MOTIVATING STUDENTS TO LEARN - TRANSFORMING COURSES USING A GAMEFUL APPROACH - Ronit Ajlen, Benjamin Plummer, Evan Straub, and Erping Zhu

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mia

Motivating students to learn through gameful pedagogy is presented as a practical approach to designing learning environments inspired by well-designed games. The text traces the development of gameful learning at the University of Michigan since 2008, highlighting key contributors and support structures that enabled adoption. It defines gameful pedagogy through student intrinsic motivation needs—autonomy, competence, and sense of belonging—and explains how course elements such as meaningful choice, safe failure, and additive point grading support engagement, motivation, control, and achievement.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

A Brief History of Gameful Learning at U-M

What Is Gameful Pedagogy?

Gameful Pedagogy in Course Design

Why Take a Gameful Approach?

Promoting Student Autonomy Through Meaningful Choices

MOTIVATING STUDENTS TO LEARN: TRANSFORMING COURSES USING A GAMEFUL APPROACH RonitAjlen, Benjamin Plummer, Evan Straub, andErping Zhu A brief history of gameful learning at U-M The development of gameful pedagogy at Michigan dates back to 2008, emerging from Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Barry Fishman’s (Information and Education) course on video games and learning. Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Mika-LaVaque Manty (LSA Political Science and Philosophy) was a key contributor to early thinking about gameful pedagogy. Caitlin Hayward, then a Master’s student in the School of Information, conceived the idea for a technological tool that could make it easier to implement gameful learning, which grew to become GradeCraft. The Centerfor Academic Innovation, particularly Caitlin Hayward and Rachel Niemer, provided support for implementation and helped establish an initial learning community of instructors using gameful pedagogy, which CRLT then helped to expand to the broader U-M community. Gameful pedagogy and GradeCraft have received generous support from across U-M, including the Learning Analytics Task Force, the Center for Academic Innovation, CRLT’s Faculty Development Fund, the Gilbert Whitaker Fund, and the Provost’s Third Century Initiative. What is gameful pedagogy? Gameful pedagogy is “an approach that takes inspiration from welldesigned games to create learning environments that support student motivation”(Holman, 2018, p. 1). According to Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), students are intrinsically motivated when their basic psychological needs for autonomy (the need to make meaningful choices), competence (the need to master optimally difficult challenges), and sense of belonging (the need to have positive interactions with others) are met (see Figure 1) . Figure 1. Three Key Components of Intrinsic Motivation Image provided by the Center for Academic Innovation. Ronit Ajlen is an Assistant Director at the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT). She earned her PhD in Psychology from U-M. Benjamin Plummer is a Learning Experience Designer for the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. He earned his PhD in Psychology and Education from U-M. Evan Straub is an Online Faculty Development Program Manager with the University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation. She earned her PhD from Ohio State University in Educational Psychology. Erping Zhu is an Associate Director at CRLT. She earned her PhD in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University-Bloomington. CRLT Occasional Papers No. 40 Center for Research on Learning and Teaching University of Michigan Gameful pedagogy helps to meet these needs by giving students increased control over their own learning and enabling them to develop mastery. The use of this approach, particularly support of autonomy or assignment choice, has been linked to increased student engagement (Barata, Gama, Jorge, & Gonclaves, 2013; Boskic & Hu, 2015; Jang, Kim, & Reeve, 2016), greater motivation (Hew, Huang, Chu, & Chiu, 2016; Dikkers, Alkhawajah, & Hawks, 2015), increased feelings of control over learning (Aguilar, Holman, & Fishman, 2014), and even increased academic achievement or success (Marshik, Ashton, & Algina, 2017) . Gameful pedagogy incorporates design elements of games, such as choice and safe failure, to motivate students to engage with course content. As such, it requires instructors to fundamentally rethink their course design, especially their assignments and grading systems. Courses at the University of Michigan that take a gameful approach are defined by some amount of assignment choice, as well as an additive point system in which students build their grade up from zero. That is, their final grade is a sum of all of their assignment grades rather than an average of those grades. This framework allows students the freedom to fail because there is room to recover from setbacks by compl

FAQs

What is gameful pedagogy, according to the document?

Gameful pedagogy is an approach that draws inspiration from well-designed games to create learning environments that support student motivation. It aligns with intrinsic motivation needs described using Self-Determination Theory.

How does gameful pedagogy support intrinsic motivation?

It supports autonomy by giving students meaningful choices, competence by enabling mastery through optimally challenging work, and a sense of belonging through positive learning interactions. These needs are used to explain why students engage more deeply.

What course design features distinguish a gameful approach at U-M?

Courses emphasize assignment choice and a point system that builds grades additively from zero rather than averaging. This structure creates room for recovery and encourages learning risks through safe failure.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mia