Designing interactive, gamified learning environments: a methodological approach with a case study on statistical quality control

Statistical Quality Control is a subject present in many engineering degrees. Literature identifies shortcomings in the application of Statistical Quality Control in industry. Some factors include a lack of training, misunderstandings or failures in implementing Statistical Quality Control. Many authors suggest following new methodologies (e.g. Problem-Based Learning) to improve the teaching of Statistical Quality Control, but, in general, universities continue applying the traditional methodology based on master classes. In this paper, we propose a methodology to design interactive gamified environments, and apply it to improve the Statistical Quality Control teaching-learning process. This methodology is based on two phases. The first one focuses on the design of the formative itinerary. For this, taking into account the competencies and learning objectives, the teacher applies a divide-and-conquer approach to break down the content into concepts, elaborates a graph of dependencies (which reflects the dependencies between the concepts, their complexity and the required cognitive level) and designs the formative itinerary to define the order in which the individual modules will be presented, together with a strategy of controlled content exposure. This process generates a stable structure that will support the second phase, consisting of selecting diverse learning activities for each module to promote active, self-paced, reflective, and engaged learning. We apply this methodology by dividing the Statistical Quality Control content into modules that comprise the key concepts, creating a formative itinerary. Given that structure, for each module, we select learning activities that encourage active learning and we translate it all into a game-like tool. This tool not only includes gamification elements like scoreboards, stars, and a map, but it further innovates by including as learning activities interactive serious games that help to visualize and understand the Statistical Quality Control process, by performing real-life tasks, resulting in significant learning. It also incorporates other educational strategies to promote active learning, such as flipped classroom and the inclusion of formative assessment. The content exposure control is implemented through tests on quality control to ensure students’ assimilation of the concepts before allowing them to move on to activities or problems that require higher cognitive levels. We evaluate the methodology’s effectiveness through an experiment that shows that students who used the learning tool improved their knowledge (p-value < 0.001) in comparison to their peers who only attended a traditional master class. Students also thought that this type of application is a good complementary material for the course and that it helps to improve knowledge assimilation (score of 4.94 out of 5 points).