The Use of Gamification in Academic Teaching – Evidence from Polish State Universities

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to provide answers to the following research questions: How popular are digital games as the first step to gamification, comparing to other teaching methods used in such fields of study as economics, humanities and natural science in Poland? What is the practice of using gamification in academic teaching? The subject literature studies and empirical research carried out in the form of auditorium survey in the third quarter of 2019 across a sample of 200 students (50 people representing each field of study) were used in the article. In order to collect additional information, in-depth interviews with students (4 people representing each field of study) were carried out in the first quarter of 2020. The problem of applying gamification in tertiary education is gaining importance, as evidenced by the growing number of scientific publications addressing this issue. The conducted empirical research shows that digital-game-based learning method is marginally used in academic teaching in Poland and, thus, it is hard to talk about gamification. The article also presents the research process limitations and directions of further research.