Games Use Constant Feedback

Moreover, games use systems of points, scores, leaderboards, achievement walls, and other clever mechanisms to reinforce how well you are playing (or not playing). Feedback should force us to face reality and redirect our efforts where they are needed. Regular, systemic feedback is a rarity in the traditional school; it is, however, de rigueur in even the most poorly designed game. It is this regular, rapid feedback that not only stimulates persistence and self-direction but also gets people playing games in the first place. In their study of the gamified workplace, Reeves and Read (2009) identify five reasons why people play games: achievement, immersion, exploration, competition, and socialization. They also note that the speed at which many games operate encourages exactly the kind of trial and error that gives substance to feedback, which in turn gives structure to students developing a capacity for self-direction.

By contrast, reward systems in most schools couldn’t be more primitive. Grades are given intermittently and are often based on wholly arbitrary and poorly understood (at least by students) measures and rubrics, which actually discourage the experimentation that is at the heart of the capacity for self-direction. The student who doesn’t understand the meaning of his or her work because the feedback is too slow in coming will also not understand the meaning of a grade earned. In games, however, the rewards for success are embedded in the feedback system. The question isn’t if rewards work—it’s when they work. I would argue that they work best when they come at the time of greatest success in the learning process. The broader idea of gamification (i.e., the application of these principles to general life) is at its heart a study of rewards and feedback as applied in circumstances where they aren’t usually seen.