Transformations  in
Business & Economics

DOES GAMIFICATION LEAD TO BETTER RESULTS IN EDUCATION?
Cristina Rodica Boboc, Gianina-Maria Petrascu, Simona Ioana Ghita, Andreea Simona Saseanu

ABSTRACT: Along with the evolution of the Internet and electronic resources, the desire to implement them in the educational context has gained momentum, especially in the last decade, with the creation of interactive content with a captivating aspect becoming a recent phenomenon called "gamification". However, the implementation of this procedure in formal education is still at an early stage. The main objective of this paper is to create an e-learning application for students of the Statistics and Economic Forecasting specialization, within the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, and to analyze the effects of its use in terms of academic results. The application borrows fundamental aspects from MOOC-type educational platforms, simultaneously exposing classic and modern teaching methods. It is developed through the Mendix Studio Pro visual programming application and built around a Domain Model. After testing the use of this educational application, it emerged that the high number of accesses implies good and very good academic performance, and the existence of a statistically significant difference from the perspective of academic results between users and non-users of the e-learning application was also confirmed. The obtained results indicate that such a study method, which uses interactive and dynamic elements, can be successfully integrated even in a rigorous academic environment if both positive and negative aspects are taken into account as a result of the use of games-specific mechanisms.

KEYWORDS:  gamification, education, Domain Model, Multidimensional Statistical Analysis.

JEL classification:  D83, I23, C12, C38.