Need for teaching DT in school education

A number of skills have often been cited as some of the most significant ones needed for the workforce in the 21st century. For instance, according to World Economic Forum (2016), complex problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity are the three most important skills required for the future workforce. Similarly, the report by Finegold and Notabartolo (Reference Finegold and Notabartolo2010) stated critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, communication, collaboration, and flexibility and adaptability as the five most relevant skills for the 21st-century workforce. Furthermore, there is a coherence between the skills required from a workforce and the skills needed to be developed by students. Based on a number of surveys and studies, the American Association of College and Universities (AAC&U) recommended the same intellectual skills (i.e., ritical and creative thinking, communication, teamwork, and problem solving) to be taught from the beginning of the education (AAC&U, 2007). As noted in the reports of the European Commission (European Commission, 2016) and Pacific Policy Research Center (Pacific Policy Research Center, 2010), creative thinking, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving are the critical 21st-century learning and innovation skills that young children need to be facilitated with from early on in their life. However, in India, the importance of these skills has been emphasized only very recently [e.g., in the draft National Education Policy, India, 2019 (National Education Policy, 2019)], at a time, when the current Indian education system is under serious criticism because of outdated curricula and teaching methodology. In South Asian context, a large part of the school education system puts greater emphasis on the retention of knowledge, leaving less scope for the development of skills such as creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving (Bhatt et al., Reference Bhatt, Acharya and Chakrabarti2021a). In addition, the assessment of learning in schools often focus on memory-based learning and testing a students’ ability to reproduce content knowledge (National Education Policy India, 2016). Moreover, in classrooms, learning is receptive (where the teacher demonstrates, describes, or writes the teaching content and information is passed one way), and the assignments are typically solved individually (Bhatt et al., Reference Bhatt, Acharya and Chakrabarti2021a). This inhibits the development of collaboration and communication skills in students. The dominance of rote learning is not only limited to India. For example, various literatures (Safdar, Reference Safdar2013; Balci, Reference Balci2019) show the dominance of rote learning education in countries like Turkey and Pakistan. Besides, as noted by Razzouk and Shute (Reference Razzouk and Shute2012), if schools continue to focus on increasing students’ proficiency in traditional subjects such as math and reading, via didactic approaches, it leaves many students disengaged. As stated by Cassim (Reference Cassim2013), complex problems cannot be easily solved by just analytical thinking, which is the dominant mode of thought adopted in education. The above literature indicates that there is a substantial gap between what is offered by the current education system and the requirements of the future.

Design has often been regarded as a central element of engineering education. For example, the Moulton report on “Engineering Design Education” of 1976 laid great emphasis on design as a central focus of engineering education in UK (McMahon et al., Reference McMahon, Ion and Hamilton2003). Design has also been included as an essential part of curricular goals for undergraduate engineering in the CDIO initiatives (Crawley et al., Reference Crawley, Malmqvist, Lucas and Brodeur2011).

Its importance as a generic tool for education across domains, however, seems more recent, and in the form commonly known as design thinking. For instance, Melles et al. (Reference Melles, Howard and Thompson-Whiteside2012) noted the employment of design thinking to improve decision-making practices in various fields and applications such as healthcare systems and services, library system design, strategy and management, operations and organizational studies, and projects where social innovation and social impact matters. Lately, design thinking has been recognized as a useful approach for promoting 21st-century skills in school education. As noted by Scheer et al. (Reference Scheer, Noweski and Meinel2012), DT is effective in fostering 21st century learning through its application in complex interdisciplinary projects in a holistic and constructivist manner. DT complements mono-disciplinary thinking (Lindberg et al., Reference Lindberg, Noweski and Meinel2010) and encourages students to engage in collaborative learning, provides opportunity to express opinion and to think in new ways (Carroll et al., Reference Carroll, Goldman, Britos, Koh, Royalty and Hornstein2010). Helping students to think like designers may better prepare them to deal with difficult situations and to solve complex problems in school, in their careers, and in life in general (Razzouk and Shute, Reference Razzouk and Shute2012). As experts foresee, innovations that stem from creative thinking during the design process are key to economic growth (Roberts, Reference Roberts2006). Affinity for teamwork is one of the characteristics of DT that enables communication as described by Owen (Reference Owen2005). With the use of Bloom's taxonomy, Bhatt et al. (Reference Bhatt, Acharya and Chakrabarti2021a) identified the association between the instructions, that are used in performing design thinking activities, and the cognitive processes. The results showed that following the instructions while performing design activities enabled higher-level cognitive processes such as applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating; these can lead to the development of 21st-century skills. Rusmann and Ejsing-Duun (Reference Rusmann and Ejsing-Duun2021) reviewed research articles that investigated design thinking at the primary or secondary school levels, and identified the links between design thinking competencies and 21st-century skills such as collaboration, communication, metacognition, and critical thinking. The results imply that nurturing DTP should help students acquire these skills and instil a school of thought that would contribute to the development of the above skill set. Therefore, there is a need to inculcate DTP in school education.

