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Adaptive gamification in e-learning based on students’ learning styles

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 Interactive Learning Environments

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Adaptive gamification in e-learning based on

students’ learning styles

Muhammad Awais Hassan, Ume Habiba, Fiaz Majeed & Muhammad Shoaib

To cite this article: Muhammad Awais Hassan, Ume Habiba, Fiaz Majeed & Muhammad Shoaib
(2021) Adaptive gamification in e-learning based on students’ learning styles, Interactive
Learning Environments, 29:4, 545-565, DOI: 10.1080/10494820.2019.1588745

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INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
2021, VOL. 29, NO. 4, 545–565
https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2019.1588745

Adaptive gamification in e-learning based on students’

learning styles
a a
Muhammad Awais Hassan , Ume Habiba , Fiaz Majeedb and Muhammad Shoaiba
a
Department of Computer Science, University of Engineering & Technology Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan; bDepartment of
Computer Science, University of Gujrat, Lahore, Pakistan

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

With the removal of the barriers of time and distance, E-learning platforms Received 21 May 2018
have attracted millions of learners, but these platforms are experiencing a Accepted 26 February 2019
significant drop-out ratio. One of the primary reasons for this problem is
KEYWORDS
the lack of motivation among the learners because of the similar Gamification; e-learning;
learning experience provided to them despite their varying learning adaptive learning;
styles. Different researchers have introduced gamification as a solution motivation; learning
for students’ engagement. The technique has improved engagement dimensions
levels a bit, but it is not as useful as it was expected to be. One of the
primary problems with gamification elements is their inability to induce
intrinsic motivation among learners. To target this issue, we have
proposed a framework that identifies the learning style of students
based on their interactions with the system and provides an adaptive
gamification experience according to their identified learning
dimensions. The results of the experiments show that the motivation of
learners increases by 25%, and the drop-out ratio is reduced by 26%.

1. Introduction
Since its advent, E-learning has helped more than 81 million students (Retrieved from https://www.
class-central.com/) learn different courses and diverse skill sets across the globe. As compared to the
traditional educational system, E-learning provides a cost-effective and independent learning
environment to the students without their physical presence (Arkorful & Abaidoo, 2015). In many
underdeveloped countries, online learning platforms are being used as alternative resources to phys-
ical classrooms by instructors and technical institutes. Although enrollment in massive open online
courses (MOOCs) has increased exponentially since the last decade, only a minimal (7%−10%)
number of students can complete their enrolled courses (Freitas, Morgan, & Gibson, 2015). The
research community has tried to understand the factors behind these failures and has categorized
them into four major areas: (1) lack of collaboration and communication among students, (2) less
(learner-content, learner-instructor) interaction, (3) varying knowledge background and calibre of stu-
dents, and (4) lack of motivation in students (Freitas et al., 2015; Hew & Cheung, 2014; Khalil & Ebner,
2014; Kizilcec, Pérez-Sanagustín, & Maldonado, 2017).
The mechanics and components of the games have been applied in E-learning to make eLearning
more engaging and entertaining. This technique is called gamification. It is defined as “the
implementation of various gaming elements into a non-gaming context to increase user’s partici-
pation, motivation and interest for a particular task” (Kuo & Chuang, 2016). As such, gamification
of education involves the use of game elements (rewards, badges, and challenges) in a learning
environment (Seaborn & Fels, 2015; Simões, Redondo, & Vilas, 2013). These game elements induce

CONTACT Muhammad Awais Hassan [email protected]

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
546 M. A. HASSAN ET AL.

a sense of participation, motivation, and achievement among learners (Kapp, 2012). Also, it places a
positive impact on psychological and learning behaviors of students (Ferguson et al., 2017; Iscenco &
Li, 2014; Kapp, 2012).
Gamification elements improve the motivation of learners by fulfilling their psychological desires
of self-determination and competition (Deterding, 2014; Pe-Than, Goh, & Lee, 2014; Simões et al.,
2013). Motivation is a decisive factor in students’ learning that determines how much effort and
dedication they have put into learning a particular topic (Brophy, 2013). The motivation can be
grouped into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The extrinsic motivation of a person forces him or
her to complete an activity because of the temptation of a reward. With intrinsic motivation,
however, a player tends to do something purely for the sake of fun (Mekler, Brühlmann, Tuch, &
Opwis, 2017).
Feedback and reinforcement are also some of the commonly used gamification elements in
E-learning platforms. The feedback provided through progression enables learners to get an insight
into their goals and track their advancement in the course over time (Dichev, Dicheva, Angelova,
& Agre, 2014). The reinforcement is provided through a reward system that is used in gamification
to boost motivation and engagement of players. The player gets a reward after achieving a goal
or completing a challenge. The incorporation of the gamification elements in various E-learning plat-
forms has reduced the dropout ratio of learners, but these entities are unable to provide strong evi-
dence of their efficiency due to a lack of student interest and motivation in online courses. The
rewards used in most gamified activities induce only extrinsic motivation among the players by
offering various incentives to control their behavior. If a reward is perceived as a behavior-controlling
mechanism, it fosters the feeling of incompetence and powerlessness (Hanus & Fox, 2015). Moreover,
the reward offered for a task in which the player is already interested can harm the player’s motiv-
ation (Hanus & Fox, 2015).

