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What are your thoughts about using gamification in workplaces and schools?


Rose

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Years ago, I used to think that integrating video game elements in workplaces and schools could only be beneficial, that it makes work and learning more fun and engaging for everyone, and most importantly, that it's a solution to create a healthy environment. But now, I'm not so sure...

By healthy environment, I mean an environment that allows people to practice a healthy lifestyle and feel inspired. A place that they love and are looking forward to go to, where they're not burdened, overloaded with work, chronically exhausted, constantly stressed and worried, forced to overwork to meet tight deadlines, lack energy and almost look sick because of the unhealthy diet and sleeping schedule, threatened to loose their jobs if they try to put healthy boundaries, or feel trapped and exploited. An environment that actually enables them to have time for themselves and for their friends and family, and at the same time inspires them to work, that helps them have internal motivation.

I believe that people don't actually hate working or learning in itself, but rather that they hate negative experiences and discomfort, and that throughout the years they associated those horrible feelings with school or certain jobs, either through their own experiences or through hearing from people's experiences. And that association is reinforced day after day when they go to a working or learning environment and meet with the same terrible circumstances that leave them feeling miserable and dissatisfied with their work life/ school life.

Changing a culture or a system is difficult, for that, opinions should shift. Many will agree that internal motivation is a powerful driver yet they will overload employees/students with work, never be satisfied with their performance, constantly criticize their work and even their person, and on top of that blame them for their lack of enthusiasm or their fear and tell them that it's their duties to motivate themselves and be passionate and more productive (so now they feel guilty and incompetent on top of all that, more fear and stress and exhaustion). Many will agree that an employee/student who has a healthy life is more productive and creative yet they will cross their boundaries constantly, surprise them in the late evenings with bonus work and urgent work (that was supposed to take just 10 min but ends up taking 4 hours) as soon as they tried to relax on the couch, accuse them of slacking and laziness if they dare to go out of work on time, expect them to work on the weekends and even while on vacation, all while working out and socializing and be healthy.

Gamification seemed like a solution, it was implemented in certain schools and workplaces that reported that people were generally happier and more engaged. I though it would make work slightly more pleasurable and thus less exhausting. I thought that it could reconcile employers/employees and teachers/students and create a fun environment that promotes collaboration between everyone. An environment that enables more freedom and inspiration and a better work quality.

Yet nowadays, more and more schools and workplaces implement gamification, sadly, most of them actually make the environment unhealthier than it already was: it creates even more stress and disparity between people, the ones attributing points (usually teachers and employers) usually uses that privilege for power abuse, it's almost always designed in a competitive way, the rankings frighten everyone (the ones at the bottom are not only ashamed but afraid to lose their jobs, the ones at the top are worried about how long their bodies could keep up with the never-ending demands and the fast rhythm), more work and more stress that knows no limits and oversteps on private lives sometimes negatively impacting relationships with loved ones as well as their own health... and all sort of disheartening issues. 

So after thinking about it, maybe it is not the best idea. Also, after reading content from gamequitters, I realized that game mechanisms designed to be addictive are morally questionable, and then I noticed that even before "gamifying" school or work, it already has many game elements since decades, doesn't it? The reward/punishment system could be grades and salary and even appreciations and depreciations, the social aspect is definitely here and it's very powerful, the competition that can sometimes be very intense, powerful emotions, sense of accomplishment after hardwork, etc... (it reminds me of workoholics)

All in all, it seems to me now that gamification is a neutral tool, and that it depends on the user. I might be wrong about that, but it's the conclusion I arrived to for now.

So what do you think? About the morality of using gamification at school or in the workplace? Do you have any ideas to make learning and working fun and healthy without resorting to gamification? 

Thanks in advance and have a nice week! 

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I think gamification can be used in schools because it boosts students attitude towards learning at the start. However, if used excessively, students may be addicted to their assigned work(by that I mean the playing part of it). Over time, gamification will give students a hard time and teachers a harder time like what happened at my school before quarantine. My experience has proved to me that gamification in education should be done in moderation because I have seen other students at my school rushing to the library at lunch just to play video games and taking all the chairs for themselves and giving me a hard time reading.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Gamification is a scam that companies use to trick employees into accepting unfair wages, degrading or abusive working conditions and less personal and vacation time because of the lie of pseudo-fun.

Gamification is disrespectful because its base assumption is that 'we cannot be motivated unless we are treated like children.' When used on children themselves, it solidifies external motivations and weaken internal motivations that are necessary to fuel a successful career.

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  • 11 months later...

I would love to see more talk on this topic, I think in this time period it's critical.  We are in danger as a whole of being completely sucked into these virtual systems, and these things have such potential for exploitation.  Wish the world would wake up to it.  They don't want to let go of their comfort zone.  GREAT comments so far.  

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In the world of finance, the question stands “why design a highly fragile, volatile system prone to failure and try to remedy catastrophic market crashes with currency devaluation?”