Gamification and learning

Because of its characteristics of keeping players engaged in the process, games are used in education to serve various purposes (e.g., to imbibe skills and knowledge, to train, to spread awareness). There are three types of game approaches used in education: serious games, gamification, and simulation games. “Gamification” uses elements of games (Deterding et al., Reference Deterding, Dixon, Khaled and Nacke2011) and applies them to existing learning courses to fulfil learning objectives. “Serious game” is a full-fledged game “that does not have entertainment, enjoyment, or fun as their primary purpose” (Michael and Chen, Reference Michael and Chen2005). In contrast, “simulation game” is a simulation [representation of reality or some known process/phenomenon (Ochoa, Reference Ochoa1969)] with the game elements added to it (Crooltall et al., Reference Crooltall, Oxford and Saunders1987).

The motive of gamification is primarily to alter a contextual learner-behavior/attitude (Landers, Reference Landers2014); improve the performance; or maximize the required outcome. According to Kapp (Reference Kapp2012), gamification can be adopted when one or multiple motives or goals of an existing course or curriculum is to encourage learners, motivate action, influence behavior, drive innovation, help build skills, and acquire knowledge. Gamification is generally classified into structural gamification and content gamification (Kapp, Reference Kapp2012). Structural gamification is the application of game elements to propel learners through content with no alteration or changes to the content. In contrast, content gamification is the application of game elements, game mechanics, and game thinking to alter content to make it more game-like. Reeves and Read (Reference Reeves and Read2009) identified ten elements of a game, some or all of which can be adopted for the gamification of a course (i.e., self-representation with avatars, three-dimensional environments, narrative context, feedback, reputations, ranks, and levels, marketplaces and economies, competition under rules that are explicit and enforced, teams, parallel communication systems that can be easily configured, time pressure). Gamification can overcome significant problems like lack of learner's motivation, lack of interactivity, or isolation, leading to a high dropout rate in a course (Khalil and Ebner, Reference Khalil, Ebner and Herrington2014). The purpose of gamification can be served only when both the following are satisfied: (a) the Learning Objectives and outcomes are well defined; and (b) efforts are spent to assess the effect of gamification on those learning outcomes (Morschheuser et al., Reference Morschheuser, Hassan, Werder and Hamari2018; Bhatt et al., Reference Bhatt, Suressh, Chakrabarti, Chakrabarti, Poovaiah, Bokil and Kant2021b). Various empirical studies show that gamification has a positive effect on student interest, early engagement (Betts et al., Reference Betts, Bal and Betts2013), and learning outcomes (e.g., retention rate) (Vaibhav and Gupta, Reference Vaibhav and Gupta2014; Krause et al., Reference Krause, Mogalle, Pohl and Williams2015). Therefore, gamification can be a valuable technique for enhancing learning outcomes.

In the design context, Sjovoll and Gulden (Reference Sjovoll and Gulden2017) identified gamification as a typology of engagement that may elicit activities that lead to creative agency and subsequent enjoyment.

To identify various perspectives to be considered in the game development, Cortes Sobrino et al. (Reference Cortes Sobrino, Bertrand, Di Domenico, Jean and Maranzana2017) proposed a taxonomy for games, with three categories (i.e., targeted user/public, the purpose of the game, and types of skill to be imbibed through the game), and classified 17 educational games of the Design Society Database. Later, Bhatt et al. (Reference Bhatt, Suressh, Chakrabarti, Chakrabarti, Poovaiah, Bokil and Kant2021b) augmented the existing taxonomy by considering additional categories and proposed extended taxonomy for aiding the development and evaluation of educational games. The authors found that the games developed and evaluated were either serious games or simulation games. This gives an opportunity to show how gamification can be developed and evaluated. Nevertheless, this paper focuses on the use of gamification; it is worthwhile to mention the applications of the related concepts such as “serious games” and “simulation games” in the field of design education.

By using Serious Game Design Assessment (SGDA) framework (Mitgutsch and Alvarado, Reference Mitgutsch and Alvarado2012), Ma et al. (Reference Ma, Vallet, Cluzel and Yannou2019) analyzed the existing innovation process (IP) game CONSORTiØ (Jeu, Reference Jeu2016), where the focus was on assessing the coherence of the game's purpose with the other design elements such as content and information, game mechanics, fiction and narrative, esthetics an graphics, and framing. Furthermore, with the aim of transforming traditional innovation teaching, Ma et al. (Reference Ma, Vallet, Cluzel and Yannou2020) integrated eight general design frameworks for serious games, combined the specificities of innovation teaching and proposed Innovation Serious Games Design (ISGD) framework for the realization of teaching objectives.

The SGDA framework was used by Libe et al. (Reference Libe, Grenouillat, Lagoutte, Jean and Maranzana2020) to design a game to teach children a generic innovation process. Later, the game and its subsequent version were validated with the third-grade and fifth-grade students; the reaction was measured at the end of the game (Libe et al., Reference Libe, Grenouillat, Lagoutte, Jean and Maranzana2020; Boyet et al., Reference Boyet, Couture, Granier, Roudes, Vidal, Maranzana and Jean2021). The results showed that the children had fun and were willing to play the game again.

