Use of gamification to enhance curiosity and engagement through feedback strategies

Abstract

Curiosity is a significant educational component behind human learning and is vital for a learner to sustain motivation and engagement in both face-to-face and online learning environments. Positive feedback has the potential to support learning by enhancing competence, confidence, and curiosity. Informative feedback at the right time is the sought-after goal in traditional classrooms and is equally important for the learning design within a digital educational environment. Individual differences such as personality, gender, learning style, and curiosity trait can play a crucial role in how feedback is received and acquired knowledge is demonstrated in a different context by a learner. This paper proposes to exploit the benefits of positive feedback in a statistics game by establishing a connection between feedback and curiosity through the lens of the self- determination theory of motivation. It presents a work-in-progress psychological theory-based conceptual framework to foster curiosity by means of game-based learning and gamification approaches.