A Systematic Mapping of Adaptive Gamification in E-learning

Gamification has gained currency in the recent past and has widely being deployed in various disciplines such as health, education, marketing amongst others. The main driving factor of deploying gamification is due to motivational element. Gamification, particularly in education, has been used to motivate and elicit engagement in learners. However the implementation of gamification within e-learning platforms has been of the “One size fits all”, i.e. uniform application of gamification elements to all learners, however learners possess different characters which are distinct from each other. The need to embrace “One size does not fit all” approach necessitates introduction of adaptive gamification. This study sought to establish the state of the art of adaptive gamification applied within e-learning using a systematic mapping approach. The study identified 122 studies and distilled to final 23 for detailed review and mapping. The study found out that gamification elements are mostly used as structural gamification, with basis of adaptivity been predominately static and the methodological implement been mathematical. Overall it was found that adaptive gamification has positive effect within the e-learning platform