It is important to note that the SGDA and ISGD frameworks do not evaluate whether the game is effective for its designated purpose. The use of Kirkpatrick's model (Reference Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick2006) is prevalent for evaluating a game's effectiveness on its designated purpose. Kirkpatrick's model consists of four levels of evaluation: reaction, learning, behavior, and result. With the help of this model, Bhatt et al. (Reference Bhatt, Suressh, Chakrabarti, Chakrabarti, Poovaiah, Bokil and Kant2021b) analyzed 20 games and classified them based on the levels of evaluation, and found that some existing games were not evaluated for their effectiveness on both learning and engagement. For example, the PDP game (Becker and Wits, Reference Becker and Wits2014) and Innopoly (Berglund et al., Reference Berglund, Lindh Karlsson and Ritzén2011) only measure the effect of the game on learning but do not measure its ability to engage participants. The evaluation must be done in terms of the game's ability to fulfil learning goal/s and engage participants in the learning process. This opens up the scope of study about how to evaluate the game's effectiveness. In addition, existing games for DT lack an assessment framework (i.e., method of assessing the process and outcomes generated by participants) and thus do not provide a complete pedagogical instrument. The above gaps provide an opportunity to develop and evaluate an educational gamified version that provides a pedagogical view in the field of design and innovation.

IISC design thinking and its gamified variants

By analyzing and distilling out the essential steps from a large number of design processes and models developed over the last 50 years of literature in design research, Bhaumik et al. (Reference Bhaumik, Bhatt, Kumari, Menon, Chakrabarti and Chakrabarti2019) developed a DTP model called “IISC”, discussed as follows. The IISC DTP model (developed at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India) consists of four, generic, iterative stages: Identify, Ideate, Consolidate, and Select. Each stage is further divided into a number of activity steps (systematic procedures resulting in the overall design process) and instructions for carrying out each activity step (detailed information about collecting and processing relevant information and producing intended outcomes). The major activity steps within the four stages are given in Table 1. IISC design steps direct learners to identify problems and user needs, create requirements, generate ideas, combine ideas into solutions, consolidate solutions, and evaluate solutions to select the most promising solution. In addition, while carrying out each stage, and the various steps within the stages, of IISC, a list of design methods can be followed for carrying out the activity steps. For instance, methods like “brainstorming” or “gallery method” can be used during the “Ideate” stage, while carrying out the step “generate ideas”. IISC DTP model aims to aid designers or learners during designing to identify, formulate, and structure user-centric, real-life problems, and to solve these innovatively and effectively, the outcome of which can be a product, a process, a policy, or others.

Table 1.

IISC DT stages and associated activity steps

There are many DT models such as Stanford d.school (Design Thinking Bootleg, 2018), SUTD (Foo et al., Reference Foo, Choo, Camburn and Wood2017), and IDEO: Human Centered Design (Design Kit, 2015) that are made for practitioners (designers), aiming to assist in or provide a structure to design thinking. DT model by Stanford d.school has broken down design thinking into five steps: (1) Empathize, (2) Define, (3) Ideate, (4) Prototype, and (5) Test. In this DT model, the first step is “Empathize”, which is only one of many ways of finding users’ problems, and therefore, should be one of many possible means of carrying out the broad step of “Define”. Similarly, prototyping is one of many ways of consolidating, communicating, or testing a concept or a process, and thus should be one of many possible methodological options for the broad step “test”. The “Identify” stage of IISC DT model, therefore, consists of the activities “Empathize” and “Define”. Also, the step “prototyping” is considered as an activity and categorized under the broad stages of both “Consolidate” and “Select” in IISC DT. Besides, SUTD cards include methods like “house of quality”, “Finite Element Modeling”, “TRIZ”, etc. However, most of these design methods are relevant mainly in an engineering context and are more suitable for use by professional designers. Similarly, some of the methods proposed by IDEO are applicable only in the context of an organization. In contrast, IISC DT is a generic model for design thinking, not only for engineering or organization applications. Unlike a cluster of formalized design methods, each stage of IISC DT model consists of primitive specific activities. These systematic/informal activities together externalize DT process in a logical order in which the outcomes of a former activity step become input for a later one. Besides, the instructions of the activity steps are jargon-free and easily understandable by the beginner. Thus, it is appropriate for school education. Moreover, unlike most existing DT models, the IISC DT model provides, in addition to the stages, associated activity steps and design methods, a pedagogical framework (i.e., curriculum and instructional strategies). At different steps, it has evaluation criteria for assessing and marking as to how well the design process is carried out, and how good the resulting outcomes are. Therefore, IISC DT is intended to act as a complete learning tool for design thinking.