1.1. Research gap

Researchers have employed gamification elements (rewards, feedback, and progression) (Caro-
Alvaro, Garcia-Lopez, Garcia-Cabot, De-Marcos, & Martinez-Herriaz, 2017; Ferguson et al., 2017;
Iscenco & Li, 2014; Kapp, 2012; Kuo & Chuang, 2016; O’Donovan, 2012; Paiva, Bittencourt, Tenório,
Jaques, & Isotani, 2016) that extrinsically motivate learners and control their learning behavior.
However, these incentives may reduce intrinsic motivation among the students, so it is necessary
to enhance learning outcomes and make learning more autonomous and goal oriented (A. J. Kim,
2011). Also, the concept of gamification relies on a self-determination theory (Ryan, 2012) that pos-
tulates three psychological needs of humans for competence, relatedness, and autonomy. The fulfill-
ment of these needs produces intrinsic motivation in learners which tends to develop their skills.
These skills enable them to retain information in a better way and increase their engagement
(Hanus & Fox, 2015) in learning activities. Therefore, gamification elements should be more
focused on producing intrinsic motivation by fulfilling these three desires. In MOOCs, the learners
are from all across the globe, with diverse demographics as well as different characteristics, such
as motivation, academic background, skills, and previous knowledge of the subject. This diversity
demands a customized gamification experience for different types of learners who learn and
process information in different styles. However, the existing gamified versions of E-learning plat-
forms (Caro-Alvaro et al., 2017; Dichev et al., 2014; Fadhil & Villafiorita, 2017; Hanus & Fox, 2015;
J. T. Kim & Lee, 2015; Kuo & Chuang, 2016; O’Donovan, 2012; Paiva et al., 2016; Panagiotis, Theodoros,
Leinfellner, & Yasmine, 2016; Rigole, Hollingsworth, & Ray, 2017; Shi & Cristea, 2014; Utomo & Santoso,
2015) totally ignore the learners’ learning dimensions and provide the same gamification experience
to each learner. The same gamification experience produces a feeling of boredom and reluctance in
the students.
This gap demands gamified activities that are adaptive to the learners’ styles and can induce
extrinsic as well as an intrinsic motivation among them.
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 547

1.2. Problem statement

The goal of this research is to build a framework that identifies the learner type of students based on
their activities and provides relevant adaptive gamification which motivates students (both extrinsi-
cally and intrinsically) to achieve their learning goals. More specifically, we have asked the following
research questions:

(1) How can the system effectively identify different learning dimensions of each learner?
(2) How can the system provide adaptive gamified activities according to the learner’s type?
(3) Can adaptive gamification enhance course completion rates, motivation (extrinsic and intrinsic),
and collaboration among the students?

2. Literature review
2.1. Identification of learning dimensions
A learning dimension or style consist of characteristics or preferences of students with which they
process input and perceive the information (Hanus & Fox, 2015). Learning styles of students have
been characterized based on existing theoretical models. These learning style models include
Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory (Aşkar & Akkoyunlu, 1993), Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
(Myers, McCaulley, Quenk, & Hammer, 1998), Gregorc learning style model (Gregorc & Ward, 1982),
Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model (Felder & Silverman, 1988) and Honey and Mumford learning
style questionnaire (Honey & Mumford, 1992). This section refers to the existing work that uses the
above instruments to identify the learning style of the student. Angelo et al. employed Kolb’s learn-
ing style inventory for assisting the educators in identifying learning style of undergraduate students
of nursing (D’Amore, James, & Mitchell, 2012). The results show a significant relationship between the
demographics and learning styles of students. The idea of an adaptive eLearning environment based
on the student’s personality was presented by Essaid (El Bachari, Abdelwahed, & El Adnani, 2010). The
model used MBTI for identifying learning styles that further helped to present adaptive instructional
models. Norasmah & Mohd (Othman & Amiruddin, 2010) proposed learning model VARK (Visual,
Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic) that classifies students among four dimensions namely: visual, aural,
reading and kinesthetic. The VARK model not only involves inherent or intelligence skills but the
skills that learners are used for information gathering and understanding. The navigational patterns
of learners were analyzed by S. Graf (Graf & Liu, 2010) within a Learning Management System (LMS).
The purpose of this study was to get an idea that how learners with different learning styles are used
to interact with the system. Based on these patterns, students’ profiles were modeled. The authors
used Felder-Silverman ILS (Index of Learning Style) to determine the learning dimensions of the stu-
dents. These identified learning styles helped to make the LMS adaptive.

2.2. Anti-Thesis about learning styles

Ever since the idea of matching instructional patterns with the learning styles emerged, there have
been various conflicting views on the validity of this idea. She used two factorial quasi-experimental
design to explore whether multiple instructional strategies according to the different learning styles
increase the understanding and retention rate of students (She, 2005). The results showed that the
difference between scores of pre-test, post-test and retention tests was not significant. Coffield
et al. found minimal convincing arguments in the literature which support personalized instructions
based on learning styles can produce significant results in the performance of the learners (Coffield,
Moseley, Hall, & Ecclestone, 2004). Different studies have shown that matching instructional tech-
niques to the learning style has nothing to do with the achievement of the learners. Price proved
that the LSQ (Learning Style Questionnaire) didn’t provide any preference for a particular instruc-
tional technique or material for computer science students (Price*, 2004). He used LSQ by Honey
548 M. A. HASSAN ET AL.

and Mumford (1992) to assess whether it helped to predict students’ performance in two different
modes of study. The academic results of the students studying in different modes showed that
there was no significant difference among the students of both groups regarding assessment
scores or exam or cumulative scores. Despite this criticism, a considerable number of educators
have incorporated learning styles into their instructional techniques. The 72% of higher educational
institutes located in the USA taught “learning type theories” to their educators for development of
online instructions (Meyer & Murrell, 2014). All these theories against teaching according to learning
styles has been built and tested in traditional classrooms settings. In the traditional classrooms, it is
challenging to provide adaptive education with respect to learning styles however that is not the case
in the eLearning classes. We believe learning style theories are essential in eLearning environment
and the results of the study strongly approve the concept.

