Increasing students' motivation by using virtual learning environments based on gamification mechanics

Increasing students' motivation is an important task during the educational process. One of the possible ways how to achieve this is to use innovative educational mechanics, such as gamification. Gamification provides an opportunity to extend regular learning management systems and virtual learning environments with game-like elements, such as points, levels and meaningful narrative. This paper describes an implementation and usage of gamified assignments in Web Development. Firstly, we analyzed gamification possibilities in higher educational institutions. After each assignment, we gathered feedback from students to study their involvement, motivation, and influence of gamification on how the information was perceived. Based on the results, several suggestions for the improvement are discussed, such as adaptive variable difficulty or making the achievement public in order to increase social motivational drive influence.