Gamification in Education - Learn Computer Programming with Fun

Today the IT industry provides a stimulating and robust career start to logic developers, but even then majority of the students pursuing higher education in computing field are not coming ahead with full competence and capabilities to meet the industry expectations. It has been observed that such students are not much focused on computer programming during regular study.Here the main point of concern is how to train, engage and make them learn to build real life applications in a better way by doing extensive programming in a computer language especially when there are big opportunities available in the market from the employment perspective in the form of software development, web development and most importantly mobile application development. The main reason of disinterest in programming is identified as the lack of motivation and engagement of students in learning the programming concepts. This paper proposes a solution that is the induction of gamification in teaching practices; since games can be used to create a motivating classroom environment where students are engaged in learning. This would improve the teaching/learning process in totality. In support of this fact, student engagement and motivation to learn programming was measured using a survey based on a questionnaire in which 207 students of post graduate programme participated. The result of the survey and questionnaire indicated a strong preference for the use of gamificationin imparting the programming knowledge.