Systematic Mapping of Gamification's Negative Effects

Table of Links

Abstract and 1 Introduction

2. Background and Related Work and 2.1. Gamification

2.2. Game Design Elements and 2.3. Gamification Effects

2.4. Related Work on Gamification Negative Effects

3. Systematic Mapping and 3.1. The Research Questions

3.2. Search Strategy and 3.3. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

3.4. Applying the Search Strategy

3.5. Data Extraction

4. Systematic Mapping Results

5. Focus Group: Developer Perception on the Negative Effects of Game Design Elements

5.1. Context and Participant Characterization

5.2. Focus Group Design

5.3. The Developers’ Perception on The Negative Effects

5.4. On the Perceived Usefulness, Ease of use and Intent of Adoption of Mapped Negative Effects

5.5. Participant Feedback

6. Limitations

7. Concluding Remarks

7.1. Future Research Directions

Acknowledgements and References

3. Systematic Mapping

According to Kitchenham and Charters [46], a systematic mapping is “a broad review of primary studies in a specific topic area that aims to identify what evidence is available on the topic”. We follow the procedures and guidelines described in [46] and [47], using a hybrid search strategy [15], combining database search with backward and forward snowballing.

3.1. The Research Questions

Our goal was to organize evidence regarding the negative effects of Game Design Elements (GDEs) in the context of gamified education/learning software. Therefore, we derived the following research questions:

Table 2: Synthesis of findings about negative effects found by related secondary studies

RQ1 - What game design elements cause which negative effects in the field of digital education/learning?

RQ2 – In what fields of digital education/learning were the negative effects of game design elements found?

RQ3 – Which types of empirical studies were conducted to assess the negative effects?

Table 3: Comparison between the identified secondary studies and our study

To properly answer RQ1, we divided it into three more focused questions, organizing information on the GDEs causing negative effects (RQ1.A) and which negative effects affect which kind of user (RQ1.B and RQ1.C). Finally, we answer RQ1 by mapping the GDEs against their reported negative effects.

RQ1.A – What game design elements caused negative effects in the field of digital education/learning?

RQ1.B - What negative effects of game design elements were found affecting those interacting with the software as users or being in the role of a student?

RQ1.C – What negative effects of game design elements were found affecting those maintaining the software or being in the role of a teacher?