Top 6 Advantages of Gamification in E-Learning

Just because learning is serious business, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun. This is where gamification comes in, providing learners with an enjoyable way to absorb the content while also improving learning outcomes. Since gamification was introduced in the world of e-learning, it has surged in popularity due to the numerous benefits it provides to both learners and training providers.

Here are six advantages of gamification in e-learning that you need to know.

1. Enhanced engagement levels

Buy infusing game mechanics into your course content, such as interactive segments, stories and themes, you can surely grab the attention of the learners. This ensures they will stick around to engage with the topic in its entirety.

2. Better knowledge retention and recalling

Since gamification makes engaging with the content fun, e-learners walk away with a positive learning experience. This puts the learner in a position to better digest the knowledge and even recall it since the knowledge is tied to a fun game.

3. Provides instant feedback

If you have ever played a game, then you know that games provide instant feedback on how well you are doing. For instance, to advance to another level, you must beat the current level to unlock more levels and more significant challenges.

The same can be done in a learning scenario, where players are given a series of questions they must answer if they wish to unlock more challenging questions. If they fail a question, the learner can immediately be told why they failed. This will motivate them to drill down on the material to improve their understanding and answer correctly next time.

4. Makes the learner feel rewarded

When people are making progress, they like to see some tangible representation of the great job they are doing. With gamification, learners can be rewarded through points, leveling systems, leaderboards and badges. This can instill and reinforce the concept that learning is a rewarding experience.

5. Makes learning practical

On top of providing a positive learning experience, gamification helps with retaining and recalling knowledge by allowing learners to put what they’ve learned to use. It can create a simulated environment where they can practice how to apply their knowledge in real-life scenarios and see the outcome without any risk.

6. Makes courses attractive

If you are a learning institution, it is your hope to earn revenue from the proceeds of the online training course, on top of helping people. This may enable you to improve course offerings while making a healthy profit. This requires that you get as many learners as possible to sign up for the course, and gamification is an effective way to entice people to enroll.

With advantages like these, it is easy to see why gamification is becoming widely used in e-learning courses. E-learners get to improve their learning outcomes in multiple ways, while the training provider can use it to maximize revenue. On top of that, learners get to have some fun in the process.