Recent years have brought a rapid growth of scientific output in the area of gamification in education. In this paper, we try to identify its main characteristics using a bibliometric approach. Our preliminary analysis uses Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science as data sources, whereas the main analysis is performed on 2517 records retrieved from Scopus. The results comprise the cross-coverage of databases, geographic distribution of research, forms of publication, addressed research areas and topics, preferred publishing venues, the most involved scientific institutions and researchers, collaboration among researchers, and research impact. The main conclusions underline the sustained growth of the research output in the area for at least seven years, the widespread interest in the area across countries and branches of science, and an effective research communication in the area documented by the number of citations and the map of co-citations.

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) overcomes the main barrier for the adoption of LLM-based chatbots in education: hallucinations. The uncomplicated architecture of RAG chatbots makes it relatively easy to implement chatbots that serve specific purposes and thus are capable of addressing various needs in the educational domain. With five years having passed since the introduction of RAG, the time has come to check the progress attained in its adoption in education. This paper identifies 47 papers dedicated to RAG chatbots’ uses for various kinds of educational purposes, which are analyzed in terms of their character, the target of the support provided by the chatbots, the thematic scope of the knowledge accessible via the chatbots, the underlying large language model, and the character of their evaluation.

In the pedagogical process, a serious game acts as a method of teaching and upbringing, the transfer of accumulated experience and knowledge. In this paper, we describe an interactive serious programming game based on game-based learning for teaching JavaScript programming in an introductory course at university. The game was developed by adopting the gamification pattern-based approach. The game is based on visualizations of different types of algorithms, which are interpreted in the context of city life. The game encourages interactivity and pursues deeper learning of programming concepts. The results of the evaluation of the game using pre-test and post-test knowledge assessment, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), and the Technology-Enhanced Training Effectiveness Model (TETEM) are presented.

The main purpose of this paper is to describe key gamification techniques that can be applied to enhance the tourist attraction visiting process. The paper is based on the methodology of design patterns; particularly it adopts the definition and classification schemes originally proposed and developed in the context of gamification of work to specify gamification techniques related to various aspects of the tourist attraction visiting process. The main result is the selection of twelve gamification techniques for enhancing the tourist attraction visiting process, four for each of the three phases of the visiting process (before, during and after the visit). The paper shows that gamification techniques can be applied to enhance the tourist attraction visiting process. Implementation of the proposed gamification techniques is supposed to both improve visitor experience and give the tourist attraction managers a tool for boosting interest in less popular exhibitions and events.

With increasing awareness of the advantages of game-based learning, there is a growing number of studies showing its application to both computer science education and sustainable development education. In this paper, we describe, with the example of the Eco JSity application, how both of these areas can be combined into a single tool. The presented evaluation results showed that despite incorporating the sustainable development topics into both the theme and mechanics of the educational game, both the usefulness and ease-of-use of the application were still assessed positively by students. We also identified three clusters of students depending on their attitude towards combining education on computer science and sustainable development. We concluded that game-based learning provided a capable means of incorporating sustainable development topics into teaching of unrelated technical skills.

While gamification has been paired with computer programming education on numerous occasions, most of the scientific reports covering the evaluation of its learning outcomes pertain to single-case specialized gamification applications with none or little chance of reuse in other institutions and courses; thus, they offer only limited replicability and comparability of results. In this work, we aim to address this gap by investigating the learning outcomes of a programming course based on the FGPE (Framework for Gamified Programming Education) platform, an open-source, fully configurable gamification platform developed specifically to support teaching and learning computer programming that can be used by any institution to support any programming-related course. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the very first study evaluating the learning outcomes of FGPE-supported programming education. Moreover, we address the question of whether students learning with gamified platforms limited to programming practice can benefit from additionally using non-gamified MOOCs by comparing the results attained in three groups differing in the choice of learning support tools (FGPE and MOOC vs. FGPE only vs. MOOC only).