Correcting Misconceptions About Gamification of Assessment: More Than SJTs and Badges
Open accessAbstract
Describing the current state of gamification, Chamorro-Premuzic, Winsborough, Sherman, and Hogan (2016) provide a troubling contradiction: They offer examples of a broad spectrum of gamification interventions, but they then summarize the entirety of gamification as “the digital equivalent of situational judgment tests.” This mischaracterization grossly oversimplifies a rapidly growing area of research and practice both within and outside of industrial–organizational (I-O) psychology. We agree that situational judgment tests (SJTs) can be considered a type of gamified assessment, and gamification provides a toolkit to make SJTs even more gameful. However, the term gamification refers to a much broader and potentially more impactful set of tools than just SJTs, which are incremental, versatile, and especially valuable to practitioners in an era moving toward business-to-consumer (B2C) assessment models. In this commentary, we contend that gamification is commonly misunderstood and misapplied by I-O psychologists, and our goals are to remedy such misconceptions and to provide a research agenda designed to improve both the science and the practice surrounding gamification of human resource processes.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Video-based, virtual, gamified and AI-based assessment technologies have improved the fidelity and immersion of selection.
“Furthermore, video-based, virtual, gamified and AI-based assessment technologies3,72–74 have improved the fidelity and immersion of the selection process.”
From Understanding and shaping the future of work with self-determination theory (2022) · cites this paper as [72]
The passage labeled Abstract (page unavailable) says game elements were added to computer-based simulations to make assessment more immersive and engaging. It does not establish that these technologies improved selection fidelity, and it provides no comparable finding for AI-based or video-based assessment. The paper also says further research is needed to determine whether particular game elements improve outcomes. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
From game design elements to gamefulness: defining "gamification"
Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011) · Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments · doi:10.1145/2181037.2181040 · Cited by 8,402 · see citing works
Does Gamification Work? -- A Literature Review of Empirical Studies on Gamification
Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., & Sarsa, H. (2014) · 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences · doi:10.1109/hicss.2014.377 · Cited by 5,201 · see citing works
Games, Motivation, and Learning: A Research and Practice Model
Garris, R. D., Ahlers, R. H., & Driskell, J. E. (2002) · Simulation & Gaming · doi:10.1177/1046878102238607 · Cited by 3,257 · see citing works
New Developments in Goal Setting and Task Performance
Locke, E. A. (2013) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9780203082744 · Cited by 1,255 · see citing works
Developing a Theory of Gamified Learning: Linking Serious Games and Gamification of Learning
Landers, R. N. (2014) · Simulation & Gaming · doi:10.1177/1046878114563660 · Cited by 918 · see citing works
Self-citationGamification in Education and Business
Reiners, T., & Wood, L. C. (2014) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-10208-5 · Cited by 489 · see citing works
Gamification of task performance with leaderboards: A goal setting experiment
Landers, R. N., Bauer, K. N., & Callan, R. C. (2017) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.08.008 · Cited by 474 · see citing works
Self-citationToward a Taxonomy Linking Game Attributes to Learning: An Empirical Study
Bedwell, W. L., Pavlas, D., Heyne, K., Lazzara, E. H., & Salas, E. (2012) · Simulation & Gaming · doi:10.1177/1046878112439444 · Cited by 393 · see citing works
Situational judgment tests: a review of recent research
Lievens, F., Peeters, H., & Schollaert, E. (2008) · Personnel Review · doi:10.1108/00483480810877598 · Cited by 311 · see citing works
Badges in Social Media: A Social Psychological Perspective
Antin, J., & Churchill, E. F. (2011) · Cited by 297 · see citing works
Myths and Realities of Respondent Engagement in Online Surveys
Guin, T. D.-L., Baker, R., Mechling, J., & Ruyle, E. (2012) · International Journal of Market Research · doi:10.2501/ijmr-54-5-613-633 · Cited by 237 · see citing works
Arthur, W., & Villado, A. J. (2008) · Journal of Applied Psychology · doi:10.1037/0021-9010.93.2.435 · Cited by 235 · see citing works
New Talent Signals: Shiny New Objects or a Brave New World?
Chamorro‐Premuzic, T., Winsborough, D., Sherman, R. A., & Hogan, R. (2016) · Industrial and Organizational Psychology · doi:10.1017/iop.2016.6 · Cited by 224 · see citing works
Psychological Theory and the Gamification of Learning
Landers, R. N., Bauer, K. N., Callan, R. C., & Armstrong, M. B. (2014) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-10208-5_9 · Cited by 211 · see citing works
Self-citation(2015) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/9788.001.0001 · Cited by 140 · see citing works
The Gameful World: Approaches, Issues, Applications
Walz, S. P., & Deterding, S. (2014) · Cited by 99 · see citing works
Yan, T., Conrad, F. G., Tourangeau, R., & Couper, M. P. (2010) · International Journal of Public Opinion Research · doi:10.1093/ijpor/edq046 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Social Media in Employee Selection and Recruitment
Landers, R. N., & Schmidt, G. B. (2016) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-29989-1 · Cited by 68 · see citing works
Self-citationEmerging Research and Trends in Gamification
(2015) · Advances in multimedia and interactive technologies book series · doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-8651-9 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- Collmus, A. B., & Landers, R. N. (2015, April). Game narrative in personality assessment: The develop- ment of a scale. Presented at Virginia Psychological Association's Spring Convention and Edu- cation Conference, Virginia Beach, VA.
- Ferrell, J. Z., Carpenter, J. E., Vaughn, E. D., Dudley, N. M., & Goodman, S. A. (2015). Gamification of human resource processes. In D. Davis & H. Gangadharbatla (Eds.), Emerging research and trends in gamification (pp. 108-139). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
- Popp, E. (2014, May). Challenges and innovations of using game-like assessments in selection. Sympo- sium conducted at the 29th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Honolulu, HI.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Understanding and shaping the future of work with self-determination theory
Gagné, M., Parker, S. K., Griffin, M. A., Dunlop, P. D., Knight, C., Klonek, F. E., & Parent-Rocheleau, X. (2022) · Nature Reviews Psychology · doi:10.1038/s44159-022-00056-w · Cited by 434 · see citing works
Gamification Science, Its History and Future: Definitions and a Research Agenda
Landers, R. N., Auer, E. M., Collmus, A. B., & Armstrong, M. B. (2018) · Simulation & Gaming · doi:10.1177/1046878118774385 · Cited by 388 · see citing works
Self-citationWoods, S. A., Ahmed, S., Nikolaou, I., Costa, A. C., & Anderson, N. R. (2020) · European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology · doi:10.1080/1359432x.2019.1681401 · Cited by 218 · see citing works
- Authors
- Armstrong, M. B., Ferrell, J. Z., Collmus, A. B., & Landers, R. N.
- Affiliations
- Old Dominion University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Armstrong, Michael B.
- Venue
- Industrial and Organizational Psychology
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2016-09
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 671-677
- ISSN
- 1754-9426 (ISSN-L)
- 1754-9434
- OpenAlex
- W2528513119
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 7.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Industrial and Organizational Psychology (publishedVersion)
- ODU Digital Commons (Old Dominion University) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational Games and Gamification
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Employer Branding and e-HRM
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › AI and HR Technologies
- Keywords
- gamification, gamified assessment, situational judgment tests, badges, human resource evaluation, research agenda
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
