Abstract
We level up in games and level down in life. One view suggests that the individual is improving and advancing toward some goal. The other carries with it negative connotations more associated with failure than success. It is easy to think that is not nothing more than a difference in perspectives, but in reality, it has far reaching significance.
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Notes
A good introduction to the principles underlying game design can be found in Schell, Jessie. 2008. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. Burlington: Morgan Kaufman.
Looking at longitudinal data covering 2,322 students at a diverse selection of colleges and universities, the Collegiate Learning Assessment Survey was given to entering freshman in 2005. The students were tracked over three semesters until the end of their sophomore year in 2007. The survey assessed core competencies that included: critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving, and writing. The average improvement was almost imperceptible over the three semesters with average gains of only 7 percent. Arum, Richard and Josipa Roksa. 2011. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Having too many choices can lead to anxiety. Schwartz, Barry. 2009. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. New York: HarperCollins.
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Another example of the effectiveness of choice architectures can be found in Dolan, Paul, Antony Elliott, Robert Metcalfe, and Ivo Vlaev. 2012. “Influencing Financial Behavior: From Changing Minds to Changing Contexts.” Journal of Behavioral Finance 13 (2): 126–142.
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See, for example, Park, Andreas and Hamid Sabourian. 2011. “Herding and Contrarian Behavior in Financial Markets.” Econometrica 79 (4): 973–1026.
For a review of the literature, see Borsari, Brian and Kate B. Carey. 2001. “Peer Influences on College Drinking: A Review of the Research.” Journal of Substance Abuse 13: 391–424.
Based on the number of hours played, League of Legends is the most played video game in the world. Evangelho, Jason. 2012. “‘League of Legends’ Bigger than ‘WoW,’ More Daily Players than ‘Call of Duty.’” Forbes, October 12. Accessed January 5, 2014, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2012/10/12/league-of-legends-bigger-than-wow-more-daily-players-than-call-of-duty/
The game has such a bad reputation, that Riot Games felt compelled to discuss the issue at a panel held at PaxEast 2013. For a description of the event, see Sarkar, Samit. 2013. “Riot Games Believes in the Goodness of League of Legends Players.” March 24. Accessed January 5, 2014, http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/24/4140968/league-of-legends-riot-games-player-behavior-pax-east-2013
The concept of Service Dominant Logic can be found in Vargo, Stephen L. and Robert F. Lusch. 2004. “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing.” Journal of Marketing 68: 1–17.
The idea of Value Co-Creation is discussed in Prahalad, Coimbatore K. and Venkat Ramaswamy. 2004. “Co-Creation Experiences: The Next Practice in Value Creation.” Journal of Interactive Marketing 18 (3): 5–14.
Marandi, Ebi, Ed Little, and Tim Hughes. 2010. “Innovation and the Children of the Revolution: Facebook and Value Co-Creation.” The Marketing Review 10 (2): 169–183.
See also Pongsakornrungsilp, Siwarit and Jonathan E. Schroeder. 2011. “Understanding Value Co-Creation in a Co-Consuming Brand Community.” Marketing Theory 11 (3): 303–324.
In one of the few empirical tests of the co-creation hypothesis, it was observed that when knives where constructed from kits as part of a co-created process, consumers had a greater sense of accomplishment, connection to the self and social recognition. Peters, Cara, Charles D. Bodkin, and Scott Fitzgerald. 2012. “Toward an Understanding of Meaning Creation via the Collective Co-Production Process.” Journal of Consumer Behavior 11 (2): 124–135.
In their study of community-sponsored agriculture, similar benefits were observed by Hunt, David M., Stephanie Geiger-Oneto, and Philip E. Varca. 2012. “Satisfaction in the Context of Customer Co-Production: A Behavioral Involvement Perspective.” Journal of Consumer Behavior 11 (5): 347–356.
NG, Irene C. L. and Jeannie Forbes. 2009. “Education as Service: The Understanding of University Experience through the Service Logic.” Journal of Marketing for Higher Education 19: 38–64.
Game development as a co-created experience is discussed in Davidovici Nora, Myriam. 2009. “The Dynamics of Co-Creation in the Video Game Industry: The Case of World of Warcraft.” Communications and Strategies (73): 43–66.
The benefit of attending an elite university is discussed by Brewer, Dominic J., Eric R. Eide, and Ronald G. Ehrenberg. 1999. “Does It Pay to Attend an Elite Private College? Cross-Cohort Evidence on the Effects of College Type on Earnings.” Journal of Human Resources 34 (1): 104–123.
It is also discussed in Dale, Stacy Berg and Alan B. Krueger. 2002. “Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 117 (4): 1491–1527.
For an extensive look at this, see Liu, Liqun and William S. Neilson. 2011. “High Scores But Low Skills.” Economics of Education Review 30 (3): 507–516.
While standardized tests are not often used in higher education, professor quality was examined when students were randomly assigned to core courses at the Air Force Academy and then track performance in follow-on courses. What was discovered was that students who rated their instructors highly in the core courses, tended to perform poorly in the follow-on courses. This suggests that students reward professors who give high grades in the core courses and punish those who increase deep learning. Carrell, Scott E. and James E. West. 2010. “Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors.” Journal of Political Economy 118 (3): 409–432.
In a national survey of 192,912 first-time, full-time students, entering 283 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, Pryor et.al. (2012) report that the most prevalent reason for going to college as reported by 87.9 percent of the respondents was to get a better job. This was considerably higher than the 67.8 percent who responded the same in 1976. Pryor, John H., Kevin Eagan, Laura Paluki Blake, Sylvia Hurtado, Jennifer Berdan, and Matthew H. Case. 2012. The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2012. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute.
A discussion of learning by doing can be found in Callander, Steven. 2011. “Searching and Learning by Trial and Error.” American Economic Review 101 (6): 2277–2308.
Taylorism was also known as Scientific Management at the end of the twentieth century. For a discussion of his principles of scientific management see Taylor, Fredrick W. 1967. The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Norton.
An often cited study demonstrates that there is only a marginal difference in retention between a student that has taken an economics course and one that has not. College seniors who had taken a class in economics scored on average just 14 points higher on a 15-question test than those that had no background in economics. Although economic students did score higher, the median grade was only in the sixties, thus confirming that they had remembered only a very limited amount. Walstad, William and Sam Allgood. 1999. “What Do College Seniors Know about Economics?” American Economic Review 89 (2): 350–354.
A survey of the feedback literature can be found in Evans, Carol. 2013. “Making Sense of Assessment Feedback in Higher Education.” Review of Educational Research 83 (1): 70–120.
The concept of keeping up with the Jones can be traced back to the work of Thorstein Veblen. Modern uses of the concept include Miles, Daniel and Maximo Rossi. 2007. “Learning about One’s Relative Position and Subjective Well-Being.” Applied Economics 39 (13–15): 1711–1718;
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For a more extensive of the principles underlying the Weight Watchers Model, see Moisio, Risto and Mariam Beruchashvili. 2010. “Questing for Well-being at Weight Watchers: The Role of the Spiritual-Therapeutic Model in a Support Group.” Journal of Consumer Research 36 (5): 857–875.
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© 2014 Neil B. Niman
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Niman, N.B. (2014). Design Elements. In: The Gamification of Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137331465_6
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