Using Gamification to Motivate Students with Dyslexia
Abstract
The concept of gamification is receiving increasing attention, particularly for its potential to motivate students. However, to date the majority of studies in the context of education have predominantly focused on University students. This paper explores how gamification could potentially benefit a specific student population, children with dyslexia who are transitioning from primary to secondary school. Two teachers from specialist dyslexia teaching centres used classDojo, a gamification platform, during their teaching sessions for one term. We detail how the teachers appropriated the platform in different ways and how the students discussed classDojo in terms of motivation. These findings have subsequently informed a set of provisional implications for gamification distilling opportunities for future pedagogical uses, gamification design for special education and methodological approaches to how gamification is studied.
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Motivation is not a unitary phenomenon; different people may have different types and amounts of motivation, which can be shaped by the activity they are undertaking.
“While gamification strives at its core to increase motivation, yet motivation is not a unitary phenomenon - different people may have different types and amounts of motivation, which can be shaped by the activity they are undertaking (Gooch et al., 2016).”
From Gamifying education: what is known, what is believed and what remains uncertain: a critical review (2017) · cites this paper as Gooch et al., 2016
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Gamifying education: what is known, what is believed and what remains uncertain: a critical review
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“While gamification strives at its core to increase motivation, yet motivation is not a unitary phenomenon - different people may have different types and amounts of motivation, which can be shaped by the activity they are undertaking (Gooch et al., 2016).”
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- Authors
- Gooch, D., Vasalou, A., Benton, L., & Khaled, R.
- Affiliations
- The Open University (GB)
- University of London (GB)
- Concordia University (CA)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2016-05-07
- Pages
- 969-980
- OpenAlex
- W2290174562
- Cited by
- 106
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 16.03
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
- Open Research Online (The Open University) (acceptedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- European Commission (318803)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational Games and Gamification
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Games and Media
- Social Sciences › Education › Education and Technology Integration
- Keywords
- gamification, dyslexia, student motivation, ClassDojo, transition to secondary school, special education, gamification design, children with learning difficulties
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