To keep participants engaged and make learning more effective, the authors, in their earlier work, had adopted gamification as a technique to impart IISC DTP to school students, and developed a number of variants of the board game called IISC DBox (Bhatt et al., Reference Bhatt, Bhaumik, Moothedath Chandran and Chakrabarti2019; Bhaumik et al., Reference Bhaumik, Bhatt, Kumari, Menon, Chakrabarti and Chakrabarti2019). The board game comprises level boards (corresponding to the IISC stages), activity cards (instructions to perform design activities), workbook (for documenting the outcomes), performance evaluation sheets, and various game components (e.g., marker, dice, etc.). The selection process and significance of these key elements of the game are discussed elsewhere (Bhaumik et al., Reference Bhaumik, Bhatt, Kumari, Menon, Chakrabarti and Chakrabarti2019). The variations across the IISC DBox variants are in the game objectives, game resources, the mentor's training instructions, participants’ instructions, and feedback strategies and evaluation techniques. At the same time, design elements such as design stages and activities remain unchanged across all the game variants. The effectiveness of IISC DBox on the motivation and performance of participants (school students who have little or no prior exposure to design thinking) has been tested by conducting workshops. A number of variants of IISC DBox have then been evolved to overcome the limitations and enhance the effectiveness of the gamification used and learning supported. The research work reported in this paper discusses the development, testing, and improvement of one such gamified variant of IISC DBox.

Development of V1 to fulfil Learning Objective 1

Fulfilling the above Learning Objective, it is argued, should improve the outcomes of DTP. According to the Octalysis framework for gamification by Chou (Reference Chou2019), the above objective falls under “development and accomplishment” – one of the eight core drives and can be stimulated by game mechanics such as points, badges, fixed action rewards, and win prize. Literature suggests that rewards in a game should be used wisely. Extrinsic motivation in the form of tangible rewards can be detrimental for children (Deci et al., Reference Deci, Koestner and Ryan1999) if they are introduced for the activities that can be driven with the help of intrinsic motivation. Also, rewards should be separated from feedback as it can result in a decrease in intrinsic motivation and self-regulation activities of participants (Kulhavy and Wager, Reference Kulhavy, Wager, Dempsey and Sales1993). However, tasks like finding quantity and variety of problems from a habitat or gathering as many needs as possible from different end-users may not be intrinsically enjoyable (i.e., interesting) for a learner which can result in them spending less time on performing these tasks. In such cases, as noted by Werbach and Hunter (Reference Werbach and Hunter2012), one may have to use extrinsic rewards as a fallback to change the learner's behavior. In addition, short-term rewards are more powerful than long-term benefits when it comes to influencing behavior (Kapp, Reference Kapp2012). While considering the above constraints, to accomplish the Learning Objective 1 and to improve learning outcomes, the authors adopted gamification (i.e., use of game elements in the learning process) and developed DT game version V1 of IISC DBox, where predefined challenges with objectives and rewards (points) were kept as the mechanism for cultivating the practice of finding/generating outcomes with high fluency, flexibility, novelty, and need satisfaction in school students. The authors introduced short-term reward elements in the form of “coins” and “diamonds” that would be given to participants after the accomplishment of an activity. The participant's efforts are recognized by giving these rewards, so as to create a sense of achievement to the participant. Table 3 shows the game mechanics and components that are used to fulfil this Learning Objective.

Table 3.

Learning Objective 1 and the corresponding game mechanics and components

Description of game, components, and play

IISC DBox V1 is a gamification of IISC DTP. The game has been developed by integrating both game and learning elements such that enjoyment and learning happen concurrently. It is embodied in a board game that can be played in a group of players in a cooperative manner. The game also can be played with other groups in a competitive environment. Implementing gamification through a board game allows players to engage in a team, displays progress, and enables integration of the game elements with design activities. The game elements are selected such that they work together to contribute to the fulfilment of the Learning Objective. Currently, the game is played under the continuous observation of mentors in order to ensure that students understand and follow all the processes correctly.

After de-boxing (i.e., opening the box of) the game, students would identify four-level boards, each with a different visual theme corresponding to one of the four stages of IISC DTP (see Fig. 2a). At each level, students aim to accomplish all the activity steps traversing through the path and obtain as many points as possible till the end of the path. Each group uses an Avatar to indicate its position on the level board at any instant. The group traverse the path that consists of the various design activity steps, as well as a number of flags and check posts. The group must enact the activity step specified for the block at which it reaches in each move. As a result of the moves, the participants undertake a journey through a set of design activities that are necessary for them to complete the four stages of IISC DTP. Each design activity step card has a title, and portions that provide an overall understanding of the step, an example, the instructions to be followed, and desired outcomes (see Fig. 2b). After performing each activity step, participants document the outcomes in a workbook and show it to the mentor for evaluation and feedback. Based on the performance, a group is given rewards in the form of coins only for those activity steps for which there is a need for improving the creative performance of participants (details of activity steps and desired outcomes are given in Appendix Table A.2). In addition to that, when a group reaches a check-post represented on the path, the mentor evaluates the intended outcomes, and students may have to revisit the previously carried out design activity steps for which their performances are not adequate. A move can also end up in a block that represents a flag, which indicates a call for end-user evaluation and feedback. Thus, there are several iteration loops that can result from a user or mentor evaluation (see Fig. 2c). Once all four stages have been satisfactorily completed, the game ends. The group with the maximum number of points at the end of the game is declared the winner. Table 4 enlists the game components and their purpose in the game.

Fig. 2.

(a) Game board, (b) design activity card, and (c) process steps of earning rewards.

Table 4.

