Evaluation of Effects of Gamifying Grading Strategies on Student Motivation and Resilience

After encountering students who lost motivation throughout the semester, and finding most students' questions focused on how to improve their grade rather than on understanding the material, we developed a gamified grading structure hoping to remove students' barriers to motivation in the classroom. A brief review of the literature on known barriers to student motivation is provided, and on the use of gamification to remove these barriers. Data collected show that the gamified grading structure may have been effective at removing barriers to student motivation and empowering students to work for understanding. Possible interventions for future iterations are explored.