Motivating Learners: Gamification and the psychology of engagement

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders

Engagement at work has always been… uncommon. In fact, Gallup polls from the last 10 years show that only about 1 in 5 (at most!) employees can be considered fully engaged in their workplace. Thankfully, learning and development practitioners are perfectly positioned to boost motivation through well designed learning opportunities. But making such educational programs means having a deep understanding of learning psychology, and also understanding how that psychology relates to the tools we use at work every day.

So, where do we start? How about gamification? By looking at the nature of games–rules, roles, competition and strategy–we can optimize our learning content to strike at the hearts and minds of learners. To help us along the way, we welcome Karl Kapp. Karl has more titles than most: Author of multiple books, speaker, consultant, founder and Professor of Instructional Technology at Bloomsburg University. Most importantly, he is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on Learning Design. Today, he theorizes how we can put an end to the motivation crisis by leveling up our learning content.

Join us as we discuss:

• Self-determination theory (SDT) and what it says about people’s motivation to improve
• What gamification is, and what (more importantly) it is not
• The history of gamified learning in real-world contexts and how it relates to modern corporate settings
• The importance of effective storytelling for anchoring learning content in relatable terms
• Balancing internal and external motivation via “nudging”
• The importance of rewards in gamification, and how to incorporate variability
• Advice for introducing gamification into an organization

Episode Resources

👉Karl Kapp on LinkedIn

👉Karl Kapp website

👉getAbstract website

👉getAbstract on LinkedIn
👉The Gamification of Learning and Instruction book summary on getAbstract

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L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.
Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.
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