Mastery Learning as Gamification: Level-Up Through High-Transparency Assessments

Self-paced mastery learning aims to give the students more autonomy over their own learning process. Typically, such course designs have many lesser tests during the semester rather than one big exam. This pattern of repeated passing of obstacles and gradual level-up resembles a gamified approach to learning. An interesting question is to what extent a self-paced mastery learning course can be considered gamified even in cases where it does not aim to be entertaining. This paper makes a case study of an introductory programming course for first-year STEM teacher students at NTNU, Norway. The course is analyzed through the lens of gamification, using the Learning Mechanics – Game Mechanics (LM-GM) model. Relating this to student satisfaction and performance data indicates that there are many gamification-related aspects of such a course, contributing positively to student engagement. This paper provides a better understanding of how self-paced mastery learning can be considered a gamified course design and a promising approach for those looking to incorporate more explicit game elements into a course. Additionally, it shows how self-paced mastery learning could be an interesting pedagogical strategy for gamifying traditional higher education settings, especially focusing on affordances related to achievement / progression as well as social affordances.