Mid Sweden University

Discussions on gamification are sometimes far from consensus, and there seems also to exist different opinions on how gamification affects learner motivation. What increases the complexity is also the distinction between deep gamification and shallow gamification. On one hand there are claims that deep gamification has a stronger impact with a more long-lasting motivation. On the other there are studies reporting that there is no significant difference in between motivation induced by deep gamification and motivation induced by shallow gamification. The aim of this study was to analyse the difference between deep and shallow gamification, and discuss how this difference might be related to learner's motivation in higher education. Important research questions to answer were: RQ1: "What are the important differences between Deep gamification and Shallow gamification? ", and RQ2: "What in these differences might be the main barriers for a wider use of Deep gamification in higher education? ". 

A literature study was conducted to meet the aim and to answer the research questions. To retrieve a relevant result set the selection criteria were set to exclude duplicate articles, and to exclude articles without a serious research method and a reliable publishing channel. The search string that was used in this study was "Deep Gamification" AND "Shallow Gamification" AND ("Higher education" OR University"). Furthermore, parts of articles that contributes to answer the research questions have been selected in a so called 'backward search', a technique that has been defined as "reviewing older literature cited in the articles yielded from the keyword search". 

Findings show a clear distinction between Deep gamification, that interacts with the core learning processes, and Shallow gamification that is implemented as a thin layer on top of the core processes. Furthermore, findings confirmed the relationship between Deep gamification and intrinsic motivation, and the relation between Shallow gamification and extrinsic motivation. There are for several reasons interesting to strive for a use of Deep gamification, but in most university courses today, students are engaged by a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation with traditional rewards such as grades. Finally, the recommendation is to not add superficial gamification layers for the sake of gamification, since the current generation of students is a gaming one with high demands on gaming and game mechanisms.