Game components and purpose

A mentor's role is to ensure that the participants have correctly understood and performed all the processes and documented the design activities. At the end of each design activity, the mentor needs to evaluate the process, give content-related feedback, and reward the participant or group based on the assessment criteria. A mentor assessment sheet is provided, which comprises the four performance criteria to be considered: Whether the activity was attempted, whether the activity was completed, the level of fluency achieved, and the level of flexibility achieved. Detailed information about the assessment criteria to be used by mentors along with the reward system proposed is given in Appendix Table A.1.

End-users are the owner of the problem on which a participant or group is working. A user's role is to evaluate the outcomes after the group performs certain design activities in the game. Users are given an assessment sheet through which they give feedback to the groups. Some of the questions given in the user assessment sheet are given below: Do the enlisted requirements reflect the user's problems? Are these requirements prioritized as would have been done by the user? Does the solution/prototype satisfy the user's needs/problems? Do the conflicts identified by the user (have the potential to) get resolved in the final prototype? Detailed information about the assessment criteria to be used by end-users, along with the reward system to be used, is given in Appendix Table A.3.

Testing of V1 to understand limitations

If the learning goals get satisfied, but the game is not enjoyable for the learner, it becomes an activity rather than a game. Thus, apart from a game's effectiveness in the fulfilment of its goals, its impact on the learner's experience (fun, engagement, etc.) also needs to be tested. Thus, to assess the effectiveness of IISc DBox V1, two Research Objectives were formed: the first was to assess the effectiveness of gamification as a way of achieving the Learning Objective 1 and make the intended outcomes better in this respect; the second was to assess the effectiveness of the gamification used as a tool for inducing fun and engagement.

Based on these two Research Objectives, the following are taken as the research questions for this study.

1. 1. What is the effectiveness of the reward system to achieve desired outcomes so that the creativity criteria get satisfied?

2. 2. What is the effectiveness of reward system in terms of fun and engagement?

Delineating inefficacy in V1 of IISC DBox

While the overall results indicated substantial promise of IISC DTP as a problem finding and solving tool for school students, the efficiency of the tool needed to be understood in detail. For this, the students’ performance in each stage of the DTP, as well as the final outcomes (e.g., identified problems, enlisted requirements, generated ideas), were evaluated. After the students performed a specific design activity, the outcomes generated were written in a workbook and checked by the mentors; feedback on the outcomes and suggestions for correction, if any, were provided to the students. The workbook consists of a template for each activity step that guides the students in documenting their outcomes. The rationale for using a workbook, in which the students wrote down these specifics, was to gain a deeper insight into the specific steps in which the students might have struggled with the approach and the tool. Evaluation of these intermediate, documented outcomes revealed the difficulties the students faced and the inefficiency this brought into their processes of learning. Evaluation of these outcomes, by the authors, led to identification of common patterns of mistakes, and a classification of the mistakes within each design activity step. Post-assessment of the workbooks revealed that the students committed frequent mistakes during a particular set of activities, some of which are listed below.

• • Finding cause/root-cause of identified problems;

• • Converting each problem statement into a need;

• • Constructing desired “process steps” for an existing process; and

• • Checking compatibility among the generated ideas.

Sometimes, the students misunderstood and incorrectly performed the instructions given for carrying out certain activities. For example, when students were asked to state the desired situation and its environment for a given problem, over 50% of the students stated either a solution to the problem, a reason behind the problem, or an irrelevant desired situation. For instance, one of the problems that the students identified was “people find it difficult to catch buses”; for this, the desired situation they formulated was “There should be bus route boards on buses” (i.e., solution). Similarly, when the students were asked to state desired “process steps” (e.g., soaking, washing, rinsing, drying for the process of cleaning utensils), many students stated the means (i.e., solution) of achieving the processes. Assessments indicated that the students often did not learn the content (terminologies and concepts) provided in the design activity cards. Feedback collected from mentors’ interviews revealed that a major reason behind committing such mistakes was a lack of clear, conceptual understanding of the activities. Though such mistakes were possible to be rectified by their mentor's assessment and immediate feedback, this made the understanding of the process more dependent on the knowledge of the mentors. This, however, was against a primary objective of the proposed DTP, which was to reduce reliance on mentors (i.e., minimal mentor intervention). Having students understand the tasks and perform the activity demanded, with minimum intervention from the mentors, is a challenge that needed to be overcome. Rather than jumping directly on further activities, it was felt that students should first have a thorough understanding of the concepts, vocabulary, and terminology provided in the design activity cards, as students first needed to have clarity on how each activity should be carried out.

Development of V2 to fulfil Learning Objectives 1 and 2

Fulfilling the above Learning Objective, it is argued, should improve the learning process of DTP. According to the Octalysis framework for gamification (Chou, Reference Chou2019), the second objective also falls under one of the eight core drives (i.e., empowerment of creativity and feedback) and can be stimulated by game mechanics such as milestone unlock, evergreen mechanics (where players can continuously stay engaged). In order to accomplish the above Learning Objective and to improve the learning process, the authors have modified the gamification approach in V1 by introducing additional game elements in the learning process, and developed gamified V2 of IISC DBox.

