Gamification for Teamwork Skills: Can a Challenge-based Online Tournament Help Students Learn New Knowledge Collaboratively in Teams?

The interest in deploying innovative technologies with gamification to engage student learning in enjoyable style has been growing. This study aimed to investigate whether a purposely designed eTournament with the integration of concepts of gamification and team development could help the participating tertiary education students (N=416) from a variety of backgrounds in terms of culture and discipline to learn to work in teams collaboratively in a challenge-based online game. The qualitative data collected from the top 10 teams’ online discussions supported that the thoughtful design of the eTournament did facilitate their development of teamwork skills. In addition, quantitative data collected from two of the Post-game Questionnaire questions indicated that over 79% of the respondents strongly agree or agree that they enjoyed the eTournamentin general, and over 84% of respondents strongly agree or agree that they become more aware of the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals because of the eTournament. Notwithstanding, findings in this study show little evidence in supporting team-playing in PaGamO due to the design of the game regardless of the teamwork skills developed in the early stage of the eTournament. Suggestions to address the limitations of this study are also presented for future improvement.