2.3. Gamification in e-learning

In online courses, the high withdrawal rate and lower motivation rate have been severe issues for a
few years. With the advancement and coalition of gamification within various fields of life, several
researchers have tried to infuse gamification in online education platforms to tackle the issue men-
tioned above.
Kuo (Kuo & Chuang, 2016) applied gamification design elements at an online learning platform,
Learning on Projects of United Promotion for Academia (LOPUPA), to study their influence on motiv-
ation, engagement, and retention of the users. These design elements included points, leaderboard,
gamification activities, discussion board, graphical incentives, level-up mechanism, tangible rewards,
and an invitation mechanism. The quantitative data collected through the online analytical tool
(google analytics) showed increased retention and engagement of learners. Caro-Alvaro et al.
(2017) developed an E-learning platform upon Elgg open-source social framework with some gamifi-
cation elements (points, rewards, leaderboard) encapsulated in it to engage and motivate students.
This system enhanced communication among the students by providing blogs and forums for com-
munication and queries. The system used some built-in social features of Elgg platform to make it act
like a social network for students’ engagement. The peer-review component was incorporated to
enhance student-student interaction that consisted of uploading a document and reviewing
others work. Both the students, who upload the document and who review the document get the
points. This feature enabled students to review the proposed solution of their randomly-assigned
peer.
O’Donovan (2012) determined the effect of gamification elements on the motivation of the lear-
ners (O’Donovan, 2012). These gamification elements were applied to one of the University of Cape
Town courses these include a progress bar, badges, leaderboards, story-line, social forum, and
visuals. The results were collected through Brain Hex survey (Monterrat, Desmarais, Lavoué, &
George, 2015) which revealed that all gamification elements participated in increasing motivation
level of students except social forum and visuals. However, the system did not focus on communi-
cation and collaboration among the students. Players were just motivated extrinsically towards the
rewards that deprive them of intrinsic motivation and interest. Ranilson and Ig Ibert modelled and
analyzed profiles of students to personalize the gamification elements (missions). The profiles of
students of an online gamified learning environment were based on the interactions they made
with the Online learning educational resources (Paiva et al., 2016). The information extracted
from these profiles assisted the tutors to create pedagogical recommendations for the learners.
The results of the experiments showed a high level of student’s collaboration and social
interactions.
Shi (Shi & Cristea) Infused multiple motivational gamification elements based on SDT (self-deter-
mination theory) in an adaptive learning environment (Shi & Cristea, 2014). These gamification
elements were based on social interaction features for the promotion of intrinsic motivation of
students.
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 549

Neil (Rigole et al., 2017) explored the use of badges and other gamification elements to
enhance engagement, participation, and achievement in online learning platforms (Rigole et al.,
2017). The badges were used as identifiers of achievement. The results of a pilot case study
showed an increase in the engagement of students by employing the above strategies. Utomo
developed a pedagogical agent enriched by gamification (Utomo & Santoso, 2015) to improve
learning activities and behavior of learners. This pedagogue provided real-time and adaptive feed-
back of classified learner activities based on their behavior. The evaluation of the proposed design
showed a high impact on motivation and collaboration of learners. Simões, Díaz & Fernández pre-
sented a social gamification framework for http://schoooools.com (Aleman, Palmer-Brown, &
Jayne, 2011), a social learning environment, which aims to assist educators and schools with a
set of powerful and engaging educational tools to improve students’ motivation and learning out-
comes. This framework provided multiple tools to the instructor and delivered adapted contents
according to learning context and student’s profile. However, they did not provide any empirical
statistics about this approach.
Panagiotis et al. (2016) discussed results after applying various gamification elements on a pro-
gramming course that showed a positive impact on the performance and motivation of students. Stu-
dents were provided with feedback about their misconceptions and achievements. This feedback
helped learners to explore their performance and make required changes in their behavior.
Ahmed & Adolfo discussed the design and development of an educational game based environment
for teaching students about a healthy diet (Fadhil & Villafiorita, 2017). This system incorporated points
and leaderboard (gamification elements) for user’s engagement. A user can earn a point by providing
correct answers to the quizzes about food and diet. Kim and Lee (J. T. Kim & Lee, 2015) presented a
dynamic model for the gamification of learning platforms. This model used four factors (curiosity,
challenge, fantasy, and control) for intrinsic motivation to maximize learning effectiveness. The
gamification elements used in this study are levels, points, leaderboards, goals, badges, and feedback.
In summary, although the E-learning platforms with gamification elements increase the motiv-
ation and interest of the students. However, these frameworks have failed to reduce the drop out
ratio. Students in these online learning platforms possess diverse cognitive and behavioral patterns.
Despite the above fact, each student in the E-learning platforms is presented with identical gamifica-
tion elements which cause the feeling of boredom and reluctance. The existing studies lack in pro-
viding personalized gamified experience to each student and do not adequately identify their
learning styles. Table 1 presents a comparison between the features of existing gamification based
E-learning platforms and the proposed framework.

3. Proposed solution
In this paper, we have proposed a framework in which each student is presented with adaptive
gamification experience (activities and elements) according to his learning dimensions. These adap-
tive gamified activities tend to induce extrinsic as well as an intrinsic motivation among the learners.
The general overview of the proposed system and data flow is shown in Figure 1.

Table 1. Comparison of studies employing gamification.

Gamification Adaptive learning Adaptive Gamification
Shi and Cristea (2014) ✓ × ×
Kim and Lee (2015) ✓ × ×
Utomo and Santoso (2015) ✓ ✓ ×
Kuo and Chuang (2016) ✓ × ×
Panagiotis et al. (2016) ✓ × ×
Rigole et al. (2017) ✓ × ×
Caro-Alvaro et al. (2017) ✓ × ×
Proposed Framework ✓ ✓ ✓
550 M. A. HASSAN ET AL.

Figure 1. Data flow diagram of proposed system.