Since there is a necessity for learning the common concepts of design prior to performing design activities, the terminology and the concepts have been proposed to be introduced as part of the game mechanics; this should support understanding of the instructions before performing the design activities and translating new knowledge into the practice. Therefore, in the revised gamified version of IISC DBox (i.e., V2), participants can perform a design activity only after they have understood the concepts behind that activity. For the execution of the above game mechanics, “content unlocking” was used with “clue cards”, “treasure boxes” with combination padlocks, and “activity cards” given inside the treasure boxes was used as the game components. Design concept descriptions were given in the form of clue cards followed by multiple-choice questions (MCQ) about the concept. A combination of numbers representing the right set of answers is necessary to unlock the corresponding combination padlock of the treasure box, inside which relevant design activity cards are concealed. Table 5 shows the game mechanics and components that are used to fulfil the second Learning Objective.

Table 5.

Learning Objective 2 and the corresponding game mechanics and components

Description of the modified game, new components, and play

IISC DBox V2 is the revised game version of V1 where all the game components (e.g., maps, marker, flag, reward system, etc.) of V1 remain as it is. V2 comprises additional game components for the fulfilment of the second Learning Objective, as explained below: The Design activity cards are now locked in a treasure box that is found on the existing path of a map. To obtain the design activity cards, students must unlock the treasure box. To unlock the treasure box, students will have to understand the design concepts written on the clue cards and answer a set of corresponding questions. The description of the new game components and their purposes are given in Table 6. Figure 3 shows the learning process for IISC DBox V2.

Fig. 3.

IISC DBox: learning process.

Table 6.

New game components and purpose

Figure 4 depicts the overall framework for learning DTP using the gamification tool. The interrelationship and compatibility among design, learning and game elements are explained as follows: As knowledge of the design terminology and concepts is a prerequisite for performing a design activity (i.e., a design element in Fig. 4), concept definition and assessment (i.e., learning elements) are presented in the form of clue, challenge (key), treasure, and lock (game elements in Fig. 4). Similarly, a design activity card (a design element) consists of title, illustration, understanding, instructions, and expected outcomes (learning elements). The process to be followed involves the following: first, students should understand and carry out the activity written in the instructions given in a design activity card; then mentors should carry out a process evaluation (a learning element); and then, end users should carry out an outcome evaluation with associated external rewards (a game element).

Fig. 4.

Overall framework of learning DTP using a gamification tool.

Testing of V2 and comparison with V1 to assess resulting improvement

For testing of V2, Research Objective 1 is the same as that for V1: (1) to assess the effectiveness of gamification as a way of achieving Learning Objective 1 and improve the intended outcomes. Research Objective 2 was to assess the effectiveness of gamification as a way of achieving Learning Objective 2 and improve the learning process. Research Objective 3 was to assess the overall effectiveness of gamification on learning DTP. Research Objective 4 was to assess the effectiveness of game elements as a tool for inducing fun and engagement while achieving Learning Objectives. For this study, these four Research Objectives are translated into the following Research Questions (1–4) and hypotheses.

1. 1. What is the effectiveness of the reward system to achieve the desired outcomes so that the creativity criteria get satisfied?

   Hypothesis 1: The reward system provided helps achieve desired outcomes.

2. 2. What is the effectiveness of the clues and challenges to achieve successful understanding of design concepts prior to performing design activity?

   Hypothesis 2: The clues and challenges provided help students increase their understanding of the design concepts.

3. 3. What is the overall effectiveness of gamification on learning DTP?

   Hypothesis 3: The game elements help to learn DTP.

4. 4. What is the effectiveness of the game elements (i.e., the reward system and the clues and challenges) in terms of fun and engagement?

   Hypothesis 4: The game elements induce fun and engagement.

Methodology for empirical study

In order to assess the effectiveness of the modified gamification approach used in V2, two workshops (W2 and W3) were carried out with a total of 57 students, from 6th standard to 12th standard (12- to 18-year-olds), having diverse ages and backgrounds. In W2, there were nine groups (28 students); in W3, there were eight groups (29 students). In each workshop, each group had three to four students, and a mentor assigned to each group for guiding them through the gamified IISC DTP. The students were divided into groups based on their age (i.e., each group has students with similar age/standard). All students played version V2 of IISC DBox. Each group chose a different habitat for its study and developed solutions in the form of cardboard prototypes (Fig. 5). Other details of W2 and W3 (i.e., workshop duration, mentors’ training, autonomy in selecting habitat, users, and problems) were similar to those in W1 (see Section “Description of game, components, and play”).

Fig. 5.

Solutions in the form of prototypes made by student groups (e.g., canteen, bus stop, lab, parking area).

Methodology for analysis

The authors used a triangulation technique to check whether the findings obtained from the outcomes’ analyses were consistent with the subjective experience of the students as well as mentors. The methodology used to answer the research questions are shown in Table 7.

Table 7.

Methodology used to answer the research questions

As the reward system (points) was adopted as the mechanism for cultivating the practice of generating outcomes that satisfied the creativity criteria, Research Question 1 (to assess the effectiveness of the reward system) was addressed as follows. The total score received by each group, as an aggregation of the evaluation scores of design outcomes by the mentor, user, and expert, was kept as the criterion for validity. To test the hypothesis, the score received by each group was calculated and compared with the feedback received by mentors. The remaining details of the analysis used here are the same as those used for analyzing the outcomes from W1 (see Section “Methodology for analysis”).

