EdCircuit Staff 
Gamification is the use of game design elements, such as points, levels, badges, challenges and stories, in activities that are not games. In schools, it means adding those elements to ordinary lessons to make learning more engaging. Teachers often hope it will also build critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The research supports some of those hopes, with important limits, and it shows that how a teacher gamifies a lesson matters more than whether they do.
What is gamification in education?
The most widely used definition comes from a 2011 paper by Deterding and colleagues: gamification is “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts.” In a classroom, common elements include:
- Points and levels that track progress through a unit.
- Badges for skills mastered or tasks completed.
- Challenges and quests that turn assignments into goals with steps.
- Leaderboards and team competition.
- Game fiction, a story or role that frames the work, such as students acting as scientists solving a mystery.
Gamification vs. game-based learning
The two are often confused. Game-based learning means using a complete game, such as a simulation or a learning game, to teach. Gamification keeps the existing lesson and adds game elements to it. As two researchers put it in a 2020 review, gamification “is not a product in the way that a (serious) game is”; it is a design process of adding game elements to learning.
What the research says about gamification and learning
Several meta-analyses, which combine the results of many studies, have found that gamification improves learning on average:
- A 2020 meta-analysis by Sailer and Homner found small positive effects on cognitive learning outcomes (g = 0.49), motivation (g = 0.36) and behavior (g = 0.25). Only the effect on cognitive outcomes held up in the most rigorous studies. Adding game fiction, and combining competition with collaboration, worked particularly well.
- A 2020 meta-analysis of 30 interventions with 3,202 participants found a medium positive effect on student learning outcomes (g = 0.50).
- A 2024 meta-analysis of 22 studies from 2008 to 2023 found a moderately positive effect on academic performance (g = 0.78).
Effects vary widely from study to study, and the effect on motivation can be small. A 2024 meta-analysis found that gamification raised students’ intrinsic motivation only slightly (g = 0.26) and did little for their sense of competence, while it did more for students’ sense of autonomy and connection with classmates.
Does gamification build critical thinking and problem solving?
The evidence here is thinner than many articles suggest. Most gamification studies measure grades, test scores and motivation rather than critical thinking itself. The closer evidence comes from game-based learning: a 2021 meta-analysis of 20 studies found that learning through games improved students’ critical thinking (g = 0.86), with role-playing games showing the largest effects. The same study found much larger effects in published journal articles than in unpublished theses, a sign that the true effect may be smaller than the average suggests.
The practical lesson is that game elements alone do not teach thinking skills. Challenges, quests and role-play can create problems worth thinking about, but the thinking still has to be built into the task.
The downsides of gamification
- Rewards can undermine interest. A review of 128 experiments found that rewards given for doing or completing a task reduced people’s intrinsic motivation to do it on their own, and that tangible rewards were more harmful for children than for college students.
- Points and leaderboards can backfire. A 2017 review concluded that there is insufficient evidence for the long-term benefits of gamification, and noted a study in which badges, leaderboards and virtual coins lowered students’ motivation and satisfaction.
- Speed can crowd out thinking. In a review of 93 studies of the quiz game Kahoot!, students described stressful time pressure and fear of losing, and teachers worried that scoring for speed led students to guess without thinking. The same review found positive effects on learning in many studies and little or no effect in others. One of its authors is a co-founder of Kahoot!.
- The novelty can wear off. Reviews of the research have pointed to novelty effects as one reason results are mixed: early gains may partly reflect a new approach rather than a lasting effect.
Examples of gamification in the classroom
- Quiz games. Tools like Kahoot! turn review into a timed team game. They work best for review, with time afterward to discuss wrong answers.
- Quests and levels. A unit is organized as a series of challenges students complete in order, with choices along the way.
- Escape-room challenges. Breakout EDU offers digital and physical lock puzzles that students solve in teams.
- Story frames. Students take roles, such as engineers or detectives, so that the assignment becomes a problem to solve.
Full games are a different approach. Minecraft Education, for example, offers more than 600 standards-aligned lessons built in the game, which makes it game-based learning rather than gamification.
How to use gamification to build thinking skills
- Start with the learning goal, then choose game elements that serve it.
- Use stories and challenges that pose real problems, not just points for finishing work.
- Combine competition with collaboration, such as team challenges.
- Reward progress and good reasoning, not just speed.
- Keep time for students to explain how they solved a problem.
- Watch for students who disengage when they fall behind on a leaderboard.
Used this way, gamification can make students more willing to take on hard problems. It does not replace teaching them how to think through those problems.
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