In the world of food production: “Why research enhanced diabetes medications for people who overeat, don't exercise and stress a lot, if you can try to change life styles, get a greater percentage of people to work on the land, produce healthier food with a higher cost base and become diabetes free?”

Answers have something in common: over time it becomes customary to do things in a certain way even if it is harmful and dangerous. To go against these accepted principles threatens the system but allows you to have a real purpose in life. 

How do you threaten the system? Well the real solutions mean that many medicines and “optimized” food production becomes redundant and goes out of business. One of the authors I read reported that in his childhood it was impossible to find sweet oranges, they were too rare. Producers increasingly switched to sweeter varieties as time went on to stimulate demand.

Striking issues head on takes guts of course.

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Most worrisome is pressure groups influencing government policy through financing bills and journalism. It does not matter that the film industry, music and gaming is very harmful, so long as profit is made on it. Government function is now perverted.

I can reliably say that most of our grandparents would recoil at the boundless predatory method that is present in media. The advertising that constantly interferes with independent thinking causes many great youngsters to lose potential.

We are a new pressure group.

This is why we are not just here to stop manipulative online multiplayer “pay to win” games. I cannot speak for everyone, but from Cameron’s posts, he acknowledges that boundaries between film, games, music and gambling are becoming blurred in new products. 

The way to win at this is to be faithful to ourselves. When we come home, we stay away from our phones and spend time with our family.

Edited by Amphibian220
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  • 1 month later...
On 11/30/2021 at 2:10 AM, Amphibian220 said:

The way to win at this is to be faithful to ourselves. When we come home, we stay away from our phones and spend time with our family.

I can't like your post enough.  Very few people want to face it but the "entertainment" is ...let's say, highly contributing the the decay and destruction in our countries.  People distracted to the point where we've gone in... NOT good directions.   I am guilty of distracting myself with games because I couldn't tolerate seeing what was happening to the world around me, I wonder how many other gamers are also doing it for that reason.  Our once beautiful hometowns degraded, roads awful, crime through the roof... and we escape it into beautiful illusions.   It's a relief to be able to say this to someone who 'gets it.'  Thanks.  Hoping and praying for miracles.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is such a good topic: gamification in workplaces and schools. 

As a English teacher for 37 years who is now retired at age 62, I have lived through many historical events that have truly impacted education.

  • Viet Nam war brought into our living rooms by television in the 1960s
  • 1983-83 VCR's in homes. During this time students changed from being readers to watchers of the movie instead.
  • 1985 personal computers hit the market- They were pretty "rough" until Microsoft hit the markey in late 1980's. PC's changed everything.
  • 1998 Google search engine- Students' thinking changed: why think when you can google?
  • Smartphone were invented by IBM in 1998. But the first iPhone came out in 2007. Took a few years to get in the hands of high school kids--but once they did, they became the bane of a teacher's existence.
  • the Flipped classroom occurred- teacher were no longer center stage. Software and Net used for teaching.
  • Websites like class dojo used for behavior in 2011
  • 2014 Classcraft came out: video
  • 2014 Google classroom came out
  • 2015 Fortnite came out and could be played on smartphones phones. grrrrrrrrrrrrr
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I teach at the college level and I strongly dislike the idea of gamification in education because I really think it plays into so many of the worst impulses behind education policy that already exist. The general attitude is to teach as though learning was a means to an end and not a value in itself and to value metrics over outcomes. Grades and the focus on standardized and advanced placement tests already encourage a gamified mindset because teachers are forced to "teach to the test" (that is, focus on the metric rather than learning), meanwhile our systems of grading and examination encourage students not to actually learn, think critically, or take risks, but instead to figure out the path of least resistance to getting the grade that is acceptable to them.

Study after study has shown that grades and exams are actually bad for learning. Students actually acquire knowledge and skills much better when in less structured (not unstructured) environments. Try to get rid of them, of course, and parents and politicians will cry foul, claiming that you're getting rid of "rigor" and "standards," forgetting that, y'know, Aristotle, Confucius, Siddartha, Hypatia, Jane Austen, Ben Franklin, Frederick Douglass etc. never got a letter grade on anything but are revered as some of the great thinkers and sages of human history.

Of course, these people likely learned in times when education was much different... they likely studied in "small classes" with more personal interaction with their teachers. To replicate the systems that produced these minds you'd have to... oh no, hire more teachers and probably pay them more, which will never happen. Educational administrators will spend a billion dollars on the latest tech fad but not a dime to invest in the actual human workforce. Despite the best efforts of actual educators, our education system both college and K-12, has become more about producing docile employees with "job skills" than actual learning, knowledge acquisition, critical thinking. I have a hard enough time keeping my passion up in the relatively unstructured environment of higher ed, I have no idea how K-12 teachers who actual care about education put up with it... small wonder than people are leaving the profession in droves.

Bringing it back around: Gamification accelerates all of the worst educational trends by even further characterizing the act of knowledge and skill acquisition as a means to an end and not a life long pursuit. Students learn better when there is less structure and more fluid and personal interaction with teachers. Let games be games, let education be education.

Edited by checkercharlie39
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