The percentage of correct answers given by the students was used as the criterion to assess understanding of design concepts by the students, and was used for answering Research Question 2 (to assess the effectiveness of the clues and challenges) and testing associated hypothesis. For this, after the workshop, the outcomes written in the workbooks of the students were evaluated, the average number of correctly interpreted statements across the groups were calculated, and converted into the average percentage of correct answers across the groups. For the first six activity steps (see Appendix Table A.2), the number of problems identified by each group were counted. Then the number of correctly interpreted statements (desired situations/needs) based on the identified problems were counted. Then, the average number of correctly interpreted statements by the groups were identified and converted into percentage. Similarly, the number of groups who had correctly constructed the desired “process steps” for an existing process and correctly solved the compatibility issues among the ideas they generated were counted. The average percentage of correctly interpreted statements documented in the workbooks during W1 was compared with that from those in W2 and W3 combined (since both the workshops have the same intervention and similar groups). A significant improvement in the percentage of correctly interpreted statements across the workshops was taken as the criterion to test the associated hypothesis.

For addressing Research Questions 2, 3, and 4, a student feedback questionnaire (using a five-point Likert scale from highly disagree to highly agree) was shared with each student at the end of the workshop. The questions asked are given in Table 8. Answers to questions 1 and 2 capture the students’ perception about the effect of clues and challenges on their performance, and improvement of their skills (supporting RQ 2). Answers to questions 3 and 4 capture the students’ perception about the relevance of the game in learning and its effect on knowledge (supporting RQ 3). Answers to questions 5, 6, and 7 capture students’ perception about relevant features of the game and the ability of the game to grab attention (supporting RQ 4). Data collected from the questionnaires were aggregated, converted into percentage points, and analyzed using a stacked bar chart.

Table 8.

Survey questionnaires for students with a five-point Likert scale along with the granularity varying from highly disagree (1), disagree (6), neutral (11), agree (16) to highly agree (21)

In addition, a mentor survey questionnaire (with a five-point Likert scale varying from highly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree to highly agree) was shared with each mentor, at the end of workshops (Appendix Table A.5). To validate hypotheses 1–4, an average value of response of mentors greater than or equal to “Neutral” was taken as the test criterion. The statistical analysis (t-test) was performed on the empirical data of feedback.

Results

Discussed below are how well these results address the research questions.

Q 1. How effective is the reward system to achieve desired outcomes?

The assessment sheets collected from mentors, users, and experts were analyzed. Based on the point calculations, a weighted average score was awarded to each group. The average score obtained by the groups in each workshop exceeded 74 (which is the average value of performance) out of 100 points. Since performance with exceeding the average value indicates an above-average performance (74), the above indicates an above-average impact. Appendices A2–A4 provide details of the task and associated evaluation scheme. The score reflects the students’ effort and engagement in various activities. The authors observed that the students’ engagement in the various activities was due to two reasons: (1) The students were keen to absorb the design thinking mindset, an indication of their internal motivation. (2) The students were keen to earn more points (rewards) because of the competitive environment created by introducing a reward system. In both these, the only thing that a higher score implies is an above-average degree of engagement. However, this does not reveal the reason for the engagement. That is, whether the engagement took place due to internal motivation, due to the temptation of earning rewards, or due to both. This insight came from the mentor's feedback, which revealed that it was the reward system (points and coins) that encouraged the students to achieve the desired outcomes (e.g., quantity and variety of problems, ideas, etc.). (The average value of the response (3.77) was exceeded the neutral value of 3 on a scale of 1–5 where 1 represents “highly disagree” and 5 represents “highly agree”; sample size: 9; test statistics: t-test; p-value < 0.1; ref: Appendix Table A.5). The feedback also revealed that the goal of obtaining a higher number of points (i.e., coins and diamonds) motivated the students to spend additional effort (in finding and documenting a greater number of problems, generating a greater number of ideas, etc.). Furthermore, it is noted that the weighted average score awarded to each group is an aggregate of the evaluation score of all the processes followed and the outcomes produced by the group. We, therefore, argue that the score and the mentor's feedback together indicate that the reward system had a positive impact on the overall performance, and on achieving the desired outcomes. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the rewards system in achieving desired outcomes, a case study of a portion of the work done by one of the groups is given below.

