Gamification, Part II

GUEST BLOG BY TOM BEREND

I’m now two weeks into the free Coursera gamification course. It’s as rich and demanding as any graduate course I’ve taken at York, and the level and quality of participation in the discussion groups is amazing. Of course, you only get out what you put in, and I’m working hard, but I’m shocked at how excellent that course is. (I’m not sure why I’m surprised - this course is from the Wharton School of Business after all. I guess it’s because I merely signed in and started taking free courses).

Now the bad news: 13,000 students (of more than 76,000) completed the first assignment, which was sent out for peer-review this morning. I have reviewed 10 of them (I only had to do 5, but the course encourages you to do more). I cannot do justice to how poor these submissions were. Eight of them are in the category “didn’t read the question, or didn’t understand the question, or didn’t answer the question” (it’s hard to tell which). Another was disorganized and poorly drafted; it answered the question but the answers were not recognizably drawn from the course materials. The last one was borderline acceptable for college or university work - this one at least attempted to answer the question and provide supporting reasons. What is going on?

Here’s my analysis. The final enrollment was over 76,000. Only 13,000 handed in the first assignment - about 1 in 6. The rest were likely tourists - people who signed up, watched a few minutes of video, and got bored. Perhaps there was a slice of non-English speakers who are engaged but could not write the assignment, but I think that group would be vanishingly small.

Only a small number - my crude guess is 100 or less - are ‘fully engaged’ at the academic level of a Wharton MBA course, putting in the work and getting the full benefit of the course. I count myself in that group; I am as attentive as if I was actually enrolled at Wharton, tracking down outside readings, and engaging peers in forum discussions and private emails. I have a notebook already half-filled with lecture notes and ideas for the specific design project that I hope to try these techniques on. I am organizing a meetup specifically to brainstorm real-world projects with fellow classmates. Perhaps another 2,000 are ‘interested-practitioners’ - perhaps teachers looking to improve their classrooms, HR managers looking for motivation tips, and web designers looking for ideas. These students are taking the course seriously, employing study habits that enable them to absorb the materials, and engaged in the forum discussions. At the end, they will have a broad understanding of the subject and their practice will benefit. Perhaps these are the life-long learners that our society so badly needs. The rest aren’t getting any benefit from the course. The 63,000 who signed up but didn’t last to the first assignment can be dismissed. That’s not a problem, as there was no cost in serving this group; they did not even load on the peer-marking resources.  Perhaps some got a general idea of what the course was about.

The other élite students are discussing the reasons behind the poor quality of most submissions. Here’s an interesting comment. “It is exactly this mentality that has created a generation of unemployable kids who don’t know how to motivate themselves or apply themselves. They expect their employer to make things fun for them, and cannot be content with entry-level jobs. I speak partly from experience. I was used as part of a classroom experiment involving games and ‘making education fun’. Re-entry into the real world was like ice water in the face. It took me years to teach myself all the skills my teachers neglected. I think the problem has gotten worse since then - the teachers are less inclined to take responsibility, the parents are more inclined to justify their kids’ laziness, and the job market is less forgiving. I would not want to be a coddled student entering today’s job market.”

Comments