Game for didactic innovation. Classcraft in Italian secondary school

Developing new didactic methodologies in a fast-changing world is increasingly important for teachers. Students are immersed in technological devices outside the school, and engaging them is getting more complicated. Classcraft is a gamification platform that transforms class activities into a fantasy game. This study examines gamification and game-based learning features that affect students’ marks, engagement, inclusivity, and flow in Italian middle schools. The secondary research question concerns the border till which gamification is positive. The literature review led to exciting results confirmed by the first part of data collection. “Point system, achievements, quests and challenges, and narrative structures,” “gamified reward mechanics,” “interactive settings,” and “collaborative tasks” contributes to growing of marks, engagement, inclusivity, and flow. This first part of the project was conducted with a third-year middle school classroom in Lombardy during Italian Language, History, and Geography classes. The researcher was also the teacher, who proceeded with a quasi-experimental design. Students completed a pre-test (Likert scale based, 6) and a post-test that included some open-ended questions. Throughout the whole experimentation, the researcher wrote an observation diary. During the second half of the experiment, five significant students were interviewed. The next phase of the study wants to collect more data from different middle schools in Italy and to use teachers, determinants on results, for discussing them. The design of the second part will follow the one of the beta tests.