From know that to know how – providing new learning strategies for information literacy instruction

Abstract

Gameful design has become a popular trend to create more engagement in the area of education and learning environments. Using games mechanics and game principles from both digital and non-digital games can also be incorporated into information literacy instruction. Therefore the project “The Legend of Zyren” was initiated to gamify a course on information literacy and provide a new educational environment with a focus on new technologies and dynamic learning structures. This paper focuses on evaluation of the online platform and parts of the practical session, and the ability to impart information literacy with regard to perceived quality (e.g. user-friendliness, usefulness, security/trust and fun) of content, implementation and the general concept of gameful design. The results of the evaluation confirm the positive effect of the gamified learning environment on motivation and content mastery among students regarding the acquisition of information literacy. The students were more engaged in the learning content and able to apply the acquired knowledge to solve arising problems.