3.1. System functioning

With the help of an interaction log, each activity performed by an enrolled student is classified into
one of the three interactions: gamification interaction, content interactions, and collaborative inter-
actions. Whenever a student performs an interaction, both the interaction and time (taken to perform
the interaction) are logged in the student model. The information is further used by the by “Learning
Type Identifier” which assigns learning dimensions to each student based on his profile. The behavior
adaption module employs these learning dimensions to provide personalized gamification experi-
ence (gamification elements and gamification activities) to each student. This adaptive gamification
experience (gamification elements and gamification activities) fulfills three vital requirements (relat-
edness, competence, autonomy) for inducing intrinsic motivation among the learners.
The sequence of events and message passing between different modules is shown in Figure 2.
During the course, a student performs many interactions within the system; Table 2 shows the
subset of these interactions. As the student performs, the system stores the details (type of inter-
action, time taken for an interaction) into the interaction log against the student id. The student
model builds a profile of each student based on the data present in the interaction log and the learn-
ing type identifier use these profiles to determine the learning dimension of each student. These
learning dimensions can be from the four existing pairs of the learning dimensions: <active, reflec-
tive>, <sequential, global>, <active, reflective>, and<sensing, intuitive>. The learning dimension,
identified by learning type identifier for a particular student, is sent to behavior adaption module.
The behavior adaption module presents an adaptive gamification experience to each student. This
adaptive gamification experience contains gamification activities and elements adaptive to the learn-
ing type of each student.

3.1.1. Student model

The student model is a data store which logs interactions of a student made within the system.
Every time the student interacts with the system, this component logs the type of activity and the
time spent on the activity. We have used Knutas (Knutas, Ikonen, Maggiorini, Ripamonti, & Porras, 2014)
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 551

Figure 2. Collaboration diagram of proposed system.

Table 2. Interactions that student can make with the system.

Is Time
Sr.No Category Interactions Learning Dimension Set Important
1 Collaborative Interaction User post questions on relevant discussion Active – Verbal False
forum
2 Collaborative Interaction User answers to an already asked question Active, Verbal False
3 Collaborative Interaction Share relevant content on discussion forum Active, Verbal False
4 Collaborative Interaction Inviting friends from social media(Facebook, Active False
Twitter) to course
5 Collaborative Interaction Sharing achievements on social media Active False
(Facebook, Twitter)
6 Content Interaction Solve practice exercises Reflective, Verbal, True
Sequential
7 Content Interaction Throw challenges to peers Reflective, Verbal False
8 Content Interaction Reading relevant material Reflective, Verbal, Sensing, True
Sequential
9 Content Interaction Complete a chapter level Sequential, Sensing True
10 Content Interaction Navigate to another content page Global, Intuitive False
11 Content Interaction Read a learning object Verbal, Global, Reflective, True
Sensing
12 Gamification Interaction Earn Badge Active, Visual False
13 Gamification Interaction Earn Points Active, Visual False
14 Gamification Interaction Check progress on the progress bar Active, Visual False
15 Content Interaction Watch video lecture Visual True
16 Content Interaction Communication with instructor Verbal, Reflective False
17 Content Interaction Submit assignment Sensing, Reflective True
18 Content Interaction Read course hierarchy, introduction Global, Intuitive False
pages of concept

work to build an interactional profile of a student. The information of the following three interactions is
logged for each student:

(a) Collaborative Interactions

(b) Gamification Interactions
(c) Content Interactions.
552 M. A. HASSAN ET AL.

a) Collaborative Interactions
The type of interactions in which a user collaborates, talks, discusses or shares ideas or knowledge
with his peers or instructor is called collaborative interactions. For example, if a student replies to
the query of a student at some discussion forum, then this interaction will be termed as collaborative
interaction as the students are discussing and sharing knowledge. Similarly, throwing challenges to
friends, sharing contents on social media, and posting achievements on Facebook wall are also activi-
ties classified as the collaborative interactions.

b) Gamification Interactions
Each action that leads toward earning a gamification element is termed as gamification interactions.
The gamification elements that we have used in this paper are badges, levels, progress bars, earning
multiple badges and achievements of points.

c) Content Interactions
Content interaction is interaction or activity in which a learning or content object is involved. For
example, if a student reads a pdf lecture, a learning object (pdf lecture) is involved in this interaction
hence it will be termed as content interaction. Similarly, submitting an assignment and communicat-
ing with the instructor are some primary content interactions.

3.1.2. Learning style model

Although there exist various instruments for identifying learning styles of the learners, we have
employed Felder-Silverman (ILS). The primary reason for choosing this model over others is its suit-
ability for providing learning style based adaption in eLearning platforms (Kuljis & Liu, 2005). The val-
idity and reliability of this model are also in the mature state as compared to the other learning style
determinant models (Felder & Spurlin, 2005). The Felder-Silverman model provides a detailed
description of the learning styles rather than only classifying a student in a few learning types.
This model employs a ranking scale having values from + 11 to −11 which enables the researcher
to distinguish between high and low preferences of a specific learning type. This model also uses
the concept of tendencies which shows that a learner having a particular learning style can
exhibit different behavior within same time span (Graf & Liu, 2010). The concept of tendencies
helps the researcher to incorporate exceptional situations in the description or classification of learn-
ing styles.
The Felder & Soloman (FSLSM) (Dichev, Dicheva, Angelova, & Agre, n.d.) approach has been used
in adaptive learning platforms (Özpolat & Akar, 2009) to identify the dimensions of student learning
personality. According to FSLM, a student has four dimensions of his learning personality which dis-
tinguish a learner from others. These dimensions are<Active, Reflective>, <Sensing, Intuitive>,
<Sequential, Global>and<Visual, Verbal>. The detail of each pair is given in the following sections.

i) Information Processing Style (Active / Reflective)

