Gamification of business process modeling education: an experimental analysis

Gamification, the practice of using game elements in non-recreational contexts to increase user participation and interest, has been applied more and more throughout the years in software engineering. Business process modeling is a skill considered fundamental for software engineers, with Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) being one of the most commonly used notations for this discipline. BPMN modeling is present in different curricula in specific Master’s Degree courses related to software engineering but is usually seen by students as an unappealing or uninteresting activity. Gamification could potentially solve this issue, though there have been no relevant attempts in research yet. This paper aims at collecting preliminary insights on how gamification affects students’ motivation in performing BPMN modeling tasks and—as a consequence—their productivity and learning outcomes. A web application for modeling BPMN diagrams augmented with gamification mechanics such as feedback, rewards, progression, and penalization has been compared with a non-gamified version that provides more limited feedback in an experiment involving 200 students. The diagrams modeled by the students are collected and analyzed after the experiment. Students’ opinions are gathered using a post-experiment questionnaire. Statistical analysis showed that gamification leads students to check more often for their solutions’ correctness, increasing the semantic correctness of their diagrams, thus showing that it can improve students’ modeling skills. The results, however, are mixed and require additional experiments in the future to fine-tune the tool for actual classroom use.