Gamification in learning has become a heated topic in the learning technology world because we all want our learners to be as motivated to learn as they are motivated to play games. However, is any “game” or “game feature” effective for learning? What principles do we need to follow when designing gamification for learning? In this article, we present a summary of flow theory in gamification based on a chapter of Learner and User Experience Research edited by Schmidt and colleagues in 2020.
What is flow theory?
Recall when you are so engrossed in playing a video game and cannot stop even after playing for hours. What does that feel like? That describes the flow state in which: (a) you are concentrated on one activity and no other activities matter any more; and (b) you are not aware of the passing of time.
Flow experience was coined by Csikszentmihalyi (1975, 1997) when the researcher wanted to understand how individuals can expend great amounts of energy and time on certain activities and at the same time, experience concentration, interest, and enjoyment. That’s exactly the kind of learning experience that we want our learners to have, right?
As shown in the figure below, learners engage in three different channels in the process of learning: boredom channel, flow channel, and frustration channel (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Sharek & Wieke, 2011). When the difficulty level of the task is comparable to a learner’s ability and when the task appears interesting, the learner is more likely to engage in a state of flow.
The flow theory evolved to include eight characteristics:
- Focused concentration on the task;
- Clarity of goals and immediate feedback;
- The experience is intrinsically rewarding;
- Effortlessness and ease;
- Balance between the level of challenge and learner skills;
- Merging of actions and awareness;
- Losing self-consciousness and distortion of time;
- Sense of control.
According to the flow theory, there are several ways to help promote a flow state in learning design, such as:
(a) creating assessment that provides immediate feedback and showing learners clearly what is to be expected from the learning;
(b) ensuring fluidity in the learning design to not disrupt the flow; and,
(c) making sure learners are locked into a task without many distractions.
The next question is: how are we going to apply this information in designing learning?
Application of flow theory in gamified learning design – A design case
Most games happen to be designed in a way that promotes flow. For instance, a well-developed game often provides interesting tasks with the difficulty level gradually increasing. There is often a clear goal (e.g., saving the princess, winning a tower) and various external rewards (e.g., points, badges) to motivate gamers to sustain their engagement. Open world games (i.e., a virtual world that allows the players to freely explore and approach the goals, unlike a linear gameplay) also provide considerable autonomy and control to gamers for them to explore and experiment.
In the design case below, the author introduced several features namely a leaderboard, adaptive release, content leveling, and other tools that facilitate the state of flow when designing an online professional development (PD) program for faculty.
Context: The goal is to use flow theory to design a relevant PD course for the faculty to learn how to teach better online and engage students more effectively. The traditional, face-to-face PD, is often said to have low engagement.
Design:
- Immediate feedback — Assessment results
Once the learner completes a knowledge check, they will get immediate results and feedback on the questions they missed and a badge as a reward for their competency. - Clarity of goals — Badges
- Focused attention and balance between task difficulty and skills — Adaptive releasing and content leveling
The content of the course was broken down into four components to create multiple checkpoints during the progression of the course. That is, learners need to finish one component with a certain score in order to unlock the next. The whole process is self-paced, so learners can have the autonomy and control to progress as needed and avoid the boredom state. On the other hand, it also avoids the frustration state because learners have to reach a certain level of competency to proceed with the next-level content, which better prepares them for a more challenging task.
Given that there are eight dimensions of flow state for us to consider, there is much more to explore with how to utilize flow theory to design gamification in learning. It is also important to think about these without the constraints of the current Learning Management System (LMS) so that more innovative features can be embedded into the future LMS to promote learner engagement via flow-theory-supported gamification.
Note: This article is a brief summary of the following chapter:
Vann, A. W., & Tawfik, A. A. (2020). Flow theory and learning experience design in gamified learning environments. In M. Schmidt, A. A. Tawfik, I. Jahnke, & Y. Earnshaw (Eds.), Learner and user experience research (pp. 90-105). EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/ux
Cover image credit: Julia M Cameron from Pexels
References
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Csikszentmihalyi, I. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety. Jossey-Bass.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). The psychology of optimal experience. HarperPerennial.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding flow: The psychology of engagement with everyday life. Basic Books.
Sharek, D., & Wiebe, E. (2011). Using flow theory to design video games as experimental stimuli. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting Proceedings, 55(1), 1520–1524.