Whether gamification is an organized structure that contributes to student achievement, a simple pontification process or total nonsense is a matter of debate. In such, this study was conducted to provide a scientific answer while exhibiting the gamification effect on student achievement with the meta-analysis method, which is based on experimental research that investigates the effect of gamification on student achievement between 2010 and 2016. As a result of the completed meta-analysis, a common effect size value that was estimated by compiling experimental studies was found to be 0.557. This value shows that gamification has a moderately positive (Cohen, 1988 Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd Edition). Hillsdale, NJ : Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. [Google Scholar] ) effect on student achievement. It is exhibited that there is no publication bias regarding determining the effect’s validity. Calculated 0.557 Hedges’ g value’s omega square equivalent is .072. This value shows that gamification has added 7.2% positive value to academic achievement according to 45 experimental results involving 3,487 students from different countries.

Meta-analysis has started to take place among the most used methodologies in psychological research. Such a technique allows researchers to combine the data sets obtained from several individual studies on the same topic and thus is particularly useful for finding solutions to controversial issues that cannot be solved with individual studies. This paper presents a detailed tutorial of the IBM SPSS software, which enables one to implement the statistical analyses for meta-analysis. Examples are also provided to highlight the main analyses conducted in the meta-analysis. The tutorial ends by discussing the differences between IBM SPSS capabilities and those of other software packages.

Today, as people allocate time for games and they have good time with them, the idea of transforming something into a game structure has emerged. Although the concept of the game is very old, gamification is a very new one. According to Zicherman and Cunningham (2011) gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems. The aim of this study is to inquire the research problem that “What is the gamification?” and “How can the gamification be used in education?”. This is a qualitative research. As a result of our research on the subject, an example of educational gamification has been attempted to introduce. Gamification, or the incorporation of game elements into non-game settings, provides an opportunity to help schools to solve difficult problems. Gamification applications that increase student motivation in an entertaining way have a positive effect in the interest of the students towards the lesson. Increased interest and motivation will also raise students' academic success. ÖzetGünümüzde insanlar oyunlara zaman ayırdıkları ve oyunla daha iyi zaman geçirdikleri için bir yapıyı oyun haline dönüştürme fikri ortaya çıkmıştır. Oyun kavramı çok eski olmasına rağmen oyunlaştırma kavramı çok yeni bir kavramdır. Zicherman ve Cunningham (2011) tarafından oyunlaştırma “Oyundaki düşünce biçiminin ve oyun kurallarının, kullanıcıların ilgisini çekmek ve problem çözmek amacıyla kullanılması” olarak tanımlanmaktadır. Nitel bir araştırma olan çalışmamız, “Oyunlaştırma nedir ve eğitimde nasıl kullanılabilir?” problemine çözüm aramak amacıyla yürütülmüştür. Konu hakkındaki yapılan araştırmalarımız neticesinde, oyunlaştırma sürecinin bir ders uygulaması ortaya konulmaya çalışılmıştır. Oyunlaştırma yani oyun bileşenlerinin oyun dışına uygulanması, okulların önemli problemlerini çözmede önemli bir fırsat sunabilir. Eğlenceli olarak motivasyonu artıran bu uygulamaların eğitime uyarlanması öğrencilerin derse karşı olan ilgilerinde pozitif bir etkiye sahip olacaktır. İlgi ve motivasyonu artan öğrencilerin şüphesiz akademik başarıları da artacaktır.

The present study aimed to determine how the gamification of the educational process is perceived by the students, whether the students’ views are unified around a common ground for the concept of gamification, and to highlight the prominent elements of gamification. In this study, the Q methodology, which contains a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, was used. The Q methodology aims to put forward people’s perspectives, ideas, beliefs, and attitudes subjectively and systematically in the scientific research process. The participants of the study consisted of 34 sophomores in Faculty of Education who voluntarily participated in the Instructional Principles and Methods course in a gamified design in the Fall 2014 semester. The results of the study indicated that students do adopt common thoughts about the process of gamification in education, and it is in positive manner. In addition, prominent elements of gamification were logic of the process, emotions, advancement structure, achievement points, and badges. Furthermore, the sum of Z scores of dynamics and mechanics were doubles that of the components.

The communities of practice created via Facebook groups (CoPiF) have significant potential as a new mechanism in the process of the professional development of teachers when the frequency of use of Facebook and its simplicity are considered. In this study, the author analyses the content shared in a Facebook group with over 13,000 members created by several high school mathematics teachers working at different schools in Turkey in 2009. Semi-structured interviews were employed with the participating 14 teachers and the author used netnography, which is a qualitative research paradigm. The paper concluded by offering a Facebook group model for the professional development of teachers, and the positive aspects of the mechanism were explicated.