In Week Two of e-Learning Ecologies, Illinois' College of Education Dean Dr. Mary Kalantzis underscores the advantage of multimodal learning: “Learning in multiple ways reinforces knowledge,” Dean Kalantzis said.

Indeed, I submit that learning not only takes place through the impetuses mentioned by Dean Kalantzis and Dr. Cope, but also through specific activities that produce dopamine.

Dopamine is created naturally by the brain when we engage in pleasurable, reward-like activities. This hormone acts as a central nervous system transmitter, allowing the body to process “data received from the senses,” according to the National Library of Medicine. This internal “data processing” facilitates memory, cognition and attention.

“[D]opamine, which is released when a person experiences pleasure,” writes Gabe Zichermann in the book Gamification by Design, “...increases motivation to continue doing the thing that gave pleasure. This is how gaming rewards work.”

Illustrative graphic courtesy of the Shift eLearning blog.

Through the system of play > dopamine production > desire > reward, gamification turns “'have to' into 'want to'” – as Shift eLearning writer Karla Gutierrez so aptly put it. Psychologically, the shift from “have to” to “want to” (or even “should” or “would like to”) is huge. I know one psychologist who reports seeing rapid improvement in an anxious patient who changed his internal dialog from “I need to...” to “I should” or “I would like.”

This simple change precipitated a marked incline in the patient's ability to relax and step closer to the set-about goal. Additionally, “lessons that are gamified increase retention because learners feel more of a connection with the material,” writes Ms. Gutierrez.

Beyond e-Learning, Zichermann argues that gamification can be used to create dopamine even in the working environment. At least one independent study confirms that fun activities can “increase employees’ ability to retain skills by 40%.”

• 'Gamification' Techniques Increase Your Employees' Ability To Learn By 40%

Indeed, employers that structure learning like a well-designed game can both engage and retain top talent, Zichermann told attendees of the Human Potential Forum in 2013.

Five years later, a new study published on Phys.org, underscored the dopamine solution for worker productivity. In “Feeding ants dopamine might make them smarter foragers,” Phys.org reports that a day after administration of dopamine ants “went on more foraging trips than their control-treated nest-mates.”

The suggestion here is that an increase in dopamine provides creatures with increased curiosity and better logical brain function. So, while Dr. Kalantzis references sound, images, and writing as contributing factors in our ability to retain information and Dr. Cope references text and data (including labeling) as contributing factors in knowledge gathering, I propose that gamification gives us the chemical ability to actually retain what's communicated, in those formats, as knowledge.

Gamification's strength is that it turns fear into fun, according to this graphic from Karla Gutierrez at Sh!ft eLearning.

References:

1. “5 Benefits of Gamification,” Smithsonian Science Education Center, Ashley Deese, January 2008
2. “Feeding ants dopamine might make them smarter foragers,” Phys.org, Cell Press, September 27, 2018
3. “Gamification: 75% Psychology, 25% Technology,” Information Week, David F Carr's interview with “Gamification guru Gabe Zichermann,” October 6, 2011
4. “The Remarkable Benefits of Using Gamification in eLearning,” Shift eLearning, Karla Gutierrez, April 19, 2016
5. About the Nervous System, National Library of Medicine (citing PubMed Health Glossary), undated
6. “Teaching Children with Autism to Play a Video Game...,” West Virginia University Press, Alyssa Blum-Dimaya, Sharon Reeve, Kenneth Reeve, 2010
7. "The Gamification Quest: A 7-Minute Design Challenge,” The Gamificiation Report, Tuesday, February 23, 2016
8. “10 Surprising Benefits Of Gamification,” eLearningIndustry.com, Gal Rimon, July 20, 2016
9. “Gamification vs. Game-based Learning,” CGS Scholar, Philip Jackson, October 2, 2018