Planning for success: how students use a grade prediction tool to win their classes
Abstract
Gameful course designs require a significant shift in approach for both students and instructors. Transforming a standard course into a good game involves fundamentally altering how the course functions, most notably by giving students greater control over their work. We have developed an application, GradeCraft, to support this shift in pedagogy. A key feature of the application is the Grade Predictor, where students can explore coursework options and plan pathways to success. We observed students in two gameful courses with differing designs using the Grade Predictor in similar ways: they spent similar amounts of time per session, increased usage when assignments were due and before making significant course decisions, predicted different types of assignments at different rates, and made more predictions in preparation for the end of semester. This study describes how students plan their coursework using the GradeCraft Grade Predictor tool.
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Gamification experiments targeting activities related to disciplines from humanity and social sciences are extremely limited, with only one example.
“In sharp contrast, gamification experiments targeting activities related to disciplines from humanity and social sciences are extremely limited, with only one example (Holman et al., 2015) touching this subject.”
From Gamifying education: what is known, what is believed and what remains uncertain: a critical review (2017) · cites this paper as Holman et al., 2015
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- Authors
- Holman, C., Aguilar, S. J., Levick, A., Stern, J., Plummer, B., & Fishman, B.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Learning Analytics And Knowledge
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2015-03-16
- Pages
- 260-264
- OpenAlex
- W2157847739
- Cited by
- 16
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 8.83
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK) (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational Games and Gamification
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Online Learning and Analytics
- Social Sciences › Education › Online and Blended Learning
- Keywords
- gamified learning, game-based learning, student agency, course design, student engagement
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