The use of gamification in education: A bibliometric and text mining analysis

Abstract

The use of games in education represents a promising tool to motivate and engage students in their learning process. Most of previous research on the topic has focused to develop theoretical frameworks or to conduct experiments as a means to analyse learning outcomes such as knowledge retention, problem-solving skills gains or attitudes toward game-based learning. Nevertheless, little research has focused on providing a comprehensive literature review, which will help researchers to better understand how this stream of research has evolved over the last years. In this study, we use a bibliometric, social network and text mining analysis in order to provide useful up-to-date information to picture the state of the art about current research and evolution of the topic. Analysis on a sample of 139 articles published in top journals over the last 5 years (2010–2014) allowed identifying relevant authors and institutions, key constructs and themes involved, and trends of knowledge development. Main findings suggest an increasing academic interest on the topic over the last 5 years and a wide variety of constructs that were clustered in four main themes that we named: (i) effectiveness, (ii) acceptance, (iii) engagement and (iv) social interactions. Future research lines are also addressed.