Abstract—Gamification of learning in higher education has
been used as an educational tool to motivate and engage
students. Despite its positive impacts demonstrated in the
existing body of knowledge, some adversaries are concerned
with the decline of learners’ intrinsic motivation and becoming
independent of extrinsic rewards. This research aims to design
a user-centered and meaningful gamification framework for
students who are explicitly learning English as a second
language to resolve these adversaries. The empirical data for
this study was collected through a focus group discussion. It was
conducted to obtain students’ learning factors that would
contribute to user-centered learning. Based on the focus group
outcome, a gamification course using a learning management
system with embedded gamification features will be best suited
for these specific students. The affordances used in this study
are rewards, levels, badges, and points. The practical
implications of this study are to gain a more in-depth
understanding of the students’ motivations in language learning,
which is crucial in creating a meaningful user-centered game
design.
Index Terms—Language learning, gamification, hospitality
education, student engagement.
The authors are with the Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism, Prince of
Songkla University, Phuket 83120 Thailand (corresponding author: Kevin
Fuchs; e-mail: kevin.f@phuket.psu.ac.th).
Cite: Veronica Aguilos, Colin Gallagher, and Kevin Fuchs, "Gamification of Virtual Language Learning: A Case Study with Thai Undergraduate Students," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 12, no. 10, pp. 1098-1103, 2022.
Copyright © 2022 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).