Case study: A group of students from 8th standard (W2) selected a security cabin at the entrance of the university campus as their habitat of study. During their observation of the security cabin, the students identify a number of problems (e.g., absence of security guards, irregularity in identity and security check, lack of passive securities, and a broken and dysfunctional sitting arrangement). Similarly, while interacting and empathizing with users (e.g., security guards or university students), the students identified more issues faced by the users (e.g., the security guards get bored, there is no easy access to lavatory, double shifts and night shifts make the guards tired, there is little time for rest, the work involves frequent standing and sitting positions, there is inadequate illumination and ventilation in security cabins, and students living in hostels in the campus are not happy with the security system because of thefts). The mentors’ feedback revealed that in order to gain more reward points from mentor-evaluation, the students put in more effort and gathered a larger number of problems (demonstrating greater fluency) with variety (demonstrating greater flexibility). Likewise, to obtain more points in end-user evaluation (e.g., from the security guards), the requirements enlisted by the students ensured inclusion of the problems faced by the security guards. Also, they assigned greater priority to those requirements that were more important to the security guards (For example, a security guard should not get tired during his working hours, should not get bored in the cabin, should be able to see ID card easily, and there should be adequate quantities of fresh air, lights/illumination, and lavatory). Similarly, to earn more points, the students generated solutions and prototyped these with a clear intent to satisfy the requirements that solved the problems faced by the security guards (e.g., changing the location of the sitting space so as to offer a better view of the surroundings, providing an entertainment system to reduce boredom, providing a convertible chair to support frequent standing and sitting, and a cabin with proper ventilation). The above case illustrates that the reward system encouraged the students to identify and generate desired outcomes and engaged them in the learning process.

Q 2. How effective are the clues and challenges to understand the design concepts?

Post-assessment of workbooks revealed that the frequency of mistakes committed by the students in the workshops (i.e., W2 and W3 for V2) reduced drastically compared with those in the workshop in the earlier study (W1 for V1). About 85% of the interpretations while converting a problem statement into a need statement during the design activities (i.e., observe habitat, persons and objects in use, to talk to persons, to empathize, to do task yourself) were found to be correct for the 17 groups in W2 and W3 combined, as opposed to that being 43% for the 5 groups in W1. Also, all the groups in W2 and W3 constructed the desired “process steps” for an existing process and correctly resolved the compatibility issues among the ideas generated. Furthermore, feedback obtained using the students’ questionnaire suggested that the students perceived the clues and challenges to have been effective (Feedback on questions 1 and 2, Fig. 6): about 77% highly agreed or agreed that the clues and challenges helped them perform the design activities, and about 90% highly agreed or agreed that their skills improved to overcome the challenges. Also, mentors’ feedback revealed that the clues and challenges provided through the clue card and treasure box in the game helped students increase their understanding of the design concepts (The average value of the response (4.33) was exceeded the neutral value of 3 in a scale of 1–5 where 1 represents “highly disagree” and 5 represents “highly agree”; sample size: 9; test statistics: t-test; p-value < 0.01; ref: Appendix Table A.5).

Fig. 6.

Perceived use of game elements in learning.

We, therefore, argue that the workbook analysis, the students’ feedback, and the mentor's feedback together indicate the effectiveness of clues and challenges in supporting understanding in the design concepts.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of the clues and challenges in understanding the design concepts, a case study of a portion of the work done by one of the groups is given below.

Case study (the same study as was used for explanation in RQ 1): After understanding the concept of “need” followed by assessment provided in the clue card, the group correctly converted each problem statement into a need. Similarly, after understanding the concept of “process steps” followed by an assessment given in the clue card, the group listed desired process steps correctly (e.g., directing traffic, monitoring entry of outsiders without getting tired, checking and validating identity with ease, and communicating effectively). The above shows that the mechanism of the treasure box and clue cards help students understand the concepts and terminology before performing associated activities. In the absence of the treasure box and clue cards, it would be difficult to know whether the students understood the concepts correctly.

Q 3. How effective is the game to learn DTP?

The students perceived the game to have been useful for learning (Feedback on questions 3 and 4, Fig. 6); about 89% highly agreed or agreed that most of the game activities were related to the learning task, disagreed or highly disagreed, and about 88% highly agreed or agreed that it increased their knowledge. This implies that these students were able to relate game objectives with the learning task, and the game elements helped them improve their knowledge. Furthermore, mentors’ feedback revealed that the game elements (i.e., reward system and clue cards) helped students learn DTP (The average value of the response (4) was exceeded the neutral value of 3 in a scale of 1–5 where 1 represents “highly disagree” and 5 represents “highly agree”; sample size: 9; test statistics: t-test; p-value < 0.01; ref: Appendix Table A.5). Based on the above, we conclude that the game is effective for learning DTP.

Q 4. What is the effectiveness of game elements (i.e., the reward system and the clues and challenges) in terms of fun and engagement?

The students perceived the gamification positively (Feedback on Question 7, Fig. 7): about 74% highly agreed or agreed that the game grabbed their attention. About 77% highly agreed or agreed that they liked the features coins and diamonds (Feedback on Question 6, Fig. 7), and about 88% highly agreed or agreed that they liked the treasure box feature disagreed (Feedback on Question 5, Fig. 7). Also, mentors’ feedback revealed that the game elements induced fun and engagement in the students (The average value of the response (3.88) was exceeded the neutral value of 3 in a scale of 1–5 where 1 represents “highly disagree” and 5 represents “highly agree”; sample size: 9; test statistic: t-test; p-value < 0.01, ref: Appendix Table A.5). This indicates that the game elements were not only effective in fulfilling learning objectives but also induced fun and engagement in the students.

Fig. 7.

Perceived use of game elements in enjoyment and engagement.

Comparison of the two versions of IISC DBox

As a benchmark, V1 is compared with V2 to compare the effectiveness of the game. Table 9 enlists the key criteria for comparison.

Table 9.

Comparison of two versions of IISC DBox