This dimension helps to categorize students based on their information processing technique. A
student can process information as an active learner or as a reflective learner. Active learners
absorb information by discussing, applying and explaining it to others and their learning speed
increases by performing collaborative activities. Whereas, reflective learners tend to gather all
related information before performing any experiment or discussion. The reflective learners learn
more efficiently by practicing exercises and concepts on their own. They focus mainly on reading
material and course contents and require time to explore the information being ingested.

ii) Information Input Style (Visual / Verbal)

This category classifies students based on the method of their information reception. A student can
input information visually or verbally. The visual learners tend to memorize best what they see (dia-
grams, graphs, flowcharts, and practical). On the other hand, the verbal learners remember best what
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 553

they hear (verbal or written explanations). The verbal types of learners demonstrate better results for
the data which they receive in textual form.

iii) Information Understanding Style (Sequential / Global)

This dimension is used to categories learner as according to their understanding method towards
complex problems. A student can solve and understand the problem either sequentially or globally.
The sequential learners tend to solve complex problems by dividing the problem into multiple
subproblems then they try to find the optimal solution for each subproblem. These learners go
through each concept step by step and linearly grasp the concept. The global type of learners
starts by grasping the abstract picture of the concept and approach the complex problems quickly
and intuitively.

iv) Information Perception Method (Sensing / Intuitive)

This dimension identifies learners according to their perception toward information. A student
can perceive information as sensing learner or as intuitive learner. The students with sensing
learning style tend to focus on details, facts, and figures. They are more inclined towards practi-
cing or solving exercises, and their rate of attempting assignments is usually higher than other
learners. In contrast to sensing learners, the intuitive learners are more eager to learn new con-
cepts and try to limit themselves up to abstractions and mathematical formulations of the
subject.

3.1.3. Interactions and learning dimension

In this research, the interactions that a student performs with the system are used to identify the
learning dimensions of the student. The learning dimension of interaction indicates that if a
student is performing the interaction, it shall contribute towards the identification of the learning
dimension of the student. For example, if a student participates in group discussions (a type of
interaction), the student information processing style is more inclined toward the active learner
than the reflective learner. We prepared a list of interactions and assigned one or more learning
dimensions to each interaction. This assignment of learning dimension to interactions is the
primary hypothesis of the research and is based on a survey with teachers teaching at the under-
graduate level.
Moreover, we used the attributes of the learner of a particular learning type to assign learning
dimensions to an interaction. E.g. as one of the significant attribute of an active learner is that he
eagerly involves in discussion with others, asks questions or replies to the queries. Therefore,
when a user frequently posts questions or reply on the existing ones, there are chances that
he has “active” type of learning dimension. Table 2 lists examples of the interactions and the cor-
responding learning dimensions of these interactions. The last column of the table shows whether
the time taken to perform an interaction by the student is essential to calculate the score or it is
not. For some interactions, the time spent on that interaction is essential. For example, the time
taken for submitting an assignment is important because the student who submits the assign-
ment within the due date receives more credit than the student who submits the assignment
after the due date. Similarly, if a student takes more time to watch a video lecture, he is
awarded more credit than a student who watches the video by jumping forward and completes
a lecture in less time.

3.1.3.1. Learner type identifier. This component identifies each learning dimension of a student
based on the information stored in the student model. When a student performs some activity,
the interaction category and time taken to perform the activity is logged into the system.
Before we give the formula to identify learning dimensions, the following definitions are
provided.
554 M. A. HASSAN ET AL.

a. Set of available activities and time interval

Let Ax be the set which represents all activities performed by the user “x” and Tx is set whose ith
element represents the time taken by user x to perform Activity Ai.

Ax = {A1 , A2 , A3 . . . . . . Ai }

Tx = {T1 , T2 , T3 . . . . . . .TI }

b. Activity participation in determining the learning dimension

As shown by the third column of Table 2, an activity can participate in the calculation of more than
one learning dimensions. Let L is set of all learning dimensions.

L = {active, reflective, sensing, intuitive, visual, verbal, sequential, global}

Let isActivityLearningDimension(Ai , LD ) is a boolean function which take a activity Ai and learning

type LD as an argument. If the activity Ai contributes toward identification of learning dimension LD,
the function returns “true” otherwise it returns “false”.

c. Importance of time in determining the learning dimension

For some activities, the time Ti spent on the activity Ai is an essential factor in determining the learn-
ing dimension. A Boolean function IsTimp(Ai) is defined which take an activity Ai as input, and if the
time of the activity is important, the function returns “true” otherwise it returns “false”. If the value
returned is true for an activity, the time taken for that activity is used in the score calculation for that
particular learning dimension. For example, the time taken for submission of an assignment is impor-
tant in determining the performance of the learner. So, the function isTimp (assignment_submission)
shall return the true.

d. Score Function
Let Score be the function that calculates the possibility for user “x” to have the learning dimension
LD. If the score value is high, the higher is the possibility that user belongs to the particular learning
dimension.


n
Score(LD , x) = ((Ai + (Ti × IsTimp (Ai ))) × IsSLD (Ai , LD )) (1)
i=1

e. Identification of learning dimensions

The following formula calculates the difference using the score function to estimate the correct
dimension from a pair. Same difference function yields four types of learning dimension about the
student.

Difference (LD1 , LD2 ) = Score (LD1 , x ) − Score (LD2 , x) (2)


Active Difference(Active, Reflective) . 0
Information Processing Style = (3)
Reflective Otherwise

Visual Difference (Visual , Verbal) . 0
Information Input Style = (4)
Verbal Otherwise

Difference (Sequential , Global ) . 0
Information Understanding Style = (5)
Global Otherwise

Sensing Difference (Sensing , Intuitive ). 0
Information Perception Style = (6)
Intuitive Otherwise
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 555

Table 3. Suggested behavior according to Learner Model.

Learning Behavior
Dimension Gamification elements Activities (presented to a user)
Active Lead board, challenges (1) Ask questions on a discussion forum
(2) throw a challenge to peers with equal points and badges on their
leaderboards
Reflective Feedback (1) Present course content hierarchy, theory lectures, and exercises.
progress bar (2) Track progress regularly.
Sensing Challenges, levels, badges (1) Complete challenges where each challenge correspond to varying
difficulty level
(2) Encourage students to achieve different badges.
Intuitive Levels, Leaderboard, challenges (1) Complete new levels by accomplishing challenges and getting new
achievements on the leaderboard.
Visual Levels, Badges, points, progress (1) on successful completion of each level, the student gets rewards.
bar (2) Progress bar to monitor his performance during each activity.
Verbal Challenges, Feedback, Points (1) Present multiple challenges to the student for evaluating his
performance.
(2) Upgradation in points after completing each theory lecture
(3) Provide feedback to the student required for changing his behavior.
Sequential Levels, Challenges, Leaderboard, (1) After completing each activity and level, learners received the awards.
points, Badges (2) Students get badges and increase in points for completing each level.
Global Feedback, Progress bar, (1) These learners are presented with different challenges and the system
Challenges give them feedback on their previous actions.
(2) Challenges are presented to these learners to determine their mastery
level in a concept.
(3) Progress bar assists these learners to track their progress and
performance.

3.1.3. Behavior adaption module

The proposed system provides personalized gamification experience to each student according to
their learning dimensions as given in Table 3.
For example, the students with active learning dimension were given leaderboard and challenges.
These elements provided candidates with a competitive environment and allowed them to challenge
the same level of peers. On the other hand for reflective learners, both feedback and progress-bar
were shown so they can examine their performance during self-study. These learners were presented
with course hierarchy, theory lectures, and exercises for mastering the concept. However, the system
offers multiple challenges and badges, according to their current level, to students those have
“sensing” learning style for information perception. The intuitive learners get motivated when
they move to the next level, complete some challenges and accomplish the multiple badges, so
they got the relevant gamification element.
For visual learners, we showed progress in term of the roadmap (Figure 3) instead of showing it
traditionally. Also, the primary focus for visual learners was that they got more points on the com-
pletion of visual contents. On the other hand, the students with verbal dimension received more
points on completion of text contents.
The sequential learners were shown a timeline of their course contents with clearly marked com-
pleted and uncompleted milestones. They were more encouraged towards completion of their levels
using ranks. The framework gave challenges to global learners for estimating their mastery level in a
concept. Feedback about their performance in challenges and progress bar helped them to make
required changes in their behavior. Figure 4(a–d) represents suggested behavior for active and reflec-
tive; sensing and intuitive; sequential and global; visual and verbal learners.

4. Experiments
4.1. Experimental layout
We performed two experiments to evaluate the performance of the proposed system. The partici-
pants of both experiments were the students of the 2nd year of an undergraduate class in computer
556 M. A. HASSAN ET AL.

Figure 3. Road map for visual learners.

science, having an average age of 22–28 years. A total of 200 students were enrolled in the class of
Data Base Management System (DBMS) and were randomly distributed among two sections for
administrative ease. Each section had both male and female students with a proportion of 48%
and 52% respectively.

4.2. Experiment (I): without adaptive gamification

In experiment (I), ninety (90) students from section-A were enrolled in an E-learning course of Data-
base Management System (DBMS). For section A, we offered a system with simple gamification
experience, but the system was not equipped with the adaptive gamification. However, the
system logged all the activities and time spent on these activities by the student. The system pro-
vided the same gamification experience (Table 4) to all students irrespective of their learning dimen-
sions. The quizzes and assignments were introduced at the end of each chapter and total marks with
grades were displayed after course completion. The students were free to take part in student-to-
student discussions as well as student-to-teacher discussions.
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 557

Figure 4. (a) Suggested Behavior for Active, Reflective Learners (b) Suggested Behavior for Sensing, Intuitive Learners (c)
Suggested Behavior for Sequential, Global Learners (d) Suggested Behavior for Visual, Verbal Learners

Table 4. Gamification model for Group A.

Gamification Elements Description
Points Students receive points for each successful completion of an activity.
Badges Students get a badge for mastering a concept.
Feedback After completion of each challenge feedback about the scores of the student is provided.
Challenges Each student is presented with some challenges at the end of each chapter to analyze his mastery level.
Progress Bar Progression bar is provided to help the student in tracking and monitoring his performance.

4.3. Experiment (II): with adaptive gamification

In Experiment (II), eighty five (85) students from section (B) were asked to enroll in an
online course of DBMS. This course was offered with the proposed adaptive gamification
framework which provides gamification elements based on the learning dimensions of each
student.
Section A was using the eLearning platform without adaptive feedback while section B was using
the system with adaptive feedback. As the component to identify the learning type is independent of
the feedback module, we use the data of both sections to evaluate the system performance for the
identification of the learning type.
558 M. A. HASSAN ET AL.

Table 5. Comparison of results from section A and B.

Section A (N = 90) Percentage (YES) FOR Section B (N = 85) Percentage (YES) FOR
(YES) Section A (YES) Section B
Course Completion 30 33.33% 50 58.82%
Interaction 37 41.11% 54 63.53%
Motivation 34 37.78% 53 62.35%

5. Evaluation and results

The system calculated the course completion rate (Table 5) by dividing the total number of concepts
of a course with the concepts completed by the student. The Quiz and Assignment were marked as
completed when the student submitted it for evaluation. The video was marked as completed when
its play time is equal to total video time. However, for text contents, the system was relying on the
student to click at the mark as a completed button.
The system also identified the learning dimensions of each student (Figure 7) in the experiment
(II). A set of questionnaires was prepared and given to the students at the end of the course. The
purpose of this questionnaire was to identify the learning types and motivation levels of the students.
The questionnaire consisted of sixteen questions with some of the answers having binary options
while others were with multiple choices. Questions for determining learning type of a student
were chosen from Felder Silverman ILS (Index of Learning Style) (Solomon & Felder, 1999).
Whereas, questions for assessing the motivation of learners were taken from the questionnaire devel-
oped by Kuan-Chung et al. (Chen & Jang, 2010). Question (1-5) determine motivation of the students
whereas remaining questions (6-16) specifies the learning type of the student. Question 6 and 11
determine the style of student’s information input (visual/verbal). These questions determine
whether the student likes to absorb information visually or he prefers “words” to understand a
specific concept or theory. Question 7, 14, and 10 determines information processing style of a
student (Active/Reflective). These styles demonstrate whether a student gets information quickly
by discussing the idea with others or he likes to think alone and himself while focusing on the
details. The information understanding style of a student inform whether the student understands
the whole concept in ordered parts, or he prefers to grasp an abstract picture of the overall
concept. The Questions 8, 13, and 16 predict information understanding style (Sequential/Global)
of a student. Question 9, 12 and 15 are used to predict information perception style of a student.
At the course completion, each students was asked to fill the form manually, and the results of
this survey were used as a primary criterion.

5.1. Results
The total of 200 students was enrolled in both sections, but 185 of them participated and filled the
survey. However, the ten surveys were incomplete, so they were not selected for further processing.
The results of 175 questionnaires are compiled in Table 5 that shows a significant increase in course
completion rate as well as an elevation in other factors like motivation level and collaboration.
A comparison between the percentages of course completion, interaction and motivation rate of
the students from Section A and B are drawn in Figure 5.
A comparison of learners’ type identified through the system and the questionnaire Figure 7(a–d).
is given in Figure 6.
The results from Figure 7(a–d) are used further to calculate accuracy, precision, and recall in
Table 6.

5.2. Significance testing

From the results of both experiments (I, II), we performed the following significance tests.
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 559

Figure 5. Comparison of percentages from section A and B.

Figure 6. Learning types identified by the proposed system and questionnaire.

i Adaptive gamification significantly increases the motivation of students.

ii Adaptive gamification significantly places a positive impact on the course completion rate of
students.

5.2.1. Comparison of motivation when studying course with fixed gamification vs. adaptive
gamification
To verify whether the results are significant, we stated the null and alternative hypothesis as following
and applied two tails z-test with using proportions from section (A, B).
H0: Adaptive gamification experience does not influence the motivation of learners.

H1: Students studying courses with adaptive gamification experience have high motivation than those having
fixed gamification experience.

For significance testing, we compared proportions of the motivation of learners from both exper-
iments (I, II) in Table 5 using two-tailed z-test with the formula:
p^1 − p^2
z = 
  (7)
1 1
p∗ (1 − p∗) +
n1 n2

x1 + x2 x1 x2
p∗ = , pˆ1 = and pˆ2 =
n 1 + n2 n1 n2
Where, n1 and n2 are the total number of students in section A and B respectively. x1 and x2 are the
number of students from section A and B who said “yes”. The confidence interval used in this testing
was α = 0.05. Z-value obtained from this testing was −3.25 and P-value was 0.0012 < 0.05.
560 M. A. HASSAN ET AL.

Figure 7. (a) Four-fold Graph for Active-Reflective Learners (b) Four-fold Graph for Sensing-intuitive learners (c) Four-fold Graph for
Visual-Verbal Learners (d) Four-fold Graph for Sequential-Global Learners

Table 6. Performance of proposed system.

Accuracy Precision Recall
<Active, Reflective> 72.57 57.78 83.87
<Sensing, Intuitive> 77.1 69.07 85.71
<Visual, Verbal> 75.42 68.89 80.51
<Sequential, Global> 78.8 72.52 84.61

5.2.2. Comparison of course completion rates of both sections

To verify, whether the course completion rate increase significantly or not, we stated the null and
alternative hypothesis and applied two-tailed z-test while using proportions from section (A, B).
H0: Adaptive gamification experience increases course completion rate.

H1: Courses with adaptive gamification experience have the same completion rates as of those offering fixed
gamification experience.

For the testing of this hypothesis, the proportions of students who completed their courses were
collected (Table 5) from experiments (I, II). These proportions were tested using two-tailed z-test
using the formula mentioned in section 5.1.1, z-value was −3.388 and the corresponding p-value
was 0.001.
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 561

6. Discussion
In this research, we have effectively identified the learner type of each student based on their inter-
actions with the system. For both sections A and B, the system has successfully identified the learning
dimension of each student (Figure 7). The integers in four quadrants of each graph Figure 7(a–d), rep-
resent, i.e. upper left area and lower right area shows the learning dimensions that were correctly
classified by the proposed system. The region with red shaded area in the upper right and the
lower left side shows the number of instances for which the proposed system did not correctly clas-
sify the learning dimensions.
We also performed a manual survey to find the learning type using Felder Silverman Learning
Style Model (FSLSM). These results show that the proposed system has correctly identified the learn-
ing dimension of the student with accuracy of 72.57% for <Active, Reflective>, 77.1% for <Sensing,
Intuitive>, 75.42% for <Visual, Verbal> and 78.8% for <Sequential, Global> learners. The highest error
rate is 25.7% for the information processing dimension, and the lowest error rate is 21.14% for infor-
mation understanding dimension. The error rates for the information perception dimension and the
information input dimensions are 22.8% and 24.57%, respectively. Overall, the low error rate of
23.55% shows the high performance of the proposed system to identify learning types of learners.
The proposed system automatically provides gamification elements to an enrolled student accord-
ing to his learning type (Table 3). Leaderboards and challenges are gamification elements that provide
social communication channels to learners. Therefore, active learners were presented with these two
gamification elements. Reflective learners are keen on self-study, so in order to monitor their progress
and assess their expert level, feedback and a progress bar were used. Because sensing learners tend to
practice the material and focus on facts, figures, and details, they were presented with challenges,
badges, and levels. To fulfill the need for innovation in content material for intuitive learners, they
were presented with multiple content objects to avoid repetition and assess their mastery levels in con-
cepts. A progress bar and points were visually appealing to visual learners, and these gamification
elements helped them in monitoring their progress and enticing them to learn. Verbal learners were
presented with challenges and points to sense the textual input.
Furthermore, sequential learners tended to absorb things gradually. Thus, their learning objects, at
different levels, were accompanied by some challenges that assessed their level of information
absorption. Feedback shown to global learners assisted them in judging their mastery levels as
they tended to skip most of the content and did not prefer to go into detail about the concepts.
After the application of adaptive gamification, the course-completion ratio increased significantly
from 33.33% to 58.82% (Table 5). The significance test (section 6.1) rejected the null hypothesis with a
p-value (0.0012 < 0.05) that confirms course completion rate increased significantly. Similarly, the
motivation level for students from section (A) increased from 37.78% to 62.35%. The null hypothesis
that adaptive gamification does not increase motivation among students is also rejected through sig-
nificance testing (section 5.1) with a p-value (0.001 < 0.05). Students with adaptive gamification per-
formed 22% more interactions with the system than the students with fixed gamification for
everyone. The P-value for interactions (p = 0.003 < 0.05) proves that the interactions with the
course are enhanced by using adaptive gamification. The purpose of this research is to improve stu-
dents’ performance, motivation, and course-completion rates using personalized gamification
elements based on the learning styles of students. However, a more critical reader may argue that
the same or better results can be achieved with fewer gamification elements while using no learning
styles. In future work, we need to pursue the hypothesis and perform comparative analysis on
whether fewer gamification elements alone can achieve better results.

7. Conclusion and future work

To overcome the problem of substantial dropout rates from online learning platforms, we have pro-
posed a framework that provides personalized gamification experience (activities and elements) to
each student based on his or her interactions with the system, which resulted in increased
562 M. A. HASSAN ET AL.

motivation, increased interaction, and decreased drop-out ratio. The results demonstrated that adap-
tive gamification elements and activities selected according to the learning dimensions of learners
could significantly increase factors like motivation, course completion, interest, and interaction in
the E-learning course. Moreover, the learning dimensions identified by this system showed encoura-
ging results with low error rates.
The research does not provide any feedback to students on their week concepts. Also, the system
does not motivate students, so they cover what they have missed. In future, the system can be
extended to provide the feedback based on the student learning type and motivate students
using adaptive gamification elements so their performance should be improved.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Dr Muhammad Awais Hassan is assisstant professor at Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University
of Engineering and Technology. He is Gold Medalist of Punjab University. He has completed his MS from UET Lahore and
currently doing Ph.d from the same university. His research interest includes Natural Language Processing, Semantic
Web, Software Arechitecture and Open source Software Development.
Miss Ume Habiba is a post Graduate student of computer science at Computer Science and Engineering Department at
the University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, Pakistan. Her research interests include gamification, and adaptive
learning. She is also working as a research assistant in UET Lahore.
Dr Fiaz Majeed is an assistant professor at University of Gujrat (UOG). He has completed his Ph.D from UET Lahore. His
research interests include information retreival, data warehousing, and data streams.
Dr Muhammad Shoaib is a professor at Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of Engineering
and Technology Lahore, Pakistan. He received his MSc in computer science from Islamia University, Pakistan. He has com-
pleted his PhD from the University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan in 2006. His Post Doc. is from Florida Atlantic
University, USA, in 2009. His current research interests include information retrieval systems, information systems, soft-
ware engineering and semantic web.

ORCID
Muhammad Awais Hassan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2738-4927
Ume Habiba http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5488-2959

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Appendix
Appendix A. Questionnaire for determining learning type and motivation of students
Question No 1: My motivation after enrolling in this course enhanced/remained constant throughout the course

1) StronglyAgree 2) Agree 3) Strongly Disagree 4) Disagree

Question No 2: The gamification elements mostly matched my learning personality

2) Strongly Agree 2) Agree 3) Strongly Disagree 4) Disagree

Question No 3: I enjoyed being involved in this course

1) Strongly Agree 2) Agree 3) Strongly Disagree 4) Disagree

Question No 4: I have just going through the things in the lectures without been knowing where I am going

1) Strongly Agree 2) Agree 3) Strongly Disagree 4) Disagree

Question No 5: I don’t know why I have enrolled in this course

1) To get a better job after 2) To prove myself that I am can learn any skill with hard work
3) Knowledge about different things interests me 4) for the pleasure that I get from achievements

Question No 6: When I think about what I did yesterday, I am most likely to get

. A picture
. A word

Question No 7: When I am learning something new, it helps me to

. Talk about it
. Think about it

Question No 8: Once I understand

. All the parts, I understand the whole thing

. The whole thing, I see how parts fit
 INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 565

Question No 9: If I were a teacher, I would rather teach a course

. that deals with facts and real life situations

. that deals with ideas and theories

Question No 10: I prefer to study

. In a study group
. Alone

Question No 11: I remember best

. What I see
. What I hear

Question No 12: I prefer courses that emphasize

. Concrete material (facts, data)

. Abstract material (concepts, theories)

Question No 13: When I solve math problem

. I usually work my way to the solutions one step at a time

. I often just see the solutions but then have to struggle to figure out the steps to get to them

Question No 14: In classes I have taken

. I have usually gotten to know many of the students

. I have rarely gotten to know many of the students

Question No 15: I prefer the idea of

. Certainty
. Theory

Question No 16: It is more important to me that an instructor

. Layout the material in clear sequential steps

. Give me an over picture and relate the material to other subjects

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