your WordPress course.

The role of educational games

Studies show that gamification helps improve intrinsic motivation. By engaging learners in choices and challenges, you’ll unlock a desire to complete tasks to feel a sense of accomplishment.  In addition, gamification can ignite the competitive human spirit. The idea of winning or being the “best” can motivate learners to take part.

One of the main benefits of gamification is that it’s fun. And when activities are fun, we don’t think twice about sticking with it. Think about grades: few of us would think of grades as fun. But grades are like trying to achieve a high score on a leaderboard. Gamification tells learners that scores are temporary. They can try again and keep improving. This will motivate learners to do better next time.

Gamification also helps learners achieve flow. Flow is also known as “effortless attention.” This can engage learners for longer, reduce learning fatigue, and improve the learning experience. Flow, however, is not a passive activity. It requires active participation, which can be triggered by the challenge and engagement of a game.

In short, a good game hits that sweet spot between boring and impossible.

Gamification Solutions

LearnDash Achievements

LearnDash Achievements is perfect for those who want to award badges to recognize progress and effort without a lot of configuration. It allows you to define achievements for various WordPress and LearnDash activities.

17 supported achievement triggers around WordPress and LearnDash can reward users on your site. Registration, login, clicking a post, and adding a comment can all trigger a badge. This is a great way to take learning out of the course and into other areas of your site for an immersive learning experience.

Plus, LearnDash Achievements is easy to install and incorporate into any LearnDash course.  There are 23 custom badge designs, or you can upload custom badges specific to your course.

Want a walkthrough? Watch our webinar replay to see LearnDash Achievements in action: Achievements & Gamification with LearnDash and WordPress

GamiPress

GamiPress can reward learners with a variety of points, awards, ranks, and badges for their contributions. Points can be awarded for interacting with lessons and completing activities. Achievements can award users for completing a requirement, like posting in a forum for passing a quiz. Ranks let learners climb in status, such as high scores on learning games, to earn elite badges.

A few additional features include:

  • Customize how you use points, achievements, and ranks
  • Add or subtract points from a user’s pool without having to micro-manage
  • Lock or hide features under certain point criteria
  • Add time limits for a sense of pressure to complete a challenge before the next lesson

Simple but powerful, GamiPress is loaded with some of the best gamification features to engage learners. Installation is simple too, with an easy-to-follow plugin installation.

myCred

myCred helps reward learners through points and badges. Custom badges can be awarded to learners based on the requirements and objectives of your courses. Points can be awarded or deducted from groups to drive competition toward completion.

myCred has an intuitive main menu and a simplified badge page layout, plus options for social media sharing of badges earned. There are also “treasure” features with attractive graphics for the various ranks and badges. The myCred plugin can be integrated anywhere you want to add some gamification to your courses. The free plugin includes support and a year of updates.

Promote Learning with Gamification and LearnDash

The applications for gaming in online learning are nearly endless. And they will only continue to grow as more technologies become accessible to a greater range of educators.

Are you ready to see how to incorporate educational games into your next course? Play around in our demo and build a course using LearnDash Achievements to see how this solution could work for you.

Rachel Kolman

Rachel Kolman has over 10 years of experience writing and editing for a variety of clients and brands. She is passionate about education, social change, pop culture, and video games. She lives in Seattle, WA